Many
Texans had split loyalties regarding the events that led up to, during and after
the Civil War.
Texas had only been a state for 15 years when those who wanted to join the
Confederacy succeeded in a statewide election. Texas became the 7th state to
leave the Union on March 2,1861.
The Governor of Texas' loyalties were more to the Union side of the issues. That
governor was Sam Houston. Houston's refusal to submit to an oath of allegiance
to the new Confederacy supporting government cost him his office.
Tensions were high in the South, and that includes Texas, as the Civil War
began. Texans were eager to join the fight. By the end of 1861 more than 25,000
Texans had joined the Confederate Army. Almost 90,000 Texans served the
Confederacy during the Civil War.
Texas forces figured prominently at battles like Gettysburg, Franklin, Pea
Ridge, Antietam, Second Manassas, Vicksburg, The Wilderness, Shiloh,
Chickamauga, Glorieta Pass and Mansfield.
Within Texas' borders, Confederate and Texas forces stopped Union invaders at
Sabine Pass, Galveston, Corpus Christi and Laredo. Coastal areas of Texas
suffered Union Naval bombardments. Confederate forces fought border and frontier
raiders, got around Union blockades and ran prisoner of war camps.
The Civil War ended in Texas at the last land battle of the war, fought at
Palmito Ranch near Brownsville. This battle took place more than a month after
General Robert E. Lee had surrendered to Union General Ulysses. S. Grant at
Appomattox Court House.
The Trans-Mississippi Department of the Confederacy surrender on June 2, 1865
was noted by Captain Benjamin Franklin Sands as "the closing act of the
Great Rebellion."
On June 19, just a few weeks later the commander of U.S. troops in Texas arrived
in Galveston issuing an order that the Emancipation Proclamation now applied to
Texas, ending slavery in the Lone Star State.
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