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Texas
War Casualties
Delhi, Smithville and PrahaStone
markers and chapels
quietly reveal where America gets its soldiers.
by
John Troesser |
Delhi,
Texas, (pronounced
DELL HIGH), is situated in one of the more thinly populated parts of Caldwell
County. Eighteen miles east of Lockhart, if you can find where FM 713 intersects
with Highway 304, head south on 304 and you'll soon pass a cemetery, church and
a simple building identified as the Delhi Community Center.
The well-tended
cemetery is on the left side of the road. Enclosed by a tidy, but far-from-quaint
cyclone fence, the cemetery's identity is confirmed by the overhead arch saying
DEHLI - 1881. Tiny Confederate and American flags, their number disproportionately
large to the number of graves in general, snap in the near-constant breeze.
A granite marker stands just outside the cemetery gate seemingly too elaborate
for a community that no longer appears on state maps. The explanation is in the
number of inscribed names.
According to the Handbook of Texas, the population
of tiny (never-had-a-railroad) Delhi never exceeded 200 persons. Nevertheless,
from the Civil War to Vietnam, the town supplied 32 soldiers to various wars,
"police actions" and conflicts.
The first thing that catches the visitor's
eye is the duplication of surnames.
Like most Delhi men, Alford J. Fogle
served in the Confederacy during the Civil War. The Fogle family didn't participate
in WWI, but they made up for it in WWII when Julius, Marvin, and Willey Fogle
served.
The Cox family had John G. in the Civil War, Jessie G. in WW I
and Joe H. in WW II.
Bartlett S. Reid was in the Civil War and a descendent
also named Bartlett S. served in WW II.
Glenn B. Reid served in WWII and
years later Carroll A. Reid was Delhi's solitary Vietnam casualty.
Although
Spanish-American troop trains to Florida passed as nearby as Luling, Delhi didn't
have a participant in the all volunteer Spanish-American War.
But, by
the time the U. S. became involved in WWI - Delhi was again ready.
Two
Neeleys, Penn E. and Clarence J. served in The Great War and then Lloyd C. Neeley
served in WW II. Tyre Pendleton was in WWI while descendent George M. Pendleton
died in the Korean War.
Horace and Vernon were either brothers or a father
and son that served in WW II.
By comparison, in neighboring Bastrop County, Smithville
was a railroad town with a much greater population than Delhi. A marker on Smithville's
city hall lawn shows a count of 18 Smithvillains in the Civil War with fully half
of that number coming from only the Sawyer, Burleson and Hill families. There
were 11 Smithville servicemen in WW I with one of them being another Burleson.
WW II had 16 participants and Korea and Vietnam had three each. This gives
totals of Smithville 51 to Delhi's 32.
Another
small town that contributed casualties totally disproportionate to its population
was the Czech community of Praha
in Southern Fayette County. When the town lost three men in WWII, a small stone
memorial chapel was built on the church grounds. Before long, other deaths required
another chapel being built. Then a third. In total, Praha, Texas lost nine sons,
husbands and brothers - reportedly the greatest number of casualties for a town
its size in the entire United States.
Besides the memorial chapels in
Praha, a marker was erected in the Texas State Cemetery.
As the number of war dead increases from Iraq, the casualties reflect the demographics
of our times. Today more are from the larger cities, but tiny towns like Comfort
and Sunray continue to contribute a disproportionate share of their population.
© John Troesser
"They
shoe horses, don't they?" May 7, 2004 column |
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