Civil War on the Rio Grande, Part 2

Civil War on the Civil War on the Rio Grande Rio Grande

PART 2:

By Tom Fort, Senior Historian

Winter 1864.

Some 8,000 Union troops occupy the Rio Grande Valley and the southern coast of Texas. Intended mainly to choke off the Confederate cotton trade through Mexico, the Yankees’ invasion also “shows the flag” to French Imperialists out to conquer Mexico (and trampling the Monroe Doctrine in the process). But the “Rio Grande Expedition” is a failure. Texas cotton still pours through the Mexican port of Bagdad where foreign ships take on bales and unload cargoes for Rebel troops—and for Benito Juárez’ soldiers, still fighting the French invaders who occupy Mexico.

Without letup, the lucrative cotton trade goes on. The reason is all too clear to U. S. Army commanders at Fort Brown: the Rio Grande. Its invisible international boundary frustrates Union strategy.

Late in 1863, after seizing Brownsville, federal units marched west, seizing river crossing points such as Edinburgh (now Hidalgo) and Rio Grande City. Union cavalry rode north also, closing trails used by cotton trains. But the Yankees didn’t count on Rebel and Mexican resourcefulness. Barred from downriver crossings, the cotton wagons rolled further west to Laredo and Eagle Pass. Once safely in neutral Mexico, the wagon drivers turned east on river roads toward Camargo, Reynosa, and Matamoros. At Camargo, on the Rio San Juan, many bales went aboard steamboats operated by M. Kenedy & Company of Brownsville. Put under Mexican registry and flying the Eagle and Serpent flag, the loaded-down boats followed the winding Rio Grande, carefully staying south of the midchannel boundary, which kept the boats in Mexico’s sovereign waters and away from U.S. interference. Water transport was cheaper than wagon, and the longer wagon journeys were starting to run up the costs for cotton shippers. Nevertheless, by wagon and steamboat, thousands of bales kept flowing into Matamoros, and from there to Bagdad.

Offshore, the fleet of merchant ships anchored in Mexican waters kept growing. By 1864, several hundred at a time were loading bales off Bagdad after delivering their cargoes of military weapons and gear along with medicines, liquors, and luxury goods. Frustrated U.S. Navy captains could watch (from their side of the line) but not interfere; should any Union blockader sail toward the anchorage, French and British warships were on hand to deter such meddling. The French Navy blockaded Mexico’s Gulf Coast to prevent military aid from reaching Benito Juárez’ forces. Meanwhile, England’s Royal Navy made sure that Bagdad remained open because British textile mills needed the Confederates’ cotton.

But French mills also needed cotton, resulting in a confused situation in which the rival nations’ warships prevented the

U.S. from interrupting the cotton flow, and thus permitting arms (many of them of American and British origin) to reach juarista troops—who then used the imported muskets and ammunition to blast away at French and other Imperial soldiers.

To further confuse matters, French sympathies leaned toward the Confederates; Emperor Louis Napoleon envisioned a renewed French empire in North America, starting with Mexico and then possibly regaining the Mississippi Valley and Canada. England’s attitude was more or less neutral; while Britain opposed slavery, many Britons openly supported the South because of cotton. (Many Confederate soldiers carried English-made rifles, some of which came in through Bagdad.) But England wasn’t prepared to risk a war with the U.S. and officially stayed out of the conflict.

For its part, Richmond hoped that France would take Mexico and then cross the Rio Grande, where French and Southern troops would join forces and defeat the North. Washington, mindful of that scenario, sent arms and ammunition to Benito Juárez through Bagdad and otherwise supported his fight against the French. London also provided military aid to Juárez (anything to help bite the old rival across the Channel).

Possibly no other location on the planet was as entangled in conflicting international politics and strife as the Lower Rio Grande in the early 1860s.

Adding to the Rio Grande’s explosive atmosphere was Juan Nepomuceno Cortina—one of Valley history’s most controversial characters. Born among the Valley’s native Hispanic people, he was a Robin Hood figure to many, aiding the region’s poor mexicanos against oppressive AngloTexans; many others—particularly Anglos—saw him as a cattle thief and plunderer. From the 1840s into the 1870s, “Cheno” Cortina led a personal war against Anglo-Texan settlers north of the Rio Grande. Denouncing the often rapacious actions of “gringos” toward the region’s Spanish-speaking people, Cortina and his heavily-armed cortinistas attacked ranches, ran off livestock, and raided Brownsville, among other locations. In one memorable exploit in 1860, Cortina assaulted a steamboat loaded with silver specie, but his attempt ended in a battle with U.S. troops (on the boat) and Texas Rangers (who crossed into Mexico to fight him off).

Cortina also immersed himself in northeastern Mexico’s often volatile politics. During the French Intervention and Civil War eras, he allied at times with the juaristas and at other times with the invading imperialistas. Similarly, he sided with the confederados and later with the yanquis—whatever suited his purposes at the moment. Though he may have been an opportunist, there seems little doubt that he also defended the interests of the region’s poor people. His very presence often swayed events on both sides of the river. Juan Cortina remained active (and alive, quite an achievement in itself) throughout the turbulent era. Only in the 1870s was he finally corralled by the Mexican government, spending his last years under virtual house arrest.

April 1864. In the midst of such events and turmoil, the Union high command pulled out most Federal troops along Texas’ southern Gulf coast and in the Valley. This surprise move left a muchreduced force to garrison the Lower Rio Grande. It was a fateful decision destined to give the upper hand to the Confederates, and to set the stage for the war’s last battle.

March 1864. Still determined to stop (or at least slow down) the cotton flow, a Union cavalry troop advanced upriver toward Laredo, aiming to seize the town and close that important river crossing. Alerted by scouts, Confederate commander Col. Santos Benavides (one of several brothers from Laredo, all in CSA service) mustered his troopers, many of them Mexican-Texan vaqueros, and attacked the Yankees near Carrizo. Though they outnumbered Benavides’ men, the Federals withdrew and rode back to Brownsville.

In April, Col. John S. Ford, newly appointed commander of Confederate forces in South Texas, began his campaign to drive the Yankees from Brownsville. With that important crossing reopened, the costs of freighting cotton to Mexico would drop. Starting from Laredo, the Confederates moved down the Rio Grande to Ringgold Barracks, where Ford planned his final drive on Brownsville. Advance units scouted the country; the main force then rode on, into Cameron County. At Rancho Las Rucias, a village west of Brownsville on the Military Highway, they attacked a Federal encampment. In a half-hour battle, the Rebels tried to encircle the smaller Union cavalry force, but the bluecoats managed to escape, some by swimming across to Mexico. As the Federals returned to Fort Brown, Ford’s men followed and soon rode into Brownsville itself. The Union garrison evacuated the fort and pulled back to Brazos Santiago Island. The Rio Grande Valley was again in Confederate hands. Cotton flowed once more through Brownsville to Matamoros and Bagdad.

Fall 1864. News from the eastern states told of more Confederate setbacks. Grant pounded Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia remorselessly, finally besieging the Rebels in Petersburg. Sherman marched across northern Georgia, took Savannah in December, then cut a northward swath through South Carolina. On Brazos Santiago Island, meanwhile, the Federal troops tried not to die from boredom. Among them were two regiments of free African American soldiers, known as United States Colored Troops or USCTs.

In September, Imperial forces occupied Matamoros and the river’s south bank. Shipments of military supplies now came through Bagdad for French, Austrian and Belgian forces in northeastern Mexico. Still, Uncle Sam managed to get arms and equipment to Juárez, lest the French win and join the Rebels. In Brownsville, Ford watched his own forces shrink as men left to go home, convinced the war was lost. Cotton still went out, but the flow lessened as economic stagnation set in. So things continued through winter into spring.

March 1865. A Union general arrived at Brazos Santiago on a secret mission. With Lincoln’s approval, the officer arranged to meet with

local Confederate commanders in the hope of establishing a cease-fire along the Lower Rio Grande. A Union presence on the river could aid Juarez and blunt any French attempt to cross the Rio Grande. Under a truce, the blue-coated general and his escort sailed over to Point Isabel and met with Col. Ford and Gen. James Slaughter. Though agreed to by the Confederates, the truce later was denounced and repudiated by the commander of Confederate forces in Texas.

His plan a failure, the Yankee general returned east. But people in Texas and elsewhere would hear from him again. His name was Lew Wallace, and in later years his novel BenHur would be a worldwide best-seller.

In April, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox, and Lincoln died at the hand of Booth. News of both earthshaking events probably reached the Rio Grande Valley by May. (News traveled fast in those days — even without television, cell phones, and ipads.) But in Texas, the war was not yet over — not for the remaining Confederate troops, and not for the Yankees, either. Few could have guessed that the war, which began at Fort Sumter four years earlier, was about to end on the Rio Grande.

May 11, 1865. A Union infantry force on Brazos Santiago Island crossed to the mainland and marched along the Rio Grande, destination Brownsville. The objective, evidently, was to seize stockpiled cotton. Another goal may have been battlefield glory for Col. Theodore Barrett, who dispatched the column and led reinforcements to join it two days later. Comprised mainly of USCTs, an Indiana regiment, and a cavalry troop of Union Texans (fighting as infantry), the column traipsed in the heat, watched from across the river by Imperial troops who sent word to Matamoros and from there to Fort Brown. When Ford heard of the approaching danger, he rallied his men and rode east, taking along his artillery and—reportedly—a number of French and Austrians who came over to join the fun.

At Palmito Ranch, the Union soldiers engaged a troop of Confederate cavalrymen, who retreated west until they ran into Ford’s oncoming force. In no uncertain terms, Ford halted their progress and turned them around. The now combined Rebel forces galloped to Palmito Ranch. With yells, gunfire, and cannon blasts, the Confederates hit the Yankees and soon sent them retreating east. The African-Americans in the USCT regiments formed a stolid and orderly rear guard that enabled the main force to return to Brazos Santiago. At sundown, the Union troops were back on the island. The Civil War’s last land battle was over.

In June 1865, Texas officially surrendered. Texas slaves were declared free on June 19, still celebrated today as “Juneteenth.” That same month Gen. Joe Shelby led a column of die-hard former Rebel soldiers across the Rio Grande at Eagle Pass to escape Yankee rule. In Mexico, Benito Juárez’ toughened soldiers battered Imperial forces at the battle of Santa Gertrudis in 1866, a victory that helped free the Rio Grande from French rule. Juárez triumphed the next year when the last Imperial troops left Mexico, and he became its president.

Along the Rio Grande, U.S. troops again occupied Fort Brown and Ringgold Barracks, soon renamed Fort Ringgold. The Army began rebuilding both forts with brick; many of those buildings can be seen today. Economic stagnation gripped the region, relieved later by the boom in Texas’ cattle industry. As the Civil War years receded into fitful memory, those who lived through the giddy cotton trade era remembered it as los algodones, the cotton times.

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