DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker tells it this way, and I'm just the voice carryin' it down the road. Now, the Republic of Texas was brand new — ink barely dry on the whole enterprise — and already it needed an army. So out here in what is now Jackson County, they planted one.
A part of the first army of the Texas Republic made camp right on this ground, and they called it Camp Independence. The men who stood watch over that camp answered first to General Felix Huston, and later to General Albert Sidney Johnston. Two commanders, one stretch of hard ground, and a whole lot of waiting.
They were stationed here from December of 1836, through the tail end of winter, through the slow crawl of spring. Now, that might sound like routine soldiering — and maybe most of it was. But somewhere in that span of months, something happened that was anything but routine.
May the fifth. Night had come down over the camp. Captain Henry Teal was asleep in his tent.
And while he slept, he was assassinated. Not on a battlefield. Not in a skirmish.
Right there, in his tent, in the dark. The marker doesn't tell us who. Doesn't tell us why.
Just lays that fact down like a stone and leaves it sitting. Thirteen days later — May 18, 1837 — President Sam Houston issued the order, and the army was furloughed. Camp Independence folded up, and the men went their separate ways.
What lingers is Captain Teal. An army can be furloughed, a camp can be forgotten, but a man assassinated in his sleep has a way of haunting a piece of ground. This is that piece of ground.
Erected by the State of Texas in 1936.
What the marker says
A part of the first army of the Texas Republic, under the command of General Felix Huston, and later of General Albert Sidney Johnston, was stationed here from December, 1836, until furloughed by order of President Sam Houston on May 18, 1837. Captain Henry Teal was assassinated here as he slept in his tent on the night of May 5. Erected by the State of Texas 1936