Texas in the Civil War
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Texas seceded from the United States on February 1, 1861, and joined the Confederate States of America on March 2, 1861, replacing its governor, Sam Houston, when he refused to take an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy. During the subsequent American Civil War, Texas was most useful for supplying soldiers for Confederate forces and in the cavalry. Texas was mainly a "supply state" for the Confederate forces until mid-1863, when the Union capture of the Mississippi River made large movements of men, horses or cattle impossible. Some cotton was sold in Mexico, but most of the crop became useless because of the Federal naval blockade of Galveston and other ports.
Contents |
[edit] Secession
Texas seceded from the United States in 1861. Its rationale was spelled out in the Texas Ordinance of Secession, a document ratified by the state's Secession Convention on February 1, by a vote of 166 to 8. The document specifies several reasons for secession, including its solidarity with its "sister slave-holding States," the Federal government's inability to prevent Indian attacks, slave-stealing raids, and other border-crossing acts of banditry. It accuses Northern politicians and abolitionists of a variety of outrages upon Texans. The bulk of the document offers a justification of slavery and white supremacy, including this extract:
"We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable."[1]
[edit] Opposition to the Confederacy
Despite the prevailing view of many of the state's politicians and the delegates to the Secession Convention, many Texans opposed secession, especially in the Texas Hill Country and five counties in North Texas, with 25% statewide opposing secession during the 1861 referendum. Some 2,000 of these men joined the Union army, led by future governor Edmund J. Davis who initially commanded the 1st Texas Cavalry (USA) and rose to the rank of brigadier general. Texas's relatively large German population around Austin by and large tried to remain neutral in the war. East Texas gave the most support to secession, and the only East Texas counties in which significant numbers of people opposed secession were Angelina County, Fannin County, and Lamar County (though these counties supplied many men to Texas regiments, e.g., the 9th Texas Infantry Regiment; the 1st {Partisan Rangers}, 3rd, 4th, 9th, 27th, and 29th Texas Cavalry; and the 9th Texas Field Battery; et al.). Furthermore, the conscription act proved controversial to some Texans, who felt that the war was being fought by poor people in deference to the wealthy few.[2]
In 1862, Abraham Lincoln named a loyal former United States Congressman, Andrew J. Hamilton, as the Military Governor of Texas. Hamilton would serve throughout the war, and would be named as the first provisional civilian governor during the early stages of Reconstruction.
In August 1862, Texans massacred a band of Germans along the Nueces River. In October 150 Unionists belonging to the Cooke County Union League were arrested at Gainesville by the 11th Texas Cavalry. During the trial of the Unionists for insurrection, mob violence resulted in the murder of 14 of the accused. While jury recessed in the midst of the turmoil, an unknown assassin killed Col. William C. Young, the prosecutor in the case. In response, 19 additional suspects were tried and hanged. Historians report that many of the accused "were innocent of the abolitionist sentiments for which they were tried." [3]
[edit] Military recruitment
Over 70,000 Texans served in the Confederate army and Texas regiments fought in every major battle throughout the war. Some men were veterans of the Mexican-American War; a few had served in the earlier Texas Revolution. The state furnished 45 regiments of cavalry, 23 regiments of infantry, 12 battalions of cavalry, four battalions of infantry, one regiment of heavy artillery and 30 batteries of light artillery for the Confederacy. In addition, the state maintained, at its own expense, some additional troops that were for home defense. These included 5 regiments and 4 battalions of cavalry, and 4 regiments and 1 battalion of infantry. In 1862, the Confederate Congress in distant Richmond, Virginia, passed a conscription law that ordered all males from 18 to 45 years of age to be placed in the service, except ministers, state, city and county officers and certain slave owners. All persons holding 15 slaves, or over, were exempt.
Among the most famous units were the Terry's Texas Rangers (a group of frontier cavalrymen, many of who later became peacekeepers in the Old West) and "The Texas Brigade" (a/k/a "Hood's Brigade"), a brigade comprised mainly of Texas regiments augmented at times by the 18th Georgia Infantry, Hampton's (South Carolina) Legion, and the 3rd Arkansas Infantry, and originally commanded by John Bell Hood. Hood's men suffered severe casualties in a number of fights, most notably at the Battle of Antietam, where they faced off with the Iron Brigade, and at Gettysburg, where they assaulted Houck's Ridge and then Little Round Top.
[edit] Battles in Texas
| Operations to Blockade the Texas Coast |
|---|
| 1st Sabine Pass – 1st Galveston |
| Operations Against Galveston |
|---|
| 2nd Galveston |
| Operations to Blockade the Texas Coast II |
|---|
| 2nd Sabine Pass |
| Expedition from Brazos Santiago |
|---|
| Palmito Ranch |
Texas did not experience many significant battles. However, the Union mounted several attempts to capture the Trans-Mississippi regions of Texas and Louisiana from 1862 until the war's end. With ports to the east under blockade or captured, Texas in particular became a blockade-running haven. Referred to as the "back door" of the Confederacy, Texas and western Louisiana continued to provide cotton crops that were transferred overland to the Mexican border town of Matamoros, Tamaulipas, and shipped to Europe in exchange for supplies. Determined to close this trade, the Union mounted several invasion attempts of Texas, each of them unsuccessful.
The U.S. Navy blockaded the principle seaport, Galveston, for four years, and Federal infantry occupied the city for three months in late 1862. Confederate troops under Gen. John B. Magruder recaptured the city on January 1, 1863 and it remained in Confederate hands until the end of the war. A few days later the Confederate raider CSS Alabama attacked and sunk the USS Hatteras in a naval engagement off the coast of Galveston.
A few other cities also fell to Union troops at times during the war, including Port Lavaca, Indianola, and Brownsville. Federal attempts to seize control of Laredo, Corpus Christi, and Sabine Pass failed.
The most notable battle in Texas during the war happened on September 8, 1863. At the Battle of Sabine Pass, a small garrison of 46 Confederates from the mostly-Irish Davis Guards under Lt. Richard W. Dowling, 1st Texas Heavy Artillery, defeated a much larger Union invasion force from New Orleans under Gen. William B. Franklin. Skilled gunnery by Dowling's troops disabled the lead ships in Franklin's flotilla, prompting the remainder—4,000 men on 27 ships—to retreat back to New Orleans.
In 1864 many Texas forces, including a division under French Prince Camille de Polignac, moved into Northwestern Louisiana to stall Union Maj. Gen. Nathaniel Banks' Red River Campaign, which was intended to invade Texas from its eastern border. Confederate forces halted the expedition through a series of victories, including at the Battle of Mansfield, just east of the Texas border.
The last battle of the Civil War, the Battle of Palmito Ranch, was fought in Texas on May 12, 1865, well after Robert E. Lee's surrender on April 9, 1865, at the Appomattox Court House, Virginia.
[edit] Collapse of Confederate authority in Texas
In the spring of 1865, Texas contained over 60,000 soldiers of the Army of the Trans-Mississippi under Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith. As garrison troops far removed from the main theaters of the war, morale had deteriorated to the point of frequent desertion and thievery. Arizona regiments plundered civilians in Williamson County, just north of the Texas capital. News of Lee's surrender finally reached Texas around April 20, and local Confederate authorities had mixed opinions on their future course of action. Most senior military leaders vowed to press on with the war, including commanding general Kirby Smith. Many soldiers, however, greeted frequent speeches whose theme was "fight on, boys" with derision, or simply failed to attend them.
The month of May brought increasing rates of desertion. News of Joseph E. Johnston's and Richard Taylor's surrenders confirmed that Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas were now essentially alone to continue the Confederate cause. On May 14, troops in Galveston briefly mutinied, but were persuaded to remain under arms. However, morale continued to sink. Generals John B. Magruder and Kirby Smith (who had already corresponded with Union Maj. Gen. John Pope regarding surrender terms on May 9) no longer sought to rally their demoralized troops, but rather began discussing the distribution of Confederate government property. Magruder pled that the rapid disbanding of the army would prevent depradations by disgruntled soldiers against the civilian population.
The haste to disband the army, combined with the pressing need to protect Confederate property from Union confiscation, created general mayhem. Soldiers began openly pillaging the Galveston quartermasters stores on May 21. Over the next few days, a mob demanded that a government warehouse be opened to them, and soldiers detained and plundered a train. Several hundered civilians sacked the blockade runner Lark when it docked on May 24, and troops sent to pacify the crowd soon joined in the plunder. On May 23, residents in Houston sacked the ordnance building and the clothing bureau. Riots continued in the city until May 26. Both government and private stores were raided extensively in Tyler, Marshall, Huntsville, Gonzales, Hempstead, La Grange, and Brownsville. In Navasota, a powder explosion cost eight lives and flattened twenty buildings. In Austin, the state treasury was raided and $17,000 in gold was stolen. By May 27, half of the original Confederate forces in Texas had deserted or been disbanded, and formal order had disappeared into lawlessness in many areas of Texas.
The formal remnants of Kirby Smith's army had finally disintegrated by the end of May. Upon his arrival in Houston from Shreveport, the general called a court of inquiry to investigate the "causes and manner of the disbandment of the troops in the District of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona." The May 30 findings laid the blame primarily on the civilian population. Kirby Smith addressed his few remaining soldiers and condemned those that had fled for not struggling to the last and leaving him "a commander without an army -- a General without troops." On June 2, he formally surrendered what was left of the Army of the Trans-Mississippi.
[edit] Restoration to the Union
Federal troops did not arrive in Texas to restore order until June 19, 1865, when Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger and 2,000 Union solders arrived on Galveston Island to take possession of the state and enforce slaves’ new freedoms. (The Texas holiday Juneteenth commemorates this date.) The Stars and Stripes was not raised over Austin until June 25.[4]
President Andrew Johnson appointed Union General Andrew J. Hamilton, a prominent antebellum politician before the war, as the provisional governor on June 17. He granted amnesty to ex-Confederates if they promised to support the Union in the future, appointing some to office. However, it was not until March 30, 1870, that the United States Congress readmitted Texas into the Union, although Texas did not meet all the formal requirements for readmission.
[edit] Notable leaders from Texas
A number of notable leaders were associated with Texas during the Civil War. John Bell Hood gained fame as the commander of the Texas Brigade in the Army of Northern Virginia and played a prominent role as an army commander late in the war. "Sol" Ross was a significant leader in a number of Trans-Mississippi Confederate armies. John H. Reagan was an influential member of Jefferson Davis's cabinet.
The office of Governor of Texas was in flux throughout the war, with several men in power at various times. Sam Houston was governor when Texas seceded from the United States, but refused to decalre any loyalty to the new Confederacy. He was replaced by Lieutenant Governor Edward Clark. Clark filled the rest of Houston's term in 1861, and narrowly lost re-election by just 124 votes to Francis Lubbock. During his tenure, Lubbock supported Confederate conscription, working to draft all able-bodied men, including resident aliens, into the Confederate Army. When Lubbock's term ended in 1863, he joined the military. Ardent secessionist Pendleton Murrah replaced him in office. Even after Robert E. Lee surrendered in 1865, Murrah encouraged Texans to continue the revolution, and he and several supporters fled to Mexico.
 Sam Houston |
 John Bell Hood |
 John Henninger Reagan |
 Lawrence Sullivan Ross |
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ http://www.lsjunction.com/docs/secesson.htm
- ^ Texas in the Civil War: A Capsule History
- ^ Handbook of texas Online
- ^ "The Breakup: The Collapse of the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Army in Texas, 1865". Brad R. Clampitt. Southwest Historical Quarterly, Vol CVIII, No 4. April, 2005.
[edit] Further reading
- Bell, Walter F. "Civil War Texas: A Review of the Historical Literature" Southwestern Historical Quarterly 2005 109(2): 204-232. ISSN 0038-478X
- Elliott, Claude. "Union Sentiment in Texas 1861-1865" Southwestern Historical Quarterly 50:4 (April 1947), online
- James Smallwood, "Disaffection in Confederate Texas: The Great Hanging at Gainesville," Civil War History 22 (December 1976) pp 349-60. online at JSTOR
- Wooster, Ralph A., Civil War Texas: A History and a Guide. Texas State Historical Association, 1999. ISBN 0-87611-171-1.
- Wooster, Ralph A., Essays on Texas in the Civil War.
- Wooster, Ralph A., Texas and Texans in the Civil War.
[edit] External links
- Handbook of Texas Online
- Texas Military Units in the Civil War
- Texas Civil War Map of Battles
- Texas Civil War Museum
