A Vacation Idea: The Texas Civil War Museum

Recently I returned from a trip to the Dallas-Fort Worth area to visit relatives. On the way home, I stopped off at the Texas Civil War Museum. It had been two years since my last visit, and I was eager to visit again. Billed as the “largest Civil War museum west of the Mississippi,” the museum consists of three different collections: the Ray Richey Civil War Collection, the United Daughters of the Confederacy Confederate Collection, and the Judy Richey Victorian Dress Collection. The collections are well organized and seem to have something for all Civil War buffs. As a trans-Mississippi historian, my personal favorite is the U.D.C. area that highlights Texas soldiers as well as the war west of the Mississippi. Altogether the U.D.C. collection has 60 historic flags with these exhibited on a rotating basis. Emblazoned with “We Fight For Our Country,” a flag given to Company D of the 4^th Texas Infantry is on display currently along with a “wedding dress” flag given to the same regiment. The latter was made from the wedding dress of Mrs. Louis T. Wigfall and surely ranks as one of the most historic of Texas flags since it was carried through several battles including Antietam. A number of other flags are also on display in the exhibit halls. Also, I purchased a copy of Gregory Michno’s book, The Settler’s War: The Struggle for the Texas Frontier in the 1860s in the gift store. The book is of great personal interest to me as I had ancestors who lived in Wise County during this conflict between white settlers and Indians.