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Home Town of Texas Confederate
James Harper Starr
1809 - 1890
Connecticut-born. Came to Texas 1837. A doctor in Nacogdoches. Secretary of the Treasury and Army Surgeon, Republic of Texas. At start of Civil War appointed East Texas Receiver in Sequestration to take and sell the property of enemy aliens, the proceeds going to Treasury of Confederacy to aid the war effort. Became Postmaster General for western C.S.A. in 1864. The South was then spit in two parts by Federal Control of the Mississippi River. Starr's problem was to provide mail service in Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas and to devise means
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to get mail through the enemy military lines and naval blockade to and from westerners fighting east of the river and the Confederate capital. This was essential to soldier and home front morale and to maintain necessary military and governmental communications.
The mail was carried by pony express, wagons, blockade running vessels, stage coach lines, couriers, spies and Army details. Starr competed with the Army to get drivers, wagons and horses. Draft by military of postal employees was fought by writs of habeas corpus.
Men under 16 were hired. Printing facilities were limited and forms, supplies, stamps
had to be smuggled. The children of a cabinet officer once came through enemy lines with $3,000,000 worth of stamps for him. After the war, Starr in 1865 looked into East Texas oil showings. He founded Marshall's first bank. Starr County was named in his honor.
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