Texas History and Genealogy - presented by Genealogy Trails

Caldwell County was named in 1848, after Matthew Caldwell, a ranger captain who fought in the Battle of Plum Creek against the Comanches and later against Santa Anna's armies during the Texas Revolution and a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence. Its county seat is Lockhart

Spencer Ford of Lockhart represented Caldwell County at the Secession Convention in January 1861 and voted in favor of secession; Caldwell County voters accepted the ordinance later that year by a margin of 434 to 188. Several hundred men from Caldwell County served in the Confederate Army, in at least six companies that served in the New Mexico and Red River campaigns, in Galveston and Brownsville, and on the frontier. Because most men of military age had enlisted, women, children, old men, and slaves were left to maintain family farms. Many acres lay idle for lack of enough people to work them. The crops and livestock that families did manage to raise were in danger of being confiscated by troops foraging for supplies.