Defending Texas' Coast in the Civil War
Final part of a five-part series. Continued from Part I, Part II, Part III and Part IV.
The first two serious Union attempts at penetration of the Texan coastal defenses did not involve cavalry actions; they emerged predictably on the sea. Once the United States captured New Orleans in 1862, and given the Confederacy’s naval inadequacy, the proximate Texan coastline became a natural target for amphibious invasion by armadas of gunships and troop carriers. This development corresponded with an intermittent blockade of the Texan coast in an attempt to deprive the region of seaborne commerce.
On October 4, 1862, the U.S. Navy attacked the Island of Galveston. After a brief cannonade, the Confederate garrison withdrew, depriving Texas of a critical commercial port. Five hundred volunteer soldiers from Massachusetts then occupied the coastal town, while the Union command in New Orleans prepared to dispatch a reinforcement brigade of several regiments. Another strategically consequential coastal town, Corpus Christi, endured a short bombardment soon afterwards. Despite the attack, this valuable port remained occupied by stubborn Texan forces. Francis Lubbock, Governor of Texas, declared of the developing coastal emergency with dramatic flair as he sought to galvanize resistance: “The crisis of this war seems to be at hand in Texas, and we must prepare to defend our homes, or be driven from them with insult and degradation, and all the horrors of rapine and violence.” Capturing the state’s historical reliance on rapid citizen mobilization, the governor called for 5,000 volunteers to immediately defend the coast.
On New Years Day of 1863 Texan forces counterattacked with a dual gunboat and ground offensive to repossess Galveston. A small fleet of brown-water vessels first engaged the unsuspecting Union squadron with a lightning attack in the dark of night. With diversion in effect, a Rebel ground force, comprised of veterans from the New Mexico campaign and local militia, assaulted the island. The coordinated attack proved successful and the Texans captured three Union ships and over 350 prisoners. The Confederates inflicted an additional 650 enemy casualties, marking the operation as a stunning victory. This expedition adeptly employed the element of surprise, a fundamental aspect of successful warfare since ancient times, to defeat a numerically superior force.
The next significant Union attempt at invasion occurred in September 1863. Called the Second Battle of Sabine Pass, the day belonged to a single Lone Star artillery battery stationed at Fort Griffin, which guarded the mouth of the Sabine River. The Texans first waited until a large seaborne invasion of 15,000 Union infantry, cavalry, and artillery, approached to within 1,200 yards of the fort. The Rebels then opened with a sudden, rapid-fire cannonade. After sinking one ship and severely damaging another, the Confederate company of just forty-four men, under the command of a lieutenant named Dick Dowling, forced the armada of fifteen ships to retreat. The battle resulted in an astounding economy-of-force victory for the Confederacy, and prevented a large-scale occupation of southeastern Texas. The Texas State Gazette subsequently boasted with poetic appeal after the fight: “The ball is again opened in Texas. We have met the enemy and they are again ours.”
The third major confrontation in Texas occurred in May 1865 as the Union Army launched a final offensive intended to seize territory in the Lone Star State. Unlike the previous two invasions, the Battle of Palmito Ranch developed as a decisive land engagement by opposing army regiments. It also allowed frontier legend and veteran soldier John Ford to once again rise to prominence as a popular military leader. Though the Texans won a resounding victory over the invading Union regiment, it proved strategically inconsequential. The Army of Northern Virginia had surrendered four weeks prior and the collapse of the Confederacy was imminent.
The Palmito Ranch campaign began on May 11 when Theodore Barrett, commander of the Federal regiment occupying the island of Brazos Santiago near Brownsville, ordered an incursion onto the Texan mainland. Despite that tacit ceasefire that had existed between Texan and Union opponents for several months, the commander ordered an attack for reasons only known to him. It has been speculated that he sought to requisition material, such as horses for his dismounted cavalry, or more likely, that he hoped to end the war with a victorious and career-enhancing engagement. Barrett later called it a “foraging expedition” at his court martial hearing over the matter.
The Federal attack comprised eight companies from the 62nd U.S. Colored Troops and two from the 2nd Texas Cavalry Battalion (U.S.), which was largely populated by Unionist Texans. The improvised assault battalion totaled at approximately 300 soldiers. Additionally, the two cavalry companies did not possess horses, functionally making the corps a purely infantry formation. On the Rebel side, Ford commanded the lower Rio Grande defense with the 2nd Texas Cavalry and several understrength battalions of mounted volunteers. At the time of the attack, the Confederates maintained a volunteer cavalry battalion at Palmito Ranch, near Fort Brown. The disparity in mobile capacity between the Southern and Northern opponents would prove decisive in the days to come.
On the night of May 11 the Union task force crossed to the Texan mainland under concealment of darkness. They then proceeded to march against a suspected enemy outpost at White’s Ranch, near the Rio Grande. When they found the station abandoned, the Federals spent the night under cover, and in the morning moved against the now confirmed enemy battalion stationed at Palmetto Ranch. After initially skirmishing with 190 local cavalrymen, both sides withdrew. Barrett then reinforced his expedition with 200 additional infantrymen from the island base and assumed personal command of the offensive.
The next day, on May 12, the Federal force, now 500-strong, attacked and dislodged the Palmito Ranch defenders. Barrett pursued one mile west of the ranch and established a temporary camp. Though the massed infantry rifles prevailed in the skirmish, the maneuver subsequently suffered from the expedition’s lack of horses and the resulting inability to conduct reconnaissance or pursuit actions.
