CAMP COLLIER. Camp Collier, located at Vaughn's Springs on Clear Creek in southwestern Brown County, was one of sixteen military installations established by the Confederacy in Texas after the Union Army evacuated the desolate stretches of the Texas frontier. To staff the camps for protection against Indian depredations, ten companies of Texas Rangersqv were supposed to be activated, but only nine could be enlisted. James M. Norris was appointed colonel of the Frontier Regiment and, accompanied by Maj. James E. McCord and Lt. Col. A. T. Obenchain, made an inspection tour in February 1862 from the Wichita River near its confluence with the Red River to the Rio Grande, selecting sites for prospective outposts. On March 23, 1862, Camp Collier was activated, and Capt. Thomas N. Collier took command.
The Frontier Regiment had an aggregate strength of 1,089 men and officers and 1,347 horses. Each camp was manned by about half a company, assigned to patrol the area between the posts and to cover the entire line at least every other day. But troopers found duty at the ranger posts a hardship; they were sheltered poorly in tents, food was frequently in short supply, and they had to supply their own weapons and horses. Because of poor conditions illnesses were rife. Disciplinary problems also occurred.
The original intent of the Texas legislature was that the regiment be a part of the Confederate Army, but Governor Francis R. Lubbock consented to the transfer only on the condition that the men not be removed from Texas. The regiment was eventually transferred to the Confederate States as the Forth-sixth Texas Cavalry regiment and garrisoned at Fort Belknap until the regiments were consolidated in March 1864. Because there were no permanent structures at Camp Collier the camp was quickly dismantled. No trace remains.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Thomas Robert Havins, Something about Brown: A History of Brown County, Texas (Brownwood, Texas: Banner Printing, 1958 Frances Richard Lubbock, Six Decades in Texas (Austin: Ben C. Jones, 1900; rpt., Austin: Pemberton, 1968 Allan Robert Purcell, The History of the Texas Militia (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas at Austin, 1981 Robert B. Roberts, Encyclopedia of Historic Forts: The Military, Pioneer, and Trading Posts of the United States (New York: Macmillan, 1988 Bill Winsor, Texas in the Confederacy (Hillsboro, Texas: Hill Junior College Press, 1978 Dudley Goodall Wooten, ed., A Comprehensive History of Texas (2 vols., Dallas: Scarff, 1898; rpt., Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1986).
