DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, friend, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Thirty-three miles west on US 90, there's a site that carries a story bigger than the land around it — which, if you've driven this stretch of Texas, you know is saying something. When Texas forts were surrendered at the start of the Civil War, Fort Lancaster didn't just sit idle.
It got folded into the Confederate far western frontier line — a long, ambitious chain of outposts meant to hold together something enormous. The 2nd Texas Cavalry moved in and took up residence, and what they were guarding wasn't just a lonely patch of desert. Fort Lancaster sat on the supply line running to and from the Arizona-New Mexico Campaign of 1861 and 1862.
That campaign, in case the scale of it hasn't hit you yet, was the Confederacy's play to become an ocean-to-ocean nation. Atlantic to Pacific. Now that is a big dream for a young republic with a lot of enemies and a lot of miles between it and glory.
But here's where the story gets very, very human. When you're stationed on the far western edge of a continental gamble, guarding supply trains through some of the loneliest country God ever made, the days get long. Regular patrols to guard those supply trains and check on Indian activities — well, the marker says it plainly: they grew dull.
So what do you do? You start a camp newspaper. You gather around at night and you take your shots at the coyotes that prowl the perimeter.
Not exactly the ocean-to-ocean glory the campaign promised, but it was life, and the men out there were living it. The State of Texas erected this memorial in 1963 — a tribute to the Texans who served the Confederacy, out here on a supply line to nowhere that was supposed to lead all the way to the Pacific. The big dream didn't make it.
But the men were real, and this marker says so.
What the marker says
Site 33 miles west on US 90. Upon US surrender Texas Forts start of Civil War, made part Confederate far western frontier line. Occupied by 2nd Texas cavalry. On supply line to and from Arizona-New Mexico Campaign 1861-62, intended to make Confederacy an ocean to ocean nation. When regular patrols to guard supply trains and check Indian activities grew dull, life spiced by camp newspaper and nightly sport of shooting pesky coyotes. A memorial to Texans who served the Confederacy Erected by the State of Texas 1963