Major Thomas H. Rountree (CSA)

Thomas H. Rountree, county clerk, farmer, and Confederate military officer, was born on November 27, 1836, in Alabama. He was the son of Seaborn Jones Rountree and Elizabeth (Rogers) Rountree. On October 2, 1855, Thomas married Sarah V. Hancock in Jackson County, Alabama, before moving to Daingerfield in Titus County, Texas (present-day Morris County) sometime before the birth of his son, Seaborn A. Rountree. In 1860 he was employed as the county clerk for Titus County and estimated his real property at $3,800 and his personal property at $1,400.

On February 24, 1862, Rountree enlisted as a private in Capt. William H. Christian’s Company of Oran Milo Roberts’s Infantry Regiment. Throughout the winter of 1862, more companies were formed from the surrounding counties, including Cherokee and Shelby, and the towns of Clarksville, Henderson, and Marshall. On April 9, 1862, enough companies had been formed to create a ten company regiment that became designated the Eleventh Texas Infantry. On June 23, 1862, the regiment was reorganized under provisions of the Conscription Act, and Rountree was elected captain of Company D, the Titus Hunters.

The Eleventh Texas Infantry Regiment was assigned to the Army of New Mexico before serving as part of Horace Randal’s Brigade and Robert P. Maclay’s Brigade of the Trans-Mississippi Department. The unit took part in skirmishes in Louisiana including actions at Bayou Bourbeau on November 3, 1863. The Eleventh also took part in repelling Nathaniel P. Banks’s Red River campaign including the battles of Mansfield and Pleasant Hill. From there, the unit moved into Arkansas to defend against the Camden Expedition and fought in the battle at Jenkins’ Ferry. After operations in Arkansas, the Eleventh was stationed at Shreveport, Louisiana, before being moved to Marshall, Texas, and then Hempstead, Texas. Sometime before April 1865, Rountree was promoted to the rank of major and commanded the entire regiment at Hempstead. On May 26, 1865, Rountree and the regiment disbanded and were included in the surrender by Gen. E. Kirby Smith along with the rest of the Trans-Mississippi Department.

After the war, Rountree moved to present-day Cass County, Texas (then known as Davis County), where he lived with his wife and two sons and he worked as a farmer. Thomas H. Rountree passed away in Cass County sometime around 1879. His wife, Sally, remarried on January 1, 1880, to William C. Roberts.