CONFEDERATE BIOGRAPHY: K. M. VAN ZANDT - Tarrant County, TX

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Submitted by Mary Love Berryman - marylove@tyler.net
28 August 2001
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TEXANS WHO WORE THE GRAY by Sid S. Johnson

K. M. VAN ZANDT.

K. M. Van Zandt, was born in Franklin County, Tenn., Nov. 7, 1836.  
His father, Isaac Van Zandt, of Harrison County, was a member of 
congress of the Republic of Texas in 1840-42, and in 1842 was appointed 
by President Sam Houston to the Minister Plenipotentiary from the Texas 
re­public to the United States remaining in Washington until the treaty 
of annexation was negotiated when he returned to Texas and resumed the 
practice of law in Marshall.  He was a member of the convention that 
framed the first con­stitution for the state of Texas in 1845, and be 
died in Hous­ton in 1874 while a candidate for governor.  K. M. Van 
Zandt was reared in Marshall, Texas, and was graduated from Franklin 
College, Tenn., in 1854.  Four years later he was admitted to the bar 
and began the practice of law in Marshall.  In 1961 when the war began 
he organized and was elected captain of a company that became a part of 
the 7th Texas infantry.  He was promoted to major of his regi­ment in 
Jan. 1563.  He took part in the battles of Fort Donalson, Port Hudson, 
Raymond, Miss., Jackson, Chicka­mauga, Missionary Ridge, and in numerous 
smaller engage­ments.  He was surrendered with his command at Fort 
Donalson, Feb. 16, 1862, and was a prisoner for seven months at Camp 
Chase and Johnson's Island, and was ex­changed at Vicksburg, Miss., in 
Sept. 1862. When he left the army at the close of the war he had not a 
dollar. Re­moving now to Fort Worth, Texas, he began merchandising and 
was quite successful.  In 1874 he entered the banking business and from 
that day to this has been esteemed one of the brainiest financiers in 
Texas. He has ever been a tower of strength to his home town.  In 
politics Gen. Van Zandt is a democrat, and he represented in the 18th 
legislature in 1873 the counties of Dallas, Collin and Tarrant. He was
mar­ried in 1856 in Harrison county to Miss Minerva Peete and by her 
had three children, the oldest child, Florence married Hon. Hyde 
Jennings, of Forth Worth.  In 1869 he married Miss Mattie Peete, 
sister of his first wife, by whom he had five children.  He was for 
many years been Major-General of the Texas Division of the United 
Confederate Veterans and is greatly beloved by all of his old comrades 
who wore the gray.