Texas Almanac, 2002-2003 Page: 47
672 p. : col. ill., ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this book.
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History
Texas Unionists led by E.J. Davis were active in the
Valley, moving as far upriver as Rio Grande City. Con-
federate Col. John S. "Rip" Ford, commanding state
troops, finally pushed the Union soldiers out of Browns-
ville in July 1864, reopening the important port for the
Confederacy.
Most Texans never saw a Union soldier during the
war. The only ones they might have seen were in the
prisoner-of-war camps. The largest, Camp Ford, near
Tyler, housed 5,000 prisoners. Others operated in Kerr
County and at Hempstead.
As the war dragged on, the mood of Texans
changed. Those on the homefront began to feel they
were sacrificing loved ones and suffering hardship so
cotton speculators could profit.
Public order broke down as refugees flocked to
Texas. And slaves from other states were sent to Texas
for safekeeping. When the war ended, there were an
estimated 400,000 slaves in Texas, more than double the
number counted in the 1860 census.
Morale was low in Texas in early 1865. Soldiers at
Galveston and Houston began to mutiny. At Austin,
Confederate soldiers raided the state treasury in March
and found only $5,000 in specie. Units broke up, and the
army simply dissolved before Gen. Robert E. Lee sur-
rendered at Appomattox in April 1865.
The last battle of the Civil War was fought at
Palmito Ranch near Brownsville on May 11, 1865.
After the Confederate unit's victory, it learned of the
South's defeat.
Reconstruction
On June 19, 1865, Gen. Gordon Granger, under
the command of Gen. Philip M. Sheridan, arrived in
Galveston with 1,800 federal troops to begin the Union
occupation of Texas. Gen. Granger proclaimed the
emancipation of the slaves.
A.J. Hamilton, a Unionist and former congressman
from Texas, was named provisional governor by Presi-
dent Andrew Johnson.
Texas was in turmoil. Thousands of the state's men
had died in the conflict. Indian raids had caused as much
damage as the skirmishes with the Union army, causing
the frontier to recede up to 100 miles eastward in some
areas.
Even worse, confusion reigned. No one knew what
to expect from the conquering forces.
Gen. Granger dispatched troops to the population
centers of the state to restore civil authority. But only a
handful of the 50,000 federal troops that came to Texas
was stationed in the interior. Most were sent to the Rio
Grande as a show of force against the French forces in
Mexico, and clandestine aid was supplied to Mexican
President Benito Juarez in his fight against the French
and Mexican royalists.
The frontier forts, most of which were built during
the early 1850s by the federal government to protect
western settlements, had been abandoned by the U.S.
Army after secession. These were not remanned, and a
prohibition against a militia denied settlers a means of
self-defense against Indian raids.
Thousands of freed black slaves migrated to the cit-
ies, where they felt the federal soldiers would provide
protection. Still others traveled the countryside, seeking
family members and loved ones from whom they hadbeen separated during the war.
The Freedman's Bureau, authorized by Congress
in March 1865, began operation in September 1865
under Gen. E.M. Gregory. It had the responsibility to
provide education, relief aid, labor supervision and judi-
cial protection for the newly freed slaves.
The bureau was most successful in opening schools
for blacks. Education was a priority because 95 percent
of the freed slaves were illiterate.
The agency also was partially successful in getting
blacks back to work on plantations under reasonable
labor contracts.
Some plantation owners harbored hopes that they
would be paid for their property loss when the slaves
were freed. In some cases, the slaves were not released
from plantations for up to a year.
To add to the confusion, some former slaves had the
false notion that the federal government was going to
parcel out the plantation lands to them. These blacks
simply bided their time, waiting for the division of land.
Under pressure from President Johnson, Gov.
Hamilton called for an election of delegates to a consti-
tutional convention in January 1866. Hamilton told the
gathering what was expected: Former slaves were to be
given civil rights; the secession ordinance had to be
repealed; Civil War debt had to be repudiated; and sla-
very was to be abolished with ratification of the Thir-
teenth Amendment.
Many delegates to the convention were former
secessionists, and there was little support for compro-
mise.
J.W. Throckmorton, a Unionist and one of eight
men who had opposed secession in the convention of
1861, was elected chairman of the convention. But a
coalition of conservative Unionists and Democrats con-
trolled the meeting. As a consequence, Texas took lim-
ited steps toward appeasing the victorious North.
Slavery was abolished, and blacks were given some
civil rights. But they still could not vote and were barred
from testifying in trials against whites.
No action was taken on the Thirteenth Amendment
because, the argument went, the amendment already had
been ratified.
Otherwise, the constitution that was written fol-
lowed closely the constitution of 1845. President
Johnson in August 1866 accepted the new constitution
and declared insurrection over in Texas, the last of the
states of the Confederacy so accepted under Presiden-
tial Reconstruction.
Throckmorton was elected governor in June, along
with other state and local officials. However, Texans had
not learned a lesson from the war.
When the Legislature met, a series of laws limiting
the rights of blacks were passed. In labor disputes, for
example, the employers were to be the final arbitrators.
The codes also bound an entire family's labor, not just
the head of the household, to an employer.
Funding for black education would be limited to
what could be provided by black taxpayers. Since few
blacks owned land or had jobs, that provision effectively
denied education to black children. The thrust of the
laws and the attitude of the legislators was clear, how-
ever: Blacks simply were not to be considered full citi-
zens.
Many of the laws later were overturned by the
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Ramos, Mary G. Texas Almanac, 2002-2003, book, 2001; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth162510/m1/47/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.