Historic Walker County

Walker County—approved the dissolution of
ties with the Union. Indeed, Houston’s own
friends in Walker County voted 490 to 61 in
favor of secession. State officials were then
required to take an oath to the Confederacy, but
when Houston refused to do so he was deposed
as governor on March 18, 1861. Upon leaving
office, Houston returned to Huntsville in 1862.
Defeated and dejected, he took up residence in
Rufus Bailey’s Steamboat House and died there
from pneumonia on July 26, 1863. 33
W A L K E R C O U N T Y A N D
T H E C I V I L W A R
Although Sam Houston took a principled
stand against the Confederacy, his son, Sam
Houston, Jr., and many of his closest friends from
Walker County supported the cause of Southern
nationalism and fought for the Confederacy. For
instance, Anthony Martin Branch, a long-time
associate of Houston’s and executor of his will,
resigned his seat in the Texas Senate in 1862 and
served as captain of Company A in George W.
Carter’s Twenty-first Texas Cavalry. After a year in
that position, Branch then won a seat to represent
the Third District of Texas in the Confederate
Congress. Branch was among the most wellknown
local figures to serve in a position of
authority within the Confederate government,
and he defended what he perceived as the rights
of Texas and the South throughout the Civil War. 34
Indeed, hundreds of men from Walker
County volunteered to fight for their homes and
❖
Top, left: Anthony Martin Branch
(1823-1867).
COURTESY OF THE WALKER COUNTY
HISTORICAL COMMISSION.
Top, right: James Gillaspie
(1805-1867).
COURTESY OF THE WALKER COUNTY
HISTORICAL COMMISSION.
Below: The Huntsville Square
during the Civil War. Photograph by
F. B. Bailey.
COURTESY OF THE WALKER COUNTY
HISTORICAL COMMISSION.
C h a p t e r I I I ✦ 1 7