The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 60, July 1956 - April, 1957 Page: 332

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

Natchez will engage interest from cover to cover and will enrich
the scholarship of the most avid student of the Old South.
J. HORACE BASS
A. and M. College of Texas
Refugio: A Comprehensive History of Refugio County from
Aboriginal Times to 1955. By Hobart Huson. Woodsboro,
Texas (The Rooke Foundation, Inc.), 1955. Volume II:
Secession to 1955. Pp. xiii+633. Photographs, notes, bib-
liography, appendices, and index. $25.00 for the two volumes.
This two-volume history of Refugio County is more than a
county or local history, since its stage is a sector of the Texas
coast extending from the Lavaca River to the Rio Grande and
inward to include Bexar and Goliad; its dramatis personae, be-
sides the people of Refugio County whose activities have ranged
from Refugio to Mexico to California, include men from many
states and climes. Performers on the stage came from the older
American states, and from the British Isles, Canada, Germany,
Greece, Spain, and Mexico.
In Refugio County there was a respectable number of ranking
citizens who opposed slavery and the vote on secession was 125
in favor and 70 against. The military history of the county dur-
ing the Civil War involved home guard companies, the Texas
State troops, the Confederate regular army, and the Confederate
Navy.
During the early years of Reconstruction the control of affairs
in Refugio County passed from the old settlers to comparative
newcomers. The county seat was changed from Refugio to St.
Mary's in 1869, by simple ordinance of the constitutional con-
vention. There followed a series of petitions and arguments from
Rockport, Fulton, and Copano. The County Court accepted a
proposal in 1871 to establish the county offices at Rockport. This
brought old-time leaders back to life and they effected a com-
promise which resulted in the division of the territory into two
counties with Rockport as the seat of Aransas County and Re-
fugio as the seat of the remaining territory of Refugio County.
Refugio County did not escape the wave of lawlessness which
followed the Civil War; but by the early 1870's it was fairly well
established as a stock-raising area and continued thus until the

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