Louis Trezevant Wigfall (1816-1874)

Louis T. Wigfall, secessionist, was born in Edgefield, South Carolina, on April 21, 1816, to Levi Durand and Eliza (Thomson) Wigfall and educated at South Carolina College and the University of Virginia. Wigfall believed in a society led by the planter class and based on slavery and the chivalric code. As a young man he neglected his law practice for contentious politics that led him to wound a man in a duel (and be wounded himself) and to kill another during a quarrel. In 1846 Wigfall arrived in Galveston, then moved with his wife, Charlotte, and three children to Nacogdoches, where he was a law partner of Thomas J. Jennings and William B. Ochiltree. Soon Wigfall opened his own law office in Marshall. He was active in Texas politics from the month he arrived, "alerting" Texans to the dangers of abolition and growing influence of non-slave states in the United States Congress. At the Galveston County Democratic convention in 1848 he condemned congressional efforts to prohibit the expansion of slavery into the territories and expressed sorrow that Texas would not take the lead in opposing such unconstitutional actions.

Named in 1850 to the Texas House of Representatives, Wigfall attacked United States Senator Sam Houston as a coward and a traitor to Texas and the South. Wigfall played a major role in organizing Texas Democrats and fighting the American (Know-Nothing) party and Sam Houston in 1855–56. Wigfall was one of the few men in Houston's opposition who rivaled him as a stump speaker, and he was widely credited with Houston's defeat for the governorship in 1857. That year Wigfall was elected to the Texas Senate, and in 1858 he had a strong voice in the state Democratic convention that adopted a states' rights platform. With the breakup of the Know-Nothings, many moderates moved back into the Democratic party, and it appeared that Wigfall`s radicalism was repudiated and that Houston and moderates were ascendant. But Wigfall capitalized on the fear that John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry caused in the slave states and was elected to the United States Senate in 1859. In the Senate Wigfall earned a reputation for eloquence, acerbic debate, and readiness for encounter. In the forefront of southern "fire-eaters," Wigfall continued his fight for slavery and states' rights and against expanding the power of national government. Nevertheless he tried, unsuccessfully, to get federal funds to defend the Texas frontier against Indian attacks and to build the Southern Pacific Railroad into Texas.

After Abraham Lincoln was elected president, Wigfall coauthored the "Southern Manifesto," declaring that any hope for relief in the Union was gone and that the honor and independence of the South required the organization of a Southern Confederacy. Wigfall helped foil efforts for compromise to save the Union and urged all slave states to secede. He stayed in the Senate after Texas seceded, spying on the Union, chiding northern senators, and raising and training troops in Maryland to send to South Carolina. With the assistance of Benjamin McCulloch, he bought revolvers and rifles for Texas Confederates. Wigfall made his presence felt when the Civil War began at Fort Sumter, rowing under fire to the fort and dictating unauthorized surrender terms to the federal commander. Between April and July 1861, when he was finally expelled from the Senate, Wigfall was a member of the Provisional Congress of the Confederacy, an aide to President Jefferson Davis, and a United States Senator. He was commissioned colonel of the First Texas Infantry on August 28, 1861, and on November 21 Davis nominated him brigadier general in the Provisional Army, a move later confirmed by the Confederate Congress. Wigfall commanded the Texas Brigade of the Army of Northern Virginia (Hood's Texas Brigade) until February 1862, when he resigned to take a seat in the Confederate Congress.

At the beginning of the war Wigfall was a friend and supporter of President Davis. But soon after Wigfall's election to the Confederate Senate they quarreled over military and other matters. During the last two years of the Confederacy Wigfall carried on public and conspiratorial campaigns to strip Davis of all influence. Despite his public advocacy of states' rights, Wigfall did little for Texas. In the Confederacy he worked for military strength at the expense of state and individual rights. But he opposed the arming of slaves and was willing to lose the war rather than admit that Blacks were worthy of being soldiers. After the fall of the Confederacy, Wigfall fled to Texas for almost a year and then, in the spring of 1866, to England, where he tried to foment war between Britain and the United States, hoping to give the South an opportunity to rise again. He returned to the United States in 1872, lived in Baltimore, moved back to Texas in 1874, and died in Galveston on February 18, 1874. He was buried there in the Episcopal Cemetery. Source

Trinity Episcopal Cemetery
Galveston

29° 17.590, -094° 48.695

John C. Hale (1806-1836)

John C. Hale, early settler and soldier in the Texas revolution, was born on April 3, 1806, in Virginia; he came to Texas from Louisiana and settled in what became San Augustine County in the Sabine District. He was elected first lieutenant of Capt. Benjamin Franklin Bryant's Company K of Col. Sidney Sherman's Second Regiment, Texas Volunteers. He was killed in action at the battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836, and buried at the battlefield. Hale County is named in his honor. Hale's heirs received grants of 320 acres on May 24, 1850, 640 acres on November 8, 1851, and 640 acres on May 24, 1850. Hale was married to Barshaba (Miller). After his death she married Samuel H. Davis, administrator of Hale's estate.

A John K. Hale came to Texas in 1831 from Maine and also settled in the Sabine District. The two settlers were about the same age and have been confused. Source

Note: This is a cenotaph. In 1881, a decision was made to place permanent memorials at the graves of those men who had been killed in the Battle of San Jacinto and buried on the battlefield. It was discovered, however, that all of the original wooden grave markers, except for Benjamin Brigham's, had rotted away and no one could remember exactly where the others rested. As a compromise, since the soldiers had been buried closely together, it was decided to place a cenotaph over Brigham's grave as a memorial to all of them.


San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site
La Porte

29° 45.232, -095° 05.363

Oscar Branch Colquitt (1861-1940)

Oscar Branch Colquitt, politician and governor, was born on December 16, 1861, at Camilla, Georgia, the son of Thomas Jefferson and Ann Elizabeth (Burkhalter) Colquitt, each of whom boasted some distinguished American ancestors. The family moved in 1878 to Daingerfield, Texas, where young Colquitt worked as a tenant farmer and attended the Daingerfield Academy one term. After a brief apprenticeship as a newspaperman, he founded the Gazette at Pittsburg, Texas, in 1884. He married Alice Fuller Murrell of Minden, Louisiana, on December 9, 1885, and the couple had four sons and one daughter. He sold the Gazette and published the Times-Star of Terrell, Texas, from 1890 to 1897. Colquitt served as state senator from 1895 to 1899 and was the author of delinquent-tax laws that earned him a statewide reputation. He was the state revenue agent during the last eight months of 1898 and, as the tax expert of a special tax commission, wrote the report that this commission submitted to the legislature in 1900. Colquitt acted as a paid lobbyist for several corporations during the sessions of 1899 and 1901 and also practiced law, having been admitted to the bar in 1900. He succeeded John H. Reagan as state railroad commissioner and served from 1903 to 1911.

He made an unsuccessful run for governor in 1906 and was elected governor in 1910 as an anti-prohibitionist. After being reelected in 1912, he held the office until 1915. His administration achieved a reform of the prison system, improvement in the physical plants and management of the eleemosynary institutions, great advancement in the educational system, and a number of measures designed to improve the lot of laborers. This program was adopted despite the open hostility of two legislatures, which resulted from the animosities engendered by the prohibition question. Colquitt was pro-German from 1914 to 1916 and tried to secure the financial assistance of the German government in buying the New York Sun, which he planned to edit as a German propaganda organ. He failed in this venture, ran for the United States Senate in 1916, and received a large plurality over six opponents in the first primary. In the runoff, however, he was defeated by the incumbent, Charles A. Culberson. Although he remained interested in politics, Colquitt devoted the next decade to serving as president of a Dallas oil firm. In 1928 he bolted the Democratic party and headed the "Hoover Democrats" of Texas. He then served as a member of the United States Board of Mediation from 1929 through 1933. He became a field representative of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation in 1935 and held this position until his death, on March 8, 1940. Colquitt was a self-made man, obstinate yet affable. Though not a polished orator, he was a convincing speaker and possessed of the "color that drew a crowd"; he was one of the most effective stump speakers in the history of Texas. Source

Section 3
Oakwood Cemetery
Austin

30° 16.697, -097° 43.524

Frank Mariano Tejeda (1945-1997)

Frank Mariano Tejeda, Jr., congressman, was born in San Antonio, Texas, on October 2, 1945. He was the son of Frank Tejeda and Lillie (Cisneros) Tejeda. Growing up in the slums of the South Side of San Antonio, young Frank experienced the difficulties of being poor. Still, he served as an altar boy at St. Leo the Great Catholic Church and attended St. Leo the Great Catholic School, played Little League athletics, participated in the Boy Scouts, and worked with his parents to earn money. As a teenager, Tejeda appeared difficult and often found himself in trouble with authorities. An indifferent student, he skipped classes, fought with school authorities, and associated himself with a tough gang. At the age of seventeen in 1963, Tejeda quit Harlandale High School and joined the United States Marine Corps.

Frank Tejeda served on active duty in the Marine Corps from 1963 to 1967, and the experience changed his life. While serving in Vietnam in 1965 and 1966, Tejeda excelled in combat and demonstrated leadership abilities. In one incident that occurred on January 17, 1966, Sergeant Tejeda was recognized for his efforts near Da Nang when his troops managed to take an enemy position. For his performance in this action, Tejeda was awarded the Bronze Star. He also received a Purple Heart for a wound he suffered in combat a month before his tour of duty ended in 1966. In 1996 Secretary of the Navy John Dalton ordered the Navy Secretary Awards Board to review Tejeda’s record in Vietnam. The board concluded that Tejeda’s effort at the risk of his own life to save a fallen Marine in a rice paddy under fire merited awarding the Silver Star. Backed by President Bill Clinton, the Silver Star was posthumously awarded to Tejeda’s family in 1997. Before his enlistment ended in 1967, Tejeda also earned a high school equivalency diploma. After leaving active duty, he continued his military career and later attained the rank of major in the Marine Reserves. In 1972 he attended Marine Corps Officer Candidate School at Camp Quantico, Virginia, where he established records in academic and athletic activities and received the Commandant’s Trophy for achieving a superior academic average. For the rest of his life, Tejeda credited the Marine Corps for providing him discipline and a purpose.

After receiving his discharge in 1967, Tejeda returned to Texas. He enrolled in St. Mary’s University in San Antonio and received his B.A. degree in 1970. From Texas, Tejeda went to California where he earned a law degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1974. After launching his political career, he earned a master’s in public administration degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 1980 and a master of law from Yale University in 1989.

Having an interest in politics going back to Lyndon Johnson’s anti-poverty programs of the Great Society in the 1960s, Tejeda sought a career in public office. Running as a Democrat in San Antonio, Tejeda was elected to a seat in the Texas House of Representatives in 1976. Later described as a “conservative, pro-business Democrat with a ‘streak of social activism’,” Tejeda, with his quiet but strong manner, would be known for garnering bipartisan support throughout his political career. Serving five sessions in the House from 1977 to 1987, he emerged as a vocal opponent of pari-mutuel wagering on horse racing and the establishment of a state lottery. In Austin, he found success in sponsoring a crime victim’s bill of rights and bills creating the Texas Veteran Housing Assistance program and the Texas Research Park. In 1986 Tejeda used his position as chairman of the House Judicial Affairs Committee to launch a series of hearings on the questionable behavior of some justices of the Texas Supreme Court.

Elected to the Texas Senate in 1986, he served there from 1987 through 1992. In the early 1990s the Texas legislature redrew the state’s congressional districts. In the aftermath of their efforts, a new Twenty-eighth District was created that took most of its votes from Hispanic sections in South San Antonio and Bexar County. Senator Tejeda fought to determine the boundaries and constituents of the new district. In September 1991 he announced he would run as a candidate in the new district. Facing no opposition in the primary and the Republicans’ refusal to field a candidate, the popular Tejeda easily defeated Libertarian David Slatter in the general election in November 1992.

As a member of the new Congress in 1993, Frank Tejeda was assigned to the House Armed Services and the Veterans Affairs committees. In Washington, he devoted much of his efforts to veterans issues and the hardships that came with cuts in defense spending that affected the military bases in the San Antonio area. Tejeda joined Republicans against efforts to close Brooks and Kelly Air Force bases in Texas. He also endorsed the North American Free Trade Agreement but supported government aid to displaced workers.

During his second term in Congress, Tejeda learned he had cancer. On October 3, 1995, he underwent brain surgery in an effort to have the tumor removed. Although most of the tumor was removed, doctors failed to remove all of it. In 1996 Tejeda was reelected, but his health continued to decline. In December he quit granting interviews after his speech impairment grew worse and doctors determined the tumor’s growth. Unable to return to Washington for the beginning of his third term, Frank Tejeda died at the age of fifty-one in San Antonio on January 30, 1997. Former San Antonio mayor Henry Cisneros praised Tejeda as a “warrior for our country and.…He was a warrior for his neighborhood, a warrior for San Antonio and a warrior in Congress….”

At the time of his death, Congressman Tejeda was survived by his three children, Marisa, Sonya, and Frank Tejeda III; and his mother; three brothers, Juan, Richard, and Ernest; and sister Mary Alice Lara. His marriage to Celia Tejeda had ended in divorce. His funeral Mass at St. Leo the Great Catholic Church on San Antonio’s Southwest Side was attended by 2,500 mourners. The Vietnam War hero was buried with full military honors, including a Texas National Guard “missing man” formation flyover, at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio. The Marine Corps Reserve Association established the Frank M. Tejeda Leadership Award to be presented to congressional members who demonstrate strong commitment to national defense, leadership, and service to country. The Frank M. Tejeda VA Outpatient Clinic, the Frank Tejeda Academy, the Frank Tejeda Post Office Building, and the Frank Tejeda Park, all in San Antonio, as well as the Frank M. Tejeda Texas State Veterans Home in Floresville were named in honor of the former Marine hero and Texas congressman. Source

Section AI
Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery
San Antonio

29° 28.586, -098° 25.976