Lone Star (77 page)

Although the talks fell through, Wallace and the Confederates agreed to a truce on the Rio Grande. Nothing that happened there would decide the war. For two months, then, as Lee endured his final agony in Virginia, a gentleman's agreement kept peace on the Palo Alto.

At this time, a new officer, Colonel Theodore H. Barrett of the 62d Infantry (Negro) commanded at Brazos de Santiago. Barrett had his own regiment, plus the 34th Indiana; the Morton Rifles, a New York regiment; and some Texas cavalry, commanded now by a Brownsville man, Jack Haynes. He was well supported with artillery. Barrett was a politically appointed officer, who had so far seen no combat service. As one of his officers wrote, and was published later in the New York
Times
, Barrett, like hundreds of other Northern officers, was looking forward to a political career. He felt he had "to establish for himself some notoriety before the war closed." He asked his immediate commander, General E. B. Brown, for permission to demonstrate against the Confederates. The Union department headquarters, where this request went, told him to stay quietly on his sand hills. Despite his orders, and the vehement protests of Lieutenant Colonel Branson of the 34th Indiana, Barrett decided to do great things.

At sunup, May 12, 1865, he ordered his Negro regiment to march to Palmito Hill. About dusk, they were halted by Giddings's rifle fire. Giddings sent riders to Ford in Brownsville, and within the hour, Ford had couriers galloping through the brush. The Cavalry of the West was called in; Ford was angry at this breach of the truce, and determined to fight.

But in Brownsville, General Slaughter was demoralized. He ordered the wagons loaded; he had confiscated a carriage from a civilian and packed his personal gear. Slaughter was going to order a general retreat. At supper that night, Ford's blue eyes were deadly cold. He told Slaughter something that he obviously had been holding back a long time: "You can retreat and go to Hell if you wish. These are my men and I am going to fight!"

By eleven on May 13, Ford's horsemen were thundering in. He marshaled them on the parade ground at Fort Brown. He now had artillery—some fine French guns "loaned" him by Commandant Véron. Ford mounted, and the Cavalry of the West rode southeast, to the sound of Giddings's guns.

Four hours brought the column to Palmito Hill, now wreathed in powder smoke. Giddings was fighting steadily against a strong Federal skirmish line; Barrett threw his whole strength into a general advance. The Indiana and New York regiments, however, had been marched inland during the night at a forced pace; these men were already deadly tired in the humid heat.

Ford took his cavalry into a clump of thick brush that curved along the edge of the Palo Alto plain. He sent some infantry to annoy the Federals on the other flank, while his field pieces, under Lieutenant O. G. Jones, were unlimbered on Palmito Hill. Jones opened fire, with demoralizing effect.

Ford, on a nervous, prancing horse, shouted at his Texans: "Men, we have whipped the enemy in all previous fights. We can do it again." The troops cheered, and this drew Yankee fire into the thicket. Ford yelled, "Charge!"

He led three hundred horsemen galloping into the Federal flank. According to Carrington, the yell the Cavalry sent up could be heard above the guns over three miles of prairie. Shrieking, shooting, they struck the Union skirmish line and broke it into a hundred fleeing parts. There was nothing more frightening to scattered men on foot than to be overtaken by a thundering cavalry charge. The veteran New Yorkers and Hoosiers never had a chance. Barrett ordered a general retreat, but in his fear and confusion forgot to call in his extended picket line. The Cavalry rode these men, who stood and tried to fight, down to the last man.

Three times during a seven-mile retreat toward the Brazos de Santiago, Barrett tried to halt and fight. But nothing was harder to turn around than a general retreat. Ford kept his horse artillery close behind. It threw shells into the Federal stands. The Cavalry rode around them and broke them up. At dusk, with the rearguard stumbling with exhaustion, firing wildly against the circling pursuit, the broken Union command reached the salt waters of Boca Chica. They splashed across in bits and bunches. The color sergeant of the 34th Indiana wrapped the regimental flag about his body and tried to swim to Brazos Island. A Texan bullet killed him, and Ford's horsemen seized the flag from the water.

The last event of this weird day, which took place over a month after Lee surrendered at Appomattox, was the ride of General Slaughter. Slaughter had not ridden to Palmito Hill, but had stayed in Brownsville to watch the Mexicans. Now, at the head of Carrington's battalion, he dashed up to Ford and demanded that Ford continue to punish the Yankees. Ford refused; he was not going to send his men against Brazos Island in the dark. Slaughter then rode furiously to Boca Chica, pushed his horse withers-deep in the tide, and emptied his revolver at the stumbling Yankees—three hundred yards away. The battalion behind him watched in amazement and no little disgust.

Ford that night drew back above Palmito and took count. The victory was staggering: no Confederates were dead, although there were a number of wounded men. By comparison, the 34th Indiana had lost 220 out of the 300 soldiers on its rolls. Union dead lay all over the battlefield, and strung over the seven miles to the sea. Other bodies floated in the Rio Grande; they were drowned Union infantry who had tried to swim the river to escape the terrible charging horse. Ford had also taken 111 men and 4 officers as prisoners of war. He released these men, and later, in his memoirs, stated that no distinction was made between genuine Yankees from New York and the Negro soldiers and Southern renegades—all were "agreeably surprised" at being released.

This was not the whole truth. The prisoners who made it back to Brazos Island told a different tale. They had seen many of Haynes's Texas Unionists shot down after they had surrendered, though Jack Haynes himself was spared. Most of these Southern deserters had died fighting rather than surrender.

The survivors also told Barrett something that must have grated on his soul. Several of Ford's men said they knew the "war was played out," and they would have surrendered if Barrett had come forward and demanded it with white troops. But they would never surrender "to niggers." A bitter pride prevailed.

Palmito Hill was the last pitched battle of the Civil War. There were reasons on both sides that made it preferable to forget, and so it was.

A few days after the battle, General E. B. Brown of the Union Army sent Colonel Ford a flag of truce and a message. Ford was informed that General Lee had surrendered at Appomattox more than a month before. Ford cursed violently for a spell, then began to laugh. He agreed, not to surrender but to an exchange of courtesies.

Federal officers rode into Brownsville. Ford entertained them at his house. One Union major remarked that if his wife knew what he was doing, she would not speak to him. In these last days, there was more than a little understanding among the soldiers, North and South, and a shared weariness that transcended bitterness. But the major's remark, and similar things General Lew Wallace had said about his conviviality with Confederates at Point Isabel, prophesied that bad times would come, from civilians, after the war.

Rip Ford hugely enjoyed taking a party of Federal officers across to Matamoros, where they attended an Imperialist military revue as his guests. The French were badly startled. Although French officers held lively discussions in those days about defeating the U.S. Army in battle, an end to the American war boded ill for the French presence in Mexico. Ford, who cordially detested the French, delighted in keeping them mystified as to real events.

General Sheridan had embarked from City Point, Virginia, with 25,000 Federal troops, bound for the Rio Grande. Ford knew the war was over, but Slaughter, in command, was intransigent. Slaughter refused to surrender; he wanted to take the command south and formally join the Mexican Imperialists, in the hope that the Confederacy would rise again under the French aegis. Ford and the majority of the Cavalry of the West were not interested. Ford turned down General Mejía's offer to send lancers disguised in civilian clothes to help him hold Brownsville.

Over Ford's objection, Slaughter sold the Confederate artillery to Mejía for 20,000 silver pesos. Apparently, Slaughter planned to keep this money, or at least keep control of it, in the name of the South. Ford insisted that the
 

Confederacy was dead and that former Confederate property rightfully belonged to the troops. In this, the entire Texan army agreed with him.

Ford now arrested General Slaughter at pistol-point. The silver was confiscated and distributed among the Cavalry for back pay. Only a small number of the troops, still in Brownsville, received money. Ford took $4,000 for himself; this was, however, less than his arrears. Slaughter then signed over his command to Ford on May 26, 1865.

Ford dismissed the Cavalry the same day, and took his family south of the border with Mejía's consent. The Federals marched into Brownsville unopposed.

Kirby-Smith surrendered the Trans-Mississippi Department on June 2. For the next month, prominent Confederates passed over the Rio Grande. Officers thronged Maximilian's capital; a grandiose colonization project was begun on the Mexican Gulf coast. These plans fell through; Maximilian, soon to be deserted by the French, had no help to give, nor were the Southerners comfortable in a foreign land. When the Union offered paroles and declared an amnesty in July, most soon returned. Fever, clericalism, autocracy, racial antipathy, and homesickness brought them north. Rip Ford came back to Brownsville on July 18. He was courteously received by General Sheridan, and helped other Confederates return.

There were some diehard souls in the Cavalry of the West. They joined with other groups, some from far Missouri. They mounted for the last time on Texas soil, then rode south to join Maximilian's army. At the Rio Grande, they wrapped their faded Southern battle standards in canvas and buried them in the silty sand.

These men left their bones in many lands, from Mexico to France. The flags of the Cavalry of the West, unresurrected, rotted away.

Chapter 21

THE CONQUERED

Yankees went to war animated by the highest ideals of the nineteenth-century middle classes. . . . But what the Yankees achieved . . . was not a triumph of middle-class ideals but of middle-class vices. The most striking products of their crusade were the shoddy aristocracy of the North and the ragged children of the South. Among the masses of Americans there were no victors, only the vanquished.

KENNETH STAMPP, NORTHERN HISTORIAN

THERE was no formal surrender in Texas after Palmito Hill. The Confederate army and state government simply melted away.

Generals Kirby-Smith, Magruder, Slaughter, and Governor Murrah all took refuge in Mexico. The soldiers disbanded and went home. Human detritus from the war filled the roads and clustered in the dusty towns. The blaze of courage had burned out; the Southern sun had long passed high noon; everywhere there was a stunned feeling of despair. The people had put too much into the war, and were sapped.

The returning soldiers were scarred by bitterness, not only at defeat but by a gnawing feeling that their sacrifices had not been shared. Inept and unscrupulous politicians had wasted the South's resources, while the home front had let them down during the war. In mass meetings at La Grange and in Fayette County, soldiers seized and distributed Confederate and state property to indigent military families. Stores in San Antonio were pillaged; the state treasury was robbed. All government had collapsed. However, property in private hands was not molested by the veterans, bitter as they were.

The great mass of poor farmers in the corn belt were sullen about the present and frightened for the future. In 1865 almost every farmer in Texas could be classified as "poor white." All progress had ceased for a total of four years. The farmers had borne the brunt of the bloodshed and sweat during the war; they now tended to blame their troubles on the slaves. The hatred of Negroes above the falls of the Brazos and Colorado was a flaming thing.

The planter class was demoralized. Its entire capital, moral and financial, had been shot away. The Southern way of life had received a stunning defeat, not quickly, not cleanly, but through a degrading conflict of attrition. All money, deposits, and bank stocks of this class were gone, as well as their prime source of wealth, their Negro slaves. The loss of illusions and ideals was profound.

The economy and future of Texas lay in ruins. Fully one-fourth of the productive white male population was dead, disabled, or dispersed. Almost every form of real wealth, except the land itself, was dissipated or destroyed. The world was not to see such wholesale ruin again until the wars of the next century.

On June 19, 1865, General Gordon Granger of the Union Army landed in Texas. At Galveston he proclaimed, in the name of President Johnson, that the authority of the United. States over Texas was restored, that all acts of the Confederacy were null and void, and that the slaves were free. This was the historic "Juneteenth," afterward celebrated by Texas Negroes as Emancipation Day.

Thousands of bluecoats arrived in Texas; 52,000 were sent to the border areas alone. This force was meant to overawe the French. The other thousands congregating along the coast were sent as a show of force to keep order in the state. None of these troops proceeded to the old Indian forts; few marched to the interior. They camped in the centers of population in the east. There was no opposition. All Texans conceded that the main war issue—secession—was dead, killed by the force of arms. Nor was there any real opposition to the end of slavery, which had become a driving force behind the Union crusade.