Lone Star (73 page)

Where the settlement line hung on, Texans spent the war in or close to stockades—"forted up," as the saying went. These years were hardly different from the days of Daniel Boone. Texas could not fight a great war in the east, and at the same time hold its own frontier. At least three regiments of regular cavalry were required to police the west, and nothing approaching that force was ever sent.

A little-known battle was fought between the Texas state troops and Indians
 

in January 1865. The Texans encountered a large camp of Indians on Dove Creek, a branch of the South Concho River. They mistook this band for Comanches and attacked, thus making two errors.

The Indians were well-armed Kickapoos, who were moving south out of Oklahoma seeking refuge in Mexico. They had done no raiding. But the band, several hundred strong, repulsed the state troops with heavy losses. Dove Creek was the largest battle fought against Indians during the war, and one of the bloodiest in all the Indian wars, as well as one of the best forgotten.

By the spring of 1865, the Texas frontier was marked by chaos. The westward advance was in general retreat.

Against the Yankees, however, the Texan record was outstanding. In 1862, Federal forces began a drive to capture all Confederate Gulf ports. New Orleans fell, with lasting damage to the South. In October 1862, the Federals seized Galveston Island.

When General Bankhead Magruder replaced General Hébert, who was more occupied with enforcing martial law than fighting Yankees, Magruder decided to retake Galveston. Careful, secret preparations were begun. Two steamboats plying Buffalo Bayou,
Neptune
and
Bayou City
, were converted into Confederate "cottonclads," by emplacing breastworks of cotton bales around their gunwales and decks. On these two vessels Magruder embarked the remnants of Sibley's brigade of New Mexico veterans, about 300 men. Supporting these "cottonclads" as tenders were two smaller ships, also filled with riflemen. Then, Magruder concentrated a land force at Virginia Point, on the mainland just opposite the island. He took personal command on December 29, 1862, for a joint assault by land and sea.

During the hours of darkness on December 31, Magruder's troops waded across into Galveston town. At dawn, the Confederates attacked and drove the Federal garrison to the extreme north end of the island. Meanwhile, the cottonclads steamed in against the flotilla of four Union ships in the harbor—a steamer, brig, gunboat, and transport.

Federal gunfire sank
Neptune
in shallow water as she steamed in, but Bayou City ran in close, while Sibley's converted "marines" raked the Federal vessels with deadly fire. The U.S. steamship
Harriet Lane
struck her colors, after a vicious, close-in firefight in which all her officers were killed. The brig
Westfield
trying to maneuver out of the way, ran aground, and was scuttled by her crew. The gunboat and transport fled the behemoth cotton-armored
Bayou City
and were able to escape to the open Gulf. When this happened, the Federal garrison on the island surrendered. Magruder took 300 prisoners of war, and was commended by the President of the Confederacy.

The Union held complete initiative off the coast, however, with command of the sea. There had been some skirmishing around Sabine Pass, where the Sabine and the Neches rivers both flowed into the Gulf. Recognizing this as a weak point, where the Federal naval supremacy could bear, Admiral David Farragut and Major General N. P. Banks drew up plans for a major campaign in 1863. Sabine Pass was to be seized, and 5,000 veteran troops put ashore. Farragut and Banks hoped to repeat earlier Union successes at New Orleans and Mobile.

On September 8, 1863, four U.S. gunboats, leading a flotilla of 20 transports proceeded against Sabine Pass. This was a carefully planned assault, whose ultimate objective was the capture of Houston, Beaumont, and in turn,
 

Galveston. At the very least, it was expected to open up a sustained campaign near vital areas of Texas. Major General William B. Franklin of the U.S. Army was in over-all command.

A small Confederate post, Fort Griffin, defended the Texas side of the Pass. Here Odlum's Company F (Davis Guards) of the 1st Texas Heavy Artillery stood on watch. Neither Odlum nor his lieutenant, Smith, was present; the company, two old 24-pounder smoothbores, two 32-pounders, and two howitzers, and forty-two men, was commanded by the junior lieutenant, Richard (Dick) Dowling. In the vicinity, also, was the Confederate steamer
Uncle Ben
and a detachment of infantry from Company B, Speight's Battalion.

While the landing force of 5,000 stood offshore with its escort warships, the four Union gunboats moved up the channel and bombarded Dowling's command. The shelling continued for an hour and a half. The Federal boats then withdrew, let the meaning of the bombardment sink in, and came back again. In similar situations outnumbered and outgunned Confederate posts had withdrawn.

With great coolness Dowling ordered his battery to withhold its fire. He let the Federal warships come within 1,200 yards. Then, under heavy fire himself, Dowling poured fire from his old smoothbores into each Federal vessel in turn. The result was spectacular. U.S.S.
Sachem
was holed in the steam drum and fell out of action.
Clifton
's tiller rope was carried away, and the gunboat drifted helplessly aground under Dowling's battery.
Clifton
struck, running up a white flag.

Shocked and battered, the remaining flotilla raced back out to sea. The armada and its 5,000 invasion troops eventually sailed back to New Orleans.

U.S. naval forces lost two ships, 100 killed and injured, and 350 prisoners. Dowling's battery was untouched. In a few minutes, Lieutenant Dick Dowling had fought the most brilliant and decisive small action of the Civil War. No Federal effort was ever made in this area again.

The outcome of Sabine Pass raised a great outcry abut the efficiency of the Navy in the North; coming with Bragg's victory at Chicamauga, it gave the Union a severe psychological shock. U.S. credit declined abroad; the dollar lost 5 percent of its value against gold.

By order of Jefferson Davis, one of the two war decorations officially awarded by the Confederacy was specially struck for the Davis Guards.

The Union forces, however, were not to be completely denied. Banks landed forces in the far south, over the beaches at Brazos de Santiago, just north of the mouth of the Rio Grande. A war base was set up at Point Isabel. In November 1863, Union General Dana moved into Brownsville with 6,000 men.

Other descents were made further north on the Laguna Madre; the tiny ports of Corpus Christi and Aransas Pass were seized, also. At the end of 1863 Sabine Pass and Galveston were the only ports on the Texas coast still in Confederate hands.

These Union operations actually had little effect on the state. The points on the Gulf were then remote from the populated centers of eastern Texas, and since the blockade was in force, their loss changed nothing. General Banks' mission was not to try to subjugate Texas. The Union sought control of the coast to prevent possible collusion and cooperation between the Confederate states and the French, who had moved into Mexico in force.

The fear of French-Confederate cooperation was real in 1863. But it soon was apparent that the invaders of Mexico had too much to occupy them in that country to become entangled in the American Civil War. As the fear subsided, Banks gradually withdrew all his garrisons from the coast except the one at Brownsville. This controlled the lower border, and disrupted the Confederate cotton trade.

N. P. Banks, who had scarcely more success in the Southwest than he had earlier enjoyed in Virginia, made one last great effort to carry the war into Texas. In the early weeks of 1864 Banks concentrated 25,000 splendidly equipped and supplied combat troops at Alexandria, Louisiana. This force was supported by a flotilla of gunboats. The Union strategy was to make a vast sweep through the richer regions of the Southwestern states, to cut a swath of destruction similar to the one Sherman planned for the Southeast. Union General Frederick Steele was to march south from Little Rock, Arkansas, with an additional 15,000 men and to join Banks' force along the Red River. The combined Union armies would then strike deep into Texas; the Confederate marshaling points and shops at Henderson and Marshall were strategic objectives.

Kirby-Smith, commanding the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department, worked desperately to avert this disaster. Magruder stripped Texas of all the regular troops under his command, but these barely offset Kirby-Smith's own losses due to disease and desertion. The Texas units in the Confederate service marched east to Louisiana. In this crisis, however, Governor Murrah of Texas refused to release the state militia because of his quarrel with Richmond over states' rights.

With a crumbling, ill-fed, and desperate army, the Confederate generals completely frustrated the Union plan. Sterling Price stopped Steele at Camden, Arkansas. Badly mauled by the Confederate cavalry, Steele, although he outnumbered Price by two-to-one, failed to join Banks' main force.

General Richard Taylor, immediately facing Banks' 25,000, was reinforced with a conglomerate body of Louisianans, Missourians, and Arkansas units. Even with Walker's division of Texans and Tom Green's Texas cavalry brigade, he mustered only 11,000. His position appeared hopeless. However, he chose to attack.

On April 8, 1864, Taylor smashed Banks at Mansfield, Louisiana, just forty miles from the Texas line. Although Banks repulsed a second attack at Pleasant Hill on April 9, both his nerve and the Union drive collapsed. The invading army retreated back to the Mississippi. There was never to be a Union song called "Marching Through Texas."

Historians generally regard the defense of the Texas coast and borders as one of the greatest military feats of the Confederacy.

In the late spring of 1864, the war in the Southwest degenerated into a sort of stalemate. But the fighting was not entirely over. There was yet to be fought one more bitter, little-known campaign, which included the last pitched battle of the War Between the States.

Chapter 20

THE CAVALRY OF THE WEST

Headquarters Cavalry of the West,

San Antonio, December 27, 1863

Persons desiring to go into service will report to me at San Antonio without delay, where they will be subsisted and their horses foraged . . . .

The people of the West are invited to turn out. They will be defending their own homes. Shall it be said that a mongrel force of Abolitionists, negroes, plundering Mexicans, and perfidious renegades have been allowed to murder and rob us with impunity? Shall the pages of history record the disgraceful fact, that Texians have tamely and basely submitted to these outrages and suffered the brand of dishonor. . . ? For the honor of the State, for the sake of the glorious memories of the past, the hopes of the future, you are called upon to rally to the standard and to wash out the stains of invasion by the blood of your ruthless enemies.

JOHN S. FORD

Col. Comdg
.

IN the fall of 1863, the United States Army began to consolidate its command of the Lower Rio Grande. General Banks' major purpose was to seal off the border between the Confederates and the French-dominated Empire of Mexico; it was not to use Brownsville for a marshaling point to invade Texas. But the appearance of thousands of bluecoats on the Rio Grande set off a chain of events not foreseen by the strategists either in Washington or Richmond.

The flow of cotton out of the Confederacy was cut off, as Union General Dana sent 4,000 men westward along the Rio Grande. Neutral brokers in Matamoros held chests of medical supplies, new Enfield rifles, and gold for Texas; thousands of European ships lay waiting off the river mouth. Now, the trade route had to be moved far northwest through Eagle Pass, adding three hundred miles. The new trail also lay through desolate and dangerous country, swarming with Mexican bandits, Apaches, and Kickapoos. The cost, as well as time, of delivery doubled.

The situation was intolerable to Texans living along the Rio Grande, as well as to cotton interests further north. Great pressure was put on "Prince John," General Bankhead Magruder, to act. But Nathaniel Banks had fixed Magruder by a clever feint in Louisiana in late 1863. Prince John did not dare open a war on the Rio Grande and leave the heartland exposed.

Some of the greatest pressures were put on the Confederate government by prominent Brownsville citizens and other south Texas merchants. They wanted an expeditionary force raised, and they wanted it to be commanded by an old Texas Ranger they knew well—Rip Ford. There is considerable evidence that the said Ford not only abetted these efforts but probably instigated them.

On December 22, 1863, the Texas Department commander wrote a confidential letter, addressed to "Colonel" John S. Ford. The letter requested that officer to raise a regiment of cavalry—a purely auxiliary force—to undertake a campaign on the Rio Grande. Thus began one of the most fantastic episodes in the War Between the States. Its central figure was one of the most colorful—and, perhaps, most typical—Texan leaders of all time.

In 1863 John Salmon Ford was almost fifty. He had already lived through a fantastic career—medical doctor, lawyer, prominent journalist, state senator for two terms, mayor of Austin, and captain of Rangers. Born in South Carolina, educated in cabin schools in Tennessee, he arrived in Texas as a doctor of medicine in 1836. Ford was an old "Texian." He had a failed marriage behind him, and he was just twenty-one.