DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about this place — and friend, it's a story worth pulling over for. Up to 1860, if you stood right about here in Lamar County, you would have looked out across a grand hundred-square-mile prairie, nothing but high grass rolling as far as the eye cared to wander. No trees.
No shade. Nothing to break that horizon — except for one thing. A hundred yards west of this very spot, a grove of persimmon trees rose up like an island on the north-central edge of that prairie.
The only trees for miles around. You can imagine what that meant to the settlers. They came from all over to swap news, trade livestock, and follow what the marker calls other casual pursuits — which is a polite way of saying folks gathered here because there was simply nowhere else to go.
That persimmon grove was the living room of the frontier. Then came 1861. Texas seceded from the Union, and the whole world changed.
Right here, on June the tenth of that year, a man named James Hill organized Lamar Cavalry Company No. 2 in the shade of those persimmon trees. Now James Hill was not your ordinary recruit. He was a Methodist lay minister and a veteran of the Mexican War, born in 1827, and he knew how to lead men.
Captain Hill drilled his cavalry right out there on that open prairie, beside the grove, for several months. You can almost see it — horses, dust, a preacher-turned-soldier calling out commands. But then came the news that militia laws would forbid such cavalry units to leave the state of Texas.
And here is where the story turns on itself. Rather than stay behind, those men disbanded their cavalry company entirely. They came back together as Company E, 9th Regiment, Texas Infantry, and were mustered into Confederate service on November 26th, 1861.
From a persimmon grove in Lamar County, they marched into Ector's Brigade, French's Division, under Lieutenant General Polk — and they fought at Shiloh, at Murfreesboro, at Chickamauga, and other actions besides. In time, farmers plowed up that open prairie and planted trees of their own, and the new growth slowly obscured the old persimmon grove. But here's the thing about a landmark — it has a way of outlasting the ground it grew in.
That grove has become a landmark of pioneer days, and the marker standing here makes sure it stays that way.
What the marker says
Up to 1860, pioneers found here a grand 100-square-mile prairie overgrown with high grass. The grove of persimmons 100 yards west of this spot formed an island on the north-central edge of the prairie. The locality's only trees, the persimmon grove was a gathering place where settlers swapped news or livestock and followed other casual pursuits. When Texas and other states seceded from the Union and prepared for war, Lamar Cavalry Company No. 2 was organized here on June 10, 1861, by Methodist lay minister and Mexican war veteran James Hill (1827-90). Capt. Hill drilled his men for several months on the prairie beside the grove. Then it became known that militia laws would forbid such cavalry units to leave the state of Texas. Disbanding, Hill's men formed Company E, 9th Regiment, Texas Infantry, and were mustered into Confederate service on Nov. 26, 1861. In Ector's Brigade, French's Division, army of Lieutenant General Polk, they fought at Shiloh, Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, and other actions. Farmers later plowed up the prairie and planted trees that obscured the persimmon grove. Yet is has become a landmark of pioneer days.