DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker says about Mrs. R. T.
P. Allen, out there in Bastrop County. Now, some markers tell you about a building, or a battle, or a bend in a river.
This one tells you about a woman — and the kind of woman she was has a way of making everything else on the marker feel like mere backdrop. Her husband, Colonel Robert Thomas Pritchard Allen, born 1812, was the kind of man who apparently couldn't stop at one impressive thing. West Point graduate.
Civil engineer. Mathematics professor. Methodist preacher.
United States mail agent. Co-publisher of the Pacific News out of San Francisco — that was 1849 to 1850. Founder and commandant of the Kentucky Military Institute.
And then founder and commandant of the Bastrop Military Institute right here in Bastrop County. The man collected vocations the way some folks collect belt buckles. Mrs.
Allen came to Bastrop County in 1857, and during those years the family had some notable visitors dropping by from time to time. Governor Sam Houston himself. Houston's son, Sam Junior, was a cadet at the Bastrop Military Institute, so the family had reason to keep the door open.
Then the war came. By 1863, Colonel Allen was in Tyler, Texas — commandant of Camp Ford, serving as colonel of the 17th Texas Infantry. Camp Ford was a prisoner of war camp, and Mrs.
Allen was there with him. Now, the marker could have left her name off entirely and just noted the colonel's command dates. But that's not what happened, and that's not what the marker says.
What the marker says is this: Mrs. Allen was an angel of mercy to the prisoners at Camp Ford. She nursed the ill.
She consoled the homesick. She cheered the despondent. She attended church services with the prisoners — men who were, by the conventions of war, the enemy.
She did this so consistently, with such evident grace, that one of the Federal prisoners was moved to write a poem in her honor. A man behind the wire, far from home, found enough in her kindness to put it into verse. That detail lands like a stone in still water.
After the war, the Allens returned to Kentucky, and the Colonel resumed operation of the Kentucky Military Institute. And here's where the story picks up one more thread worth followin'. Mrs.
Allen's brother-in-law was a man named Jay Cooke, out of Philadelphia — and Jay Cooke had won international fame as the United States' financier for the Civil War. That was no small reputation. Cooke backed Allen and the Kentucky Military Institute, and for a time that backing meant something.
Until 1873. That year, Jay Cooke's business failed — a collapse so significant it became known as the Jay Cooke Money Panic. And with that, the backing was gone.
The marker remembers Mrs. Allen by name. Not the colonel's rank.
Not the institute's curriculum. Her. The woman who walked into a prison camp and chose mercy — and earned a poem for it.
What the marker says
Resident of Bastrop County, 1857-1863. Wife of Col. Robert Thomas Pritchard Allen (1812-1888), graduate of West Point, Civil engineer, mathematics professor, Methodist preacher, U. S. mail agent and co-publisher "Pacific News," San Francisco, 1849-1850; founder and commandant of Kentucky Military Institute and of Bastrop Military Institute. Their family visitors from time to time in Bastrop included Governor Sam Houston, whose son, Sam Junior, was a B.M.I. cadet. Mrs. Allen, during the Civil War, was an angel of mercy to prisoners at Camp Ford, Tyler, where her husband, at that time colonel of the 17th Texas Infantry, was commandant, 1863-1864. She nursed the ill, consoled the homesick, cheered the despondent, attended church services with the prisoners; she was so much esteemed and loved that one of the Federals wrote a poem in her honor. After the war, returned with her husband to state of Kentucky. There Col. Allen resumed operation of Kentucky Military Institute. His brother-in-law, Jay Cooke, of Philadelphia, who had won international fame as the United States' financier for the Civil War, backed Allen and K. M. I. until his 1873 business failure known as the Jay Cooke Money Panic. (1965)