DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker tells it this way, and I'm just the voice carryin' it to you. Now, Peter Cavanaugh Woods came into this world on December 30, 1819, born in Tennessee and reared by his maternal grandparents. That's a detail the marker thinks worth mentioning, and maybe it is — it tells you something about a man shaped early by circumstance.
He found his way to Louisville, Kentucky, where he graduated from the Medical Institute in 1842. Then in 1846 he married Georgia V. Lawshe, and the family grew.
In 1852, Peter and Georgia packed up their children — Pinckney and Sarah Cherokee — along with their slaves, and headed to Bastrop, Texas. Two years on, in 1854, they settled in Hays County, and Dr. Woods hung out his shingle in the San Marcos area.
Now here's the part that separates him from an ordinary country doctor: somewhere along the way, in New York, he had learned a little-known aseptic technique. A technique so far ahead of its time that most practitioners hadn't caught up to it yet. He put it to work in Hays County, and the results spoke for themselves — an excellent survival and recovery rate among his surgical patients.
Remember that detail. It comes back around. Then the war came.
In March 1862, at Camp Wood south of San Antonio, Dr. Woods was elected commanding officer of the 32nd Texas Cavalry Regiment. He was a doctor who became a colonel, and that combination would matter more than anyone might have guessed at the time.
The 32nd Cavalry, along with other Texas regiments, patrolled the Rio Grande and Gulf Coast borders, keeping the Union Army from invading Texas and protecting the cotton trade with Mexico. They also picked up Confederate deserters and conscription evaders — not glamorous work, but necessary work. And Colonel Woods became known for something that could have cost him his command: loyalty.
He once refused an order to force his men to surrender their own horses to the Confederacy. Refused. That's the kind of moment that defines a man, and the marker makes sure you know it.
The regiment eventually fought in Louisiana — Blair's Landing, Grand Ecore, Mansfield, Monett's Ferry, Pleasant Hill, and Yellow Bayou. Six battles. At Yellow Bayou, Woods himself took an arm injury that would impair him for the rest of his life.
But in those same campaigns, his aseptic methods — the ones he'd quietly carried with him from New York — saved the limbs of wounded soldiers in his regiment. The doctor in him never stopped working, even while the colonel was in command. When the war ended, Colonel Woods came back to San Marcos.
He freed his slaves and gave them tracts of land. He returned to farming and the practice of medicine. In 1866 he was elected to the Constitutional Convention.
Then in 1872, Georgia L. Woods died. Two years later, in 1874, he married Ella R.
Ogletree. Peter Cavanaugh Woods lived until January 27, 1898 — that arm from Yellow Bayou impaired him all those years, but it didn't stop him. A doctor who led cavalry.
A colonel who refused unjust orders. A man who came home, freed the people he had enslaved, and handed them land. The marker in Hays County holds all of it, and now so do you.
What the marker says
(December 30, 1819 - January 27, 1898) Born in Tennessee, Peter C. Woods was reared by his maternal grandparents. He graduated from the Louisville, Kentucky, Medical Institute in 1842. Woods married Georgia V. Lawshe in 1846. They moved with their children, Pinckney and Sarah Cherokee, and slaves to Bastrop, Texas, in 1852, and settled in Hays County in 1854. Dr. Woods began a medical practice in the San Marcos Area. Using a little-known aseptic technique learned in New York, he effected an excellent survival and recovery rate among his surgical patients. Dr. Woods was elected commanding officer of the 32nd Texas Cavalry Regiment in March 1862 at Camp Wood south of San Antonio. The 32nd Cavalry Regiment and other Texas Regiments kept the Union Army from invading Texas by patrolling the Rio Grande and Gulf Coast borders to protect the cotton trade with Mexico. They picked up Confederate deserters and conscription evaders. Dr. Woods became a colonel known for his loyalty to his men, once refusing an order to force the men to give up their own horses to the Confederacy. The regiment fought in Louisiana at the Battles of Blair's Landing, Grand Ecore, Mansfield, Monett's Ferry, Pleasant Hill and Yellow Bayou, where Woods himself received an arm injury which impaired him for the rest of his life. His aseptic methods saved the limbs of the wounded soldiers in his regiment. After the war, Colonel Woods returned to San Marcos. He freed his slaves, giving them tracts of land, and resumed farming and the practice of medicine. He was elected to the Constitutional Convention of 1866. After Georgia L. Woods died in 1872, he married Ella R. Ogletree in 1874. (2000)