Before the Civil War, Marshall functioned as one of East Texas's most prosperous towns, operating as a cotton-marketing and trade center for the surrounding plantation economy and benefiting from an early rail connection that facilitated commerce; by 1860 it had grown to roughly 2,000 residents and also served as a regional education center, home to Marshall University and the Masonic Female Institute. During the Civil War, Marshall's function shifted dramatically: it became the informal capital of Confederate Trans-Mississippi affairs, serving first as the seat-in-exile of the Confederate government of Missouri and, after the fall of Vicksburg in 1863 cut off communication with the Confederate capital in Richmond, as a key center of operations and conferences for General Edmund Kirby Smith's Trans-Mississippi Department. In this role Marshall functioned less as a formally designated capital and more as a de facto administrative and military coordination point for Confederate forces and civil authorities operating west of the Mississippi River, hosting conferences among Confederate governors and generals on wartime policy. After the war Marshall gradually returned to its commercial roots as a trade and rail town. Today Marshall functions as a modern East Texas city serving as a retail, service, and government center for Harrison County, benefiting from its position on Interstate 20 between Shreveport and Dallas, while its historic downtown and numerous National Register properties support an active heritage-tourism function tied to its Civil War and railroad past.