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Comfort, Texas
Northwest of San Antonio on I-10, Comfort is a community
with strong German roots and ties to earlier generations. Settlers were
first planning to name the town "gemuetlichkeit," meaning peace,
serenity, comfort and happiness. Fortunately, they settled on the name
easier-to-pronounce name of Comfort.
Today that name perfectly describes the atmosphere
of this hill country community. The streets here are as busy today as
they were a century ago, when customers would come in to the local establishments
for kerosene, oil, and washboards.
The only difference is that many of these historic
structures today house antique shops, restaurants, and bed-and-breakfast
inns instead of feed, dry goods, and grocery stores of a century past.
The downtown historic district boasts 120 buildings.
Several of those historic buildings make up the Comfort Common, a combination bed-and-breakfast inn and
antique cooperative. Travelers watch small-town life from rocking chairs
on the wide porches of the two-story inn. Day visitors can shop for antiques
in the hotel and in several outbuildings located in the shady back yard.
One of Comfort's most unusual structures is one mile
out of town on FM 473. A bat roost, built in 1918, was constructed here
in an attempt to control malaria. The roosts were intended to encourage
the area's large bat population to remain in the region and feed on disease-spreading
mosquitoes. Sixteen such roosts were built in the country, and this is
the oldest of the three still known to exist. The bat roost is located
on private land, but visitors can pull off the road and read the historic
marker located behind private gates.
Although today the atmosphere of this community defines
Comfort, at one time things were far from comfortable. This town suffered
a massacre of many of its citizens, an event called "the blackest
day in the history of the Civil War."
Comfort was first settled in 1854 by German immigrants
who were followers of the "Freethinker" philosophy. These settlers
felt an intense loyalty to their new country and its commitment to democracy
and freedom of religion.
Things went well in the new land until the Civil
War broke out, and Texas began to talk of seceding from the Union. The
German immigrants strongly opposed secession, both because they were against
the institution of slavery and because of their feeling of allegiance
to their adopted country.
Some of the German farmers openly backed the Union
government, an act that the Confederates considered treasonous. To make
matters worse, the local residents of Comfort formed the Union Loyal League
to protect themselves from Indian and outlaw attacks. A nervous Confederacy
felt that the group might be a serious threat to their government.
Finally, martial law was declared, and the Texas
Rangers were sent to order all males over 16 years old to take an oath
of allegiance to the Confederacy. When many refused, farms and homes were
burned, and some dissidents were lynched. Some accounts say as many as
150 citizens were killed.
With these mounting troubles and threats to their
families, a group of Comfort men decided to leave Texas and head to Mexico
to wait out the war. A band of 60 left on August 1, 1862. They did not
know that the Confederates had been told of their move by an informant.
The Unionists were followed to the banks of the Nueces
River before the attack began. When it was over, nineteen Comfort citizens
had been killed in battle. Nine others were captured, but they were later
executed by the leader of the Confederates.
On October 18, eight other Unionists were killed
while crossing the Rio Grande near the Devil's River. The bodies of these
farmers and those killed on the Nueces River were left unburied until
the end of the war.
It was three years later when the remains were returned
and buried in a mass grave in Comfort. The next year, on August 10, 1866,
the first monument in Texas was erected at the gravesite to remember this
grim battle. The Treue der Union or True to the Union Monument was a simple
obelisk, inscribed with the name of the men who were killed. Outside of
National Cemeteries, this remains the only monument to the Union erected
in a state south of the Mason-Dixon line.
This monument, listed in the National Register of
Historic Places, is also noteworthy for another unusual feature. In 1991,
the Treue der Union Monument became one of only five sites in the nation
where the flag is allowed to be flown at half staff at all times. The
flag flown here is the thirty-six star American flag, the one flown at
the dedication of the monument over 125 years ago.
The Treue der Union Monument is located on High Street,
between Third and Fourth Streets.
For more information:
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