Titus County was created and organized in 1846 and named for pioneer resident Andrew Jackson Titus (1814-1855), who opened the county's first road to the river port in Jefferson. Until after the Civil War, Titus County also included areas of present-day Franklin and Morris counties. Six mail routes traveled by horseback, with pack mules following the lead horse, and high waters in creeks and the Sulphur River often halted travel. The record time for hauling cotton to Jefferson was 5 days by ox wagon. In 1860 the county had 9,648 people and voted 411 to 275 in favor of secession. It sent 10 military companies to the Civil War, and while home tables drew heavily on game foods such as deer, wild turkeys, pigeons, and bear, the county furnished the Confederate commissary with beef, butter, corn, rice, cotton, oats, sweet potatoes, flour, cornmeal, leather, lumber, pottery, tobacco, whiskey, and wool. Wartime manufacturing plants included 9 sawmills, 8 gristmills, tanneries, and a steam powered distillery. Mount Pleasant had a Confederate transportation depot employing blacksmiths, carpenters, harness makers, and wheelwrights; it procured equipment and horses and mules, and made gear, harness, and wagons to move men, army supplies, and government owned cotton.