Treue der Union

The Texas State Historical Association says that “the Civil War skirmish known as the battle of the Nueces took place on the morning of August 10, 1862, when a force of Hill Country Unionists, encamped en route to Mexico on the west bank of the Nueces River about twenty miles from Fort Clark in present-day Kinney County, were attacked by mounted Confederate soldiers… Contentions over the event remained on both sides, with Confederates regarding it as a military action against insurrectionists while many German Hill Country residents viewed the event as a massacre.

“After the war the remains of the Unionists killed at the battle site were gathered and interred at Comfort, where a monument commemorates the Germans and one Hispanic killed in the battle and subsequent actions. The dedication of the Treue der Union monument occurred on August 10, 1866. To commemorate the 130th anniversary of the memorial, the monument was rededicated on August 10, 1996. It is the only German-language monument to the Union in the South where the remains of those killed in battle are buried, and where an 1866 thirty-six star American flag flies at half-staff.”

The memorial stands on High Street in Comfort, Texas, between 3rd and 4th Sts., next to a piece of undeveloped land and across the street from a church and a school.
Comfort, Texas Feb 2105With the names of the dead on the sides. These fell in a later event in October 1862, on the Rio Grande.

Comfort, Texas Feb 2015And a 36-star flag does indeed fly there.

Comfort, Texas Feb 2015Not something you see too often. That flag was only current for two years, between 1865 and 1867, or rather between the admission of Nevada and Nebraska.