DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker tells it this way, and I'm just the voice carryin' it down the road. Now here's a man who packed several lifetimes into one. Richard Waterhouse — born January 12, 1833, in Tennessee, gone March 20, 1876 — and in between those two dates, a whole lot of country crossed and a whole lot of ground contested.
He came up out of Tennessee, made his way to Texas, and got himself established as a businessman. But the world had a habit of calling Richard Waterhouse away from the counting house and into something considerably louder. Before Texas, before the war that would define a generation, he had already answered one call — the United States war with Mexico.
So when trouble found him, it wasn't finding a stranger. When the Confederate cause took shape, Waterhouse stepped into it as colonel of the 19th Texas Confederate Infantry. And what the 19th ran into was no small thing.
At Milliken's Bend — part of the grinding, brutal Vicksburg Campaign — Waterhouse drew notice for something that even in the fog of that war cut through clearly enough to earn him a commendation. Gallantry. That's the word the record uses, and it's not a word that gets handed around lightly.
The Red River Campaign came next, and with it Mansfield and Pleasant Hill — two engagements that asked everything of the men who fought them. Waterhouse was there for both. By the end of it all, he held the rank of brigadier-general in the Confederate army.
Tennessee-born, Texas-rooted, Mexico-tested, and forged in some of the hardest fighting the war produced. Richard Waterhouse. January 12, 1833, to March 20, 1876.
The marker stands in Marion County, and now you know why.
What the marker says
(Star and Wreath) (January 12, 1833 - March 20, 1876) Native of Tennessee, participant in United States war with Mexico, Texas businessman, colonel of the 19th Texas Confederate Infantry, commended for gallantry at Milliken's Bend during Vicksburg Campaign, fought at Mansfield and Pleasant Hill during Red River Campaign, brigadier-general in Confederate army.