USA > Texas > A comprehensive history of Texas, 1685-1897 > Part 16
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A COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF TEXAS.
any resistance, was withdrawn, and fell back to Las Animas Ranch, after burning the barracks, all the cotton in the town, and all the public stores which could not be moved, and General Banks's army entered the town on the morning of the 7th. General Banks reported that the Confederates had burned the town, or a portion of it ; but this is not true. The fire from the burning barracks communicated by acci- dent to some houses near by and destroyed a block of buildings in front of the ferry, but it was not the wanton aet of the Confederates. Accompanying this expedition was Colonel E. J. Davis, a prominent citizen of Western Texas, with a regiment of cavalry composed of some Union men who had left the State on account of their Union sentiments, and some Mexican bandits from both sides of the Rio Grande.
Among the several companies of Mexicans which had been received into the Confederate service along the Rio Grande was one commanded by a Mexican named Adrian T. Vidal. A few days before the arrival of General Banks's army this company was on duty at the mouth of the Rio Grande, and General Bee sent orders for it to come into Brownsville to perform garrison duty in the place of the three companies of the Thirty-third Texas Cavalry, which had been ordered to Houston. The order was not obeyed, and General Bee then sent Privates Dashiell and Litteral, of Company A, Thirty-third Texas Cavalry, to ascertain the cause of disobedience, and with renewed orders for Vidal to bring in his company at once. They met Vidal with his company on the road about fourteen miles below Browns- ville and started to return with them, and when a short distance had been travelled the Mexicans opened fire on Dashiell and Litteral, killing the former and wounding the latter badly. He made his escape and returned to Brownsville with the alarm. and General Bee made immediate preparations for defence. There were only nine- teen soldiers in the garrison, but a volunteer company of about one hundred citizens was soon raised, and these met the mutineers near town and drove them back. In the mean time Captain Richard Taylor arrived with Company A, Thirty-third Texas Cavalry, and gave close pursuit to the Mexicans and drove them across the river. When Captain Taylor reached the left bank of the river where Vidal had just crossed he was met with seoffs and jeers by a large party of several hundred Mexicans and Union men on the right bank of the river. Vidal soon after joined the Union army with his company, and the evidence is very strong that he joined the Confederate army for the purpose of betraying it, and at the suggestion of representatives of the United States government.
Upon the arrival of General Banks at Brownsville he found a chronic state of revolution prevailing in Matamoras. A Few days before his arrival the notorious Juan N. Cortina, in conjunction with José Maria Cobos, had deposed Manuel Ruiz, governor of the state of Tamaulipas, and incarcerated him in prison. Then Cor- tina, with his characteristic treachery, raised a revolt against his coadjutor Cobos. and had him and two of his friends executed by shooting them on the plaza in the presence of an immense crowd of citizens, and released Ruiz from jail. Pretending to be a friend of Ruiz, who was popular with the masses, he restored him to power, and the next day whispered to him that he thought his life was in danger if he remained in Matamoras, and tendered him an escort of twenty-five of his men if he desired to leave the city. Governor Ruiz rightly comprehended that this meant
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assassination, and was glad of the opportunity to save his life by crossing to Texas, without waiting for the treacherous escort of Cortina, and asking protection of General Banks on the day of his arrival.
Cortina being thus in power, received the United States troops, with whom his sympathies were while they were in the ascendant, with great cordiality ; and showed his entire willingness to be serviceable to General Banks by forcibly seizing three steamboats belonging to King and Kennedy, citizens of Texas who were in sym- pathy with the Confederate States, and turning them over to him.
On the 13th of November, 1853, General Banks left Brownsville for the pur- pose of moving against the passes east of Point Isabel, carrying with him about fifteen hundred mnen, one battery of light artillery, his gunboats, and two of the light-draft. river steamboats of King and Kennedy, which Cortina had turned over to him. His command reached the pass at Corpus Christi on the 16th, but his lightest draft vessels, drawing three and a half feet, finding only two and a half feet of water on the bar, could not enter. It was then decided to land his forces on Mustang Island, which was successfully accomplished. The landing was made on the south end of the island, and about five hundred men under Brigadier-General Ransom marched up the island without opposition, until they reached the north end, where they were met on the morning of the 17th by Captain William H. Maltby's company of the Eighth Texas Infantry and Captain Garrett's company of State troops, all under command of Major George O. Dunaway ; and after an engage- ment of more than half an hour the Confederate force, numbering about one hun- dred men, surrendered to the largely superior force of General Ransom. The Union force captured three siege-guns, all the small-arms of the Confederates, and ten small boats. The next day General Ransom crossed over to St. Joseph's Island, where he was reinforced by several more regiments of infantry, and Major-General C. C. Washburn assumed command of the expedition. On the 22d of November, General Ransom pushed on up St. Joseph's Island with his forces, and when near the north end was met by a flag of truce from the Confederates, to inquire as to the fate of their comrades who were on Mustang Island. Major Charles Hill, who was in command of this party with the flag of truce, was killed, under circumstances of suspicion that he was shot while under the protection of a white flag. Some of the Confederate officers so charge it, but General C. C. Washburn in his report to General Banks, from Cedar Bayou, dated November 25, says: " A rebel major was shot on yesterday. His body was found this morning. He came down with a flag of truce. A sergeant from General Ransom's command swam over to him. He got into a dispute with the sergeant, and drew his pistol and shot him, wounding him severely. Our soldiers, witnessing the struggle, fired, and the major was seen to limp away. His body was found a few hundred yards from where he was struck. His inquiry was as to what had become of the Confederate troops that were on Mustang Island." In his report of this incident, Brigadier-General Ransom, who was in immediate command of the Union troops engaged, says that he reached Cedar Bayou (the channel which separates St. Joseph's Island from Matagorda Island) about noon the 23d of November, "where my advanced guard of mounted infantry, under command of Captain C. S. Ilsley. Fifteenth Maine, had a slight skirmish with a scouting party of the enemy, in which Major Charles Hill, com-
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A COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF TEXAS.
manding the rebel party, was killed, and Sergeant James Saunders, Company F, Fifteenth Maine, was slightly wounded."
Ex-Governor John Ireland, who at the time commanded a company at Fort Esperanza, says in a recent letter that Major Hill left the fort and went down the island some twenty miles. At a bayou he met the Federals under General Banks, and for some purpose he showed a white flag. Instead of sending a flag to meet him, the Federal commander ordered a large stout man to strip himself and swim across to Hill. He did so, and at once seized Hill and held him at arms' length while his comrades shot Hill to death. There was no quarrel or difficulty ; it was a pure assassination. Major Hill was not a citizen of Texas, and is first mentioned in General Magruder's report of the recapture of Galveston ; and on June 8, 1863, he is recommended by General Magruder to the War Department for promo- tion to major of artillery. In that recommendation he is designated as First Lieutenant Charles Hill, of Virginia, acting assistant chief of artillery, Western Sub-District.
On November 25, 1863, the Union army crossed the channel between St. Joseph's and Matagorda Islands, and on the morning of the 29th appeared before Fort Esperanza, on the north end of the latter. The fort was occupied by about five hundred Confederates under Colonel W. R. Bradfute, and contained eight pieces of heavy artillery, one a twelve-pounder, and the others twenty-four-pounders. After driving in the Confederate pickets, the enemy opened fire on the fort with two land batteries and the heavy guns from two gunboats, which was promptly returned by the guns in the fort. After a heavy bombardment all day, the Con- federate commander determined to evacuate the fort, as it was too apparent that the three thousand Union troops would soon cut him off from the mainland, and his surrender would be a question of a very short time. So about ten o'clock that night he withdrew his force and crossed to the mainland, blowing up his magazine and destroying what property he could. The enemy's loss was one killed and ten wounded, and the Confederates lost one man killed and six prisoners, the latter having been left to fire the magazines and pontoon bridge, and were captured.
On the 30th of November, General Washburn crossed about one thousand of his men over to Matagorda Peninsula, but before his entire force of four thousand men had crossed he received orders from General Banks to remain at Esperanza until further orders. Part of his command was pushed on up the peninsula as far as De Crow's Point, and with the occupation of Matagorda Island and Peninsula, and the contiguous points on the mainland, the enemy seemed satisfied during the month of December, and made no effort to penetrate to the interior of the State. December 23, 1863, a brigade of United States troops marched from Saluria and occupied Indianola.
The movements of the invading army caused great activity on the mainland among the Confederate troops in preparation to meet the invaders. Several points along the coast of the mainland were fortified, the State troops were ordered to the field, and, with the consent of Lieutenant-General E. Kirby Smith, General Tom Green's division was ordered back to Texas from Louisiana.
Shortly after the arrival of the Union army at Brownsville General Banks sent an expedition up the Rio Grande for the purpose of capturing all the cotton it
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MILITARY EVENTS AND OPERATIONS IN TEXAS.
might intercept in transit from Texas to Mexico. This force was under the com- mand of Colonel E. J. Davis, of the First Texas ( Union) Cavalry, with his own regiment and the Thirty-seventh Illinois Infantry. Part of the force went up on the steamboat Mustang belonging to King and Kennedy, and which had been seized by Colonel Cortina and turned over to General Banks. The expedition went up the river as far as Rio Grande City and captured eighty-two bales of cotton, which were sent down the river to Brownsville. Colonel Davis remained at Rio Grande City and in the vicinity for several months ; and in March, 1864, marched from there up the river for the purpose of capturing Laredo, where he was defeated by Colonel Santos Benavides on the 19th of that month.
Brigadier-General A. J. Hamilton, a former citizen of Austin, who had espoused the Union cause and been appointed a brigadier-general in the United States army and military governor of Texas, arrived at Brownsville, December 1, 1863, and for the first time since his appointment assumed to exercise the functions of his office upon the soil of the State. He was accompanied by his staff, civil as well as mili- tary, composed principally of shrewd New Englanders who had rendered him financial aid during his exile, and had now accompanied him for the purpose of taking advantage of the opportunities for speculation which the expedition to and occupation of Texas by the United States army was expected to present. General Banks, commanding the expedition, does not seem to have been imposed upon by these satellites of General Hamilton, for his estimate of their character and purposes as expressed in his correspondence with Mr. Stanton, referred to in another part of this chapter, seems to have been justified by subsequent events.
In January, 1864, after the return of Generel Banks to New Orleans, Major- General N. J. T. Dana, of the United States army, occupying Brownsville, discovered a plot hatched by Captain Jasper K. Herbert, assistant adjutant-general to Brigadier- General A. J. Hamilton, and one Turner, an agent of the United States Treasury Department, in which they had agreed with Governor Jesus de la Serna, of the state of Tamaulipas, to deliver to him on his requisition certain Mexican citizens who were then refugees in Brownsville ; and to recompense them for their services in complying with this requisition in the name of General Hamilton, Governor Serna, by proclamation, under the pretext that the Confederates were in friendly communication with the French and therefore enemies of Mexico, was to seize all the Confederate cotton and other property then in Matamoras, have it confiscated, condemned, and sold, and the proceeds divided into four parts, one for Serna, one for the United States consul, one for Captain Herbert, and the other for Turner. Be it said to the credit of Mr. Pierce, the consul, that he gave the whole scheme away to General Dana, and Captain Herbert was arrested and tried by a court- martial convened by and on charges preferred by General Dana. He was convicted on the charges, but President Lincoln decided that the conviction was, by law, "void and inoperative," because General Dana, who convened the court, was also the accuser in the case, and ordered his discharge from custody with a reprimand, because the offence of which he had been found guilty was of so grave a nature that it could not be allowed to pass unrebuked. With a seeming desire to place Captain Herbert in company more suited to his peculiar talents and traits of character, Mr. Lincoln eloses his consideration of the case by ordering him to "report in person
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without delay to Major-General B. F. Butler, commanding Department of Virginia and North Carolina." This may or may not be one of those grim, unconscious jokes for which Mr. Lincoln was so noted, but it bears strong marks of his facetious ebullitions.
January 3, 1864, Major-General Francis J. Herron took command of the United States troops on the Rio Grande, with head-quarters at Brownsville, relieving Major- General N. J. T. Dana, who took command of the forces on the Texas coast with head-quarters at Fort Esperanza.
On January 8, 1864, a Union gunboat commenced shelling the Confederate fortifications at the mouth of Caney Creek, opposite Matagorda Peninsula, which was continued at intervals during the day. In the afternoon a transport loaded with troops appeared close in shore about six miles below the fortifications, manifesting an intention to effect a disembarkation on the mainland ; but Colonel A. Buchel, commanding a brigade of Confederates, moved his command down opposite the point where the transport appeared, and if the enemy had any intention of landing there, they abandoned it upon this show of resistance, and went away in the direc- tion of De Crow's Point. The next day the gunboat fired about forty shots at the Confederate battery, and then retired. The Confederate loss was one man of Company E, First Texas Cavalry. Again, on February 7, a gunboat fired about sixty shots at the fort with great accuracy, wounding three men and three horses.
On the night of January 12, 1864, one of the periodic Mexican revolutions broke out in Matamoras which was characteristic of that heroic city, in which the notorious Colonel Juan N. Cortina overthrew and deposed the governor, Manuel Ruiz. The fighting between factions was fierce and furious, the forces of Governor Ruiz numbering about eight hundred men and four pieces of artillery, and those of Colonel Cortina about six hundred men and four pieces of artillery. During the fight, Mr. L. Pierce, Jr., the United States consul at Matamoras, despatched a mes- senger to Major-General Francis J. Herron, commanding the United States forces at Brownsville, informing him that he and his family were in danger, as well as about one million dollars of public funds in his possession, and asking the protection of the United States army. About the same time General Herron received an invitation from Governor Ruiz to send troops across the river for the protection of the lives and property of American citizens in Matamoras, declaring his own inability to protect them. General Herron then promptly despatched Colonel Henry Bertram, of the Twentieth Wisconsin Infantry, with four companies, to the heroic city of Matamoras, took charge of the consulate, and at seven o'clock next morn- ing removed the public funds and the families of American citizens to Brownsville. Cortina declared himself governor of the state of Tamaulipas, and Ruiz sought refuge in Texas.
On January 15, 1864, the Union troops, under Colonel Geo. W. K. Dailey, evacuated Pass Cavallo, after having torn down nearly all the houses by order of Major-General Herron, and shipped the lumber to Brazos Santiago. The heavy guns which were captured from the Confederates at Fort Esperanza were also carried away. Everything combustible, except the residence of Colonel Forrester. was burned and the forts blown up.
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On February 11, 1864, about seventy-five men of the enemy landed at Lamar, a village on the east side of Aransas Bay opposite Fulton, and tore down a large warehouse they found there, removed all the lumber they could carry and loaded it on a large seow which they brought with them. The men were then turned loose for indiscriminate plunder, and they entered almost every house and took whatever they desired. Among the invaders were several citizens of Corpus Christi ; one a Captain Anderson and his son were the most conspicuous. Mr. J. B. Wells, a citizen of Lamar, played the role of the inoffensive citizen and obtained much infor- mation from the officers. They told him that all the citizens of Corpus Christi had gone over to the invaders ; that they had upon Mustang Island a Texas regiment enlisted in Corpus Christi, and that General Banks had twenty-five thousand men, with whom he intended taking Galveston ; but that their heaviest force, and the one upon which they mainly depended, was coming by way of Red River, and that Texas would be overrun in less than three months.
On February 22, 1864, a squad of twenty-five mounted men of the enemy were out eight miles from Indianola on the Lavaca Road, driving a herd of cattle which they had gathered upon the prairie, when they were attacked by a small party of Confederate cavalry under the command of Major J. T. Brackenridge, of the Thirty- third Texas Cavalry Regiment, and three of them were killed and fourteen taken prisoners and sent to Houston.
In March, 1864, one Dietz, a captain of engineers, who was sent out by Gen- eral Magruder to inspect roads, fords, and ferries on the mainland opposite Mata- gorda Bay, came to the house of a Mr. Adams, on Hines's Bay, in an ambulance drawn by a pair of mules, and accompanied by his servant. He rode around the country several times examining the approaches from Matagorda Island to the main- land ; and one day he went out alone riding a horse which he had borrowed from Mr. Adams, taking his compass and telescope with him. He never returned, and Captain E. P. Upton, commanding the local defence company of State troops, scoured the shores of the bay for thirty miles in search of him, but without success. It was suspected that he had unexpectedly met with a marauding party of Union soldiers and been either taken prisoner or killed. But the report of Major-General Dana to General Banks from Pass Cavallo, dated March 7, 1864. explains the mys- terious disappearance of Captain Dietz by saying that he had deserted from the Confederate army, was then with him at Pass Cavallo, and had given him much valuable information. It seems that this man Dietz carried with him plans of the fortifications at Galveston and the coast, and topographical drawings of the country bordering on the coast, and was rewarded with a position in the Union army by Major-General John A. McClernand.
On March 13, 1864. Major Mat Nolan, of Ford's regiment, Second Texas Mounted Rifles, with a detail of sixty-two men, under Captains Ware, Cater, Taylor, and Richardson, came up with a party of about a hundred men of the enemy posted in a dense thicket about fifty miles southwest from Banquete. The enemy were under command of a Mexican named Cecilio Balerio, who was a captain in Colonel John L. Haynes's Second Regiment ( Union) Texas Cavalry, and they made a determined fight. For some fifteen minutes the fight was hand-to-hand, and of the most desperate character, but the enemy were repulsed and fled from Vol. II .- 35
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the ground, leaving five of their men dead, and thirty-one horses with equipments in the hands of the Confederates.
Colonel Jolin S. Ford says that Captain Balerio's son was an enterprising spy who was frequently in Corpus Christi for the purpose of obtaining news of the movements of the Confederates and conveying the intelligence to his father's camp, whence it was sent out by courier to Brownsville, and that Captain Richardson cap- tured him in the very act of spying. When the spy was confronted with the usual penalty in such cases under the military code, it was hinted that possibly his life might be spared if he would divulge the site of his father's camp and lead a party of Confederate soldiers to it. The struggle in the mind of the young man was a long one, but the love of life prevailed. He was placed on a horse with his feet tied underneath, and, after an all-night march, the secret camp in the chaparral was sur- prised just at daybreak. The son was permitted to escape, and soon rejoined his father, who also made his escape in the darkness.
On March 15, 1864, Major Mat Nolan left his station at Banquete with about fifty men for the purpose of capturing a party of the enemy who were reported to have landed at the Oso and were collecting cotton. He found that the enemy had landed as represented, and that their force consisted of ninety-three men. They had already collected a lot of bales of cotton, and left with it for Corpus Christi. He found two wagons loading with cotton at the house of W. S. Gregory, and he arrested Mr. Gregory. Thomas S. Parker and his son Peter, who were assisting him with the cotton, and sent them, together with the wagons and teams, to Banquete. His scouts having ascertained the strength of the enemy at Corpus Christi, and that they had sent for and momentarily expected reinforcements by boats from Mustang Island, Major Nolan at once sent a courier to Captain Ware, on the San Fernando, ordering him to join l'im with forty men, and proceeded to Corpus Christi in pursuit of the enemy .. About one o'clock P.M. of the 16th he encountered the enemy's pickets near the town, and ascertained that the main body was posted at the wharf behind some ninety-five bales of cotton which had been brought in from the Oso and other points. At the same time three sail-vessels were observed in the bay approaching the wharf. He waited here for the reinforcements under Captain Ware, but they did not come, and about dusk the vessels landed and about seventy-five men disembarked from them. Being unable to attack with any show of success with the sinall force at his command, Major Nolan invested the town all night with a view to prevent communication with the surrounding country, and to pick up any small party that might be thrown out by the enemy. About eleven o'clock of the 17th, having concealed most of his forces in the chaparral, with two officers and seven men, he, in person, drove the enemy's pickets into the town on the south side, killing one and wounding one, with only one man wounded in his party. The enemy then rallied and threw out a heavy force, when the Confederates retired before them to the line of the chaparral, where they made a stand and kept the enemy within the town. During the day the cotton was loaded on the vessels, and at ten o'clock at night the whole force of the enemy embarked, taking with them the families of several men who had joined them.
Owing to the fact that the town was full of helpless women and children, many of whom were the families of soldiers serving in the Confederate army, and knowing
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