“About the war I know nothing, except I heard the folks talking about, but
never seen any fighting or battles. We was too far from the ruckus, I reckon.”1 This was the statement given by Mose Smith, a former slave from Lamar County Texas when interviewed by the Works
Progress Administration in the 1930s. It sums up the Texas experience during the war; too far from most military engagements
and a relatively open trade route through Mexico, the majority of Texas did not see the devastation and hardships at the same
level as the rest of the South.
Texas was still rough with a large foreign population in 1861; it was the frontier
and on the fringe, as Kate Stone called it “the dark corner of the Confederacy.” Texas sent over 70% of her military
aged males to fight for the Confederacy (approximately 90,000 out of 122,00)2 but they maintained a decidedly independent
streak; as stated by a Texas cavalryman after the war, "To us, Texas was the 'nation': to her alone we owed allegiance.
We were allied to the other Southern States, not indissolubly joined."3
The large number of men occupied with the Confederate army left few in the state’s
frontier to protect citizens against the attacks by the Native Americans in the north and west. Small pockets of the state
were decidedly pro-Union, which resulted in violence within the state. Refugees saw Texas, so far from the fighting, as a
safe haven for themselves and their property including their slaves. It was a haven for most of the local population too;
with few battles in Texas and none in the interior, the majority of Texas did not see the devastation and hardships at the
same level as the rest of the South.
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1 Baker, Lindsay
and Julie P Baker, Till Freedom Cried Out: Memories of Texas Slave Life, Texas A&M University Press, College
Station 1997, page 101 2 Based on 1860 U.S. Census numbers 3 Joiner, Gary D. “Defending the Lone Star: The Texas Cavalry in the Red River Campaign”.
The Seventh Star of the Confederacy, Kenneth W. Howell, ed. University of North Texas Press 2009, page 189.
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