Download or read book The Yankee Invasion of Texas written by Stephen A. Townsend and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2006-01-27 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1863 the Union capture of Texas was viewed as crucial to the strategy to deny the Confederacy the territory west of the Mississippi and thus to break the back of Southern military force. Overland, Texas supplied Louisiana and points east with needed goods; by way of Mexico, Texas offered a detour around the blockade of Southern ports and thus an economic link to England and France. But Union forces had no good base from which to interdict either part of the Texas trade. Their efforts were characterized by short, unsuccessful forays, primarily in East and South Texas. One of these, which left New Orleans on October 26, 1863, and was known as the Rio Grande Expedition, forms the centerpiece of this book. Stephen A. Townsend carefully traces the actions—and inaction—of the Union forces from the capture of Brownsville by troops under Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks, through the advance up the coast with the help of Union Loyalists, until General Ulysses S. Grant ordered the abandonment of all of Texas except Brownsville in March 1864. Townsend analyzes the effects of the campaign on the local populace, the morale and good order of the two armies involved, U.S. diplomatic relations with France, the Texas cotton trade, and postwar politics in the state. He thoughtfully assesses the benefits and losses to the Northern war effort of this only sustained occupation of Texas. No understanding of the Civil War west of the Mississippi—or its place in the Union strategy for the Deep South—will be complete without this informative study.

Download or read book Tejano Tiger written by Jerry Thompson and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-25 with total page 541 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Riding the rough and sometimes bloody peaks and canyons of border politics, Santos Benavides’s rise to prominence was largely the result of the careful mentoring of his well-known uncle, Basilio Benavides, who served several terms as alcalde of Laredo, Texas, and Chief Justice of Webb County. When the Civil War erupted in 1861, Basilio was one of only two Tejanos in the state legislature. During Santos’s lifetime, five flags flew over the small community he called home—that of the Republic of Mexico, the ill-fated Republic of the Rio Grande, the Republic of Texas, an expansionist United States, and in March 1861, the rebellious Confederate States of America. It was under the Confederacy in the disputed Texas-Mexico borderlands that Santos Benavides reached the pinnacle of his military career as the highest-ranking Tejano in the entire Confederate army. In the decades that followed the Civil War, he became an esteemed political leader, highly respected on both sides of the border. This is the first scholarly study of this important historical figure. At the pinnacle of his political career in 1879, Benavides held the distinction of being the only Tejano in the Texas legislature. Through strife, sweat, blood, and heroism in defense of the border, Benavides rose to economic and political heights few could dream of. As a friend and confidant of two Mexican presidents, he was one of the single most influential individuals in the nineteenth-century history of the border. His life was one of enduring perseverance as well as binational leadership and skilled diplomacy. He was without doubt the single most important individual in the long and often violent history of Laredo. The niche he carved in the tumultuous transnational history of the Texas-Mexico borderlands seems secure.

Download or read book A Crooked River written by Michael L. Collins and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2018-04-12 with total page 479 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the turbulent years of the Civil War and Reconstruction, a squall of violence and lawlessness swept through the Nueces Strip and the Rio Grande Valley in southern Texas. Cattle rustlers, regular troops, and Texas Rangers, as well as Civil War deserters and other characters of questionable reputation, clashed with Mexicans, Germans, and Indians over unionism, race, livestock, land, and national sovereignty, among other issues. In A Crooked River, Michael L. Collins presents a rousing narrative of these events that reflects perspectives of people on both sides of the Rio Grande. Retracing a path first opened by historian Walter Prescott Webb, A Crooked River reveals parts of the tale that Webb never told. Collins brings a cross-cultural perspective to the role of the Texas Rangers in the continuing strife along the border during the late nineteenth century. He draws on many rare and obscure sources to chronicle the incidents of the period, bringing unprecedented depth and detail to such episodes as the “skinning wars,” the raids on El Remolino and Las Cuevas, and the attack on Nuecestown. Along the way, he dispels many entrenched legends of Texas history—in particular, the long-held belief that almost all of the era’s cattle thieves were Mexican. A balanced and thorough reevaluation, A Crooked River adds a new dimension to the history of the racial and cultural conflict that defined the border region and that still echoes today.

Download or read book Selections from the Collected Papers of the Lower Rio Grande Valley Historical Society 1949 1979 written by Lower Rio Grande Valley Historical Society (Harlingen, Tex.) and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Texas Divided written by James Marten and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2014-07-11 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Civil War hardly scratched the Confederate state of Texas. Thousands of Texans died on battlefields hundreds of miles to the east, of course, but the war did not destroy Texas's farms or plantations or her few miles of railroads. Although unchallenged from without, Confederate Texans faced challenges from within—from fellow Texans who opposed their cause. Dissension sprang from a multitude of seeds. It emerged from prewar political and ethnic differences; it surfaced after wartime hardships and potential danger wore down the resistance of less-than-enthusiastic rebels; it flourished, as some reaped huge profits from the bizarre war economy of Texas. Texas Divided is neither the history of the Civil War in Texas, nor of secession or Reconstruction. Rather, it is the history of men dealing with the sometimes fragmented southern society in which they lived—some fighting to change it, others to preserve it—and an examination of the lines that divided Texas and Texans during the sectional conflict of the nineteenth century.

Download or read book Cortina written by Jerry Thompson and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2007-06-25 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At a time when the U.S.-Mexican border was still not clearly defined and when the doctrine of Manifest Destiny and land hunger impelled the Anglo presence ever deeper and more intrusively into South Texas, Juan Nepomucino Cortina cut a violent swath across the region in a conflict that came to be known as The Cortina War. Did this border caudillo fight to defend the rights, honor, and legal claims of the Mexicans of South Texas, as he claimed? Or was his a quest for personal vengeance against the newcomers who had married into his family, threatened his mother’s land holdings, and insulted his honor? Historian Jerry Thompson mines the archival record and considers it in light of recent revisionist history of the region. As a result, he produces not only a carefully nuanced work on Cortina—the most comprehensive to date for this pivotal borderlands figure—but also a balanced interpretation of the violence that racked South Texas from the 1840s through the 1860s. Cortina’s influence in the region made him a force to be reckoned with during the American Civil War. He influenced Mexican politics from the 1840s to the 1870s and fought in the Mexican Army for more than forty-five years. His daring cross-border cattle raids, carried out for more than two decades, made his exploits the stuff of sensational journalism in the newspapers of New York, Boston, and other American cities. By the time of his imprisonment in 1877, Cortina and his followers had so roiled South Texas that Anglo reprisals were being taken against Mexicans and Tejanos throughout the region, ironically worsening the racism that had infuriated Cortina in the beginning. The effects of this troubled period continue to resonate in Anglo-Mexican and Anglo-Tejano relations, down to this very day. Students of regional and borderlands history will find this premier biography to be a rich source of new perspectives. Its transnational focus and balanced approach will reward scholarly and general readers alike.

Download or read book Line of the Rio Grande written by James A. Irby and published by . This book was released on 1969 with total page 524 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A history of the Rio Grande Valley in the years 1861-65 is largely a recounting of the struggle to control the region and the trade in cotton. This study in succeeding chapters will recount and evaluate the military movements along this Texas-Mexican border. Examination will be made of the objectives, successes and failures of governments, international political and diplomatic bodies, outlaw bands, commercial empires and individuals caught up in the web of cotton, guns and profits. Effort will be made to evaluate the successes and failures of each of these elements and their influence upon the course of the American Civil War"--Page 11-12.

Download or read book Military Operations of the Civil War written by United States. National Archives and Records Service and published by . This book was released on 1968 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Obstinate Heroism written by Steven J. Ramold and published by University of North Texas Press. This book was released on 2020-03-15 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite popular belief, the Civil War did not end when Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, Virginia, in April 1865. The Confederacy still had tens of thousands of soldiers under arms, in three main field armies and countless smaller commands scattered throughout the South. Although pressed by Union forces at varying degrees, all of the remaining Confederate armies were capable of continuing the war if they chose to do so. But they did not, even when their political leaders ordered them to continue the fight. Convinced that most civilians no longer wanted to continue the war, the senior Confederate military leadership, over the course of several weeks, surrendered their armies under different circumstances. Gen. Joseph Johnston surrendered his army in North Carolina only after contentious negotiations with Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman. Gen. Richard Taylor ended the fighting in Alabama in the face of two massive Union incursions into the state rather than try to consolidate with other Confederate armies. Personal rivalry also played a part in his practical considerations to surrender. Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith had the decision to surrender taken out of his hands—disastrous economic conditions in his Trans-Mississippi Department had eroded morale to such an extent that his soldiers demobilized themselves, leaving Kirby Smith a general without an army. The end of the Confederacy was a messy and complicated affair, a far cry from the tidy closure associated with the events at Appomattox.

Download or read book Studies in Brownsville History written by Milo Kearney and published by . This book was released on 1986 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Military Operations of the Civil War Main Eastern theater of operations written by United States. National Archives and Records Service and published by . This book was released on 1968 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Lone Star Unionism Dissent and Resistance written by Jesús F. de la Teja and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2016-03-09 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most histories of Civil War Texas—some starring the fabled Hood’s Brigade, Terry’s Texas Rangers, or one or another military figure—depict the Lone Star State as having joined the Confederacy as a matter of course and as having later emerged from the war relatively unscathed. Yet as the contributors to this volume amply demonstrate, the often neglected stories of Texas Unionists and dissenters paint a far more complicated picture. Ranging in time from the late 1850s to the end of Reconstruction, Lone Star Unionism, Dissent, and Resistance restores a missing layer of complexity to the history of Civil War Texas. The authors—all noted scholars of Texas and Civil War history—show that slaves, freedmen and freedwomen, Tejanos, German immigrants, and white women all took part in the struggle, even though some never found themselves on a battlefield. Their stories depict the Civil War as a conflict not only between North and South but also between neighbors, friends, and family members. By framing their stories in the analytical context of the “long Civil War,” Lone Star Unionism, Dissent, and Resistance reveals how friends and neighbors became enemies and how the resulting violence, often at the hands of secessionists, crossed racial and ethnic lines. The chapters also show how ex-Confederates and their descendants, as well as former slaves, sought to give historical meaning to their experiences and find their place as citizens of the newly re-formed nation. Concluding with an account of the origins of Juneteenth—the nationally celebrated holiday marking June 19, 1865, when emancipation was announced in Texas—Lone Star Unionism, Dissent, and Resistance challenges the collective historical memory of Civil War Texas and its place in both the Confederacy and the United States. It provides material for a fresh narrative, one including people on the margins of history and dispelling the myth of a monolithically Confederate Texas.

Download or read book The Union the Confederacy and the Atlantic Rim written by Robert E. May and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2013-09-03 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From French intervention in Mexico to British interests in the Caribbean, the impact of the Civil War extended far beyond military campaigns in Virginia, diffusing widely into the Atlantic world. Revised to take into account the outpouring of scholarship on Civil War diplomacy that has appeared since the book was first published, The Union, the Confederacy, and the Atlantic Rim features essays by acclaimed historians Howard Jones, R. J. M. Blackett, Thomas Schoonover, and James M. McPherson.

Download or read book Freedom by the Sword written by William A. Dobak and published by Department of the Army. This book was released on 2011 with total page 582 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From late 1862 to the spring of 1865, the federal government accepted more than 180,000 black men as soldiers, something it had never done before on such a scale. Known collectively as the United States Colored Troops and organized in segregated regiments led by white officers, some of these soldiers guarded army posts along major rivers; others fought Confederate raiders to protect Union supply trains; and still others took part in major operations like the siege of Petersburg and the battle of Nashville. After the war, many of the black regiments garrisoned the former Confederacy to enforce federal Reconstruction policy. This book tells the story of these soldiers' recruitment, organization, and service.

Download or read book Ghosts of the Rio Grande Valley written by David Bowles and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2016-09-26 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discover the darker side of Texas history in this collection of chilling local lore—includes photos! Hidden in the dense brush and around oxbow lakes of the Rio Grande Valley wait sinister secrets, unnerving vestiges of the past, and wraiths of those claimed by the winding river. The spirit of a murdered student in Brownsville paces the locker room where she met her end. Tortured souls of patients lost in the Harlingen Insane Asylum refuse to be forgotten. Guests at the LaBorde Hotel in Rio Grande City report visions of the Red Lady, who was spurned by the soldier she loved and driven to suicide. In this book, David Bowles explores these and more of the most harrowing ghost stories from Fort Brown to Fort Ringgold and all the haunted hotels, chapels and ruins in between.

Download or read book Studies in History Economics and Public Law written by and published by . This book was released on 1910 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Last Battle of the Civil War written by Jeffrey Wm Hunt and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This in-depth military history sheds new light on one of the most forgotten—yet most mythologized—battles of the Civil War. More than two months after Robert E. Lee surrendered on April 9, 1865, the New York Times reported a surprising piece of news. On May 12–13, the last battle of the Civil War had been fought at the southernmost tip of Texas, resulting in a Confederate victory. Although the Battle of Palmetto Ranch did nothing to change the war’s outcome, it added the final irony to a conflict replete with ironies, unexpected successes, and lost opportunities. In this book, Jeffrey Hunt draws on previously unstudied letters and court martial records to offer a full and accurate account of the battle of Palmetto Ranch. As he recreates the events of the fighting that pitted the United States’ 62nd Colored Troops and the 34th Indiana Veteran Volunteer Infantry against Texas cavalry and artillery battalions commanded by Colonel John S. “Rip” Ford, Hunt lays to rest many misconceptions about the battle. Hunt reveals that the Texans were fully aware of events in the East—and still willing to fight for Southern independence. He also demonstrates that, far from fleeing the battle in a panic as some have asserted, the African American troops played a vital role in preventing the Union defeat from becoming a rout.