Texas In The Civil War

Traces the history of Texas during the Civil War from the passage of the secession ordinance in Austin through the battle of Palmito Ranch, and includes information about Texas sites associated with the war.

On February 1, 1861, delegates at the Texas Secession Convention elected to leave the Union. The people of Texas supported the actions of the convention in a statewide referendum, paving the way for the state to secede and to officially become the seventh state in the Confederacy. Soon the Texans found themselves engaged in a bloody and prolonged civil war against their northern brethren. During the curse of this war, the lives of thousands of Texans, both young and old, were changed forever. This new anthology, edited by Kenneth W. Howell, incorporates the latest scholarly research on how Texans experienced the war. Eighteen contributors take us from the battlefront to the home front, ranging from inside the walls of a Confederate prison to inside the homes of women and children left to fend for themselves while their husbands and fathers were away on distant battlefields, and from the halls of the governor’s mansion to the halls of the county commissioner’s court in Colorado County. Also explored are well-known battles that took place in or near Texas, such as the Battle of Galveston, the Battle of Nueces, the Battle of Sabine Pass, and the Red River Campaign. Finally, the social and cultural aspects of the war receive new analysis, including the experiences of women, African Americans, Union prisoners of war, and noncombatants.

Women in Civil War Texas is the first book dedicated to the unique experiences of Texas women during the Civil War. It fills the literary void in Texas women’s history during this time, connects Texas women’s lives to southern women’s history, and shares the diversity of experiences of women in Texas during the Civil War. An introductory essay situates the anthology within both Civil War and Texas women’s history. Contributors explore Texas women and their vocal support for secession and in support of a war, coping with their husbands’ wartime absences, the importance of letter-writing as a means of connecting families, and how pro-Union sentiment caused serious difficulties for women. They also analyze the effects of ethnicity, focusing on African American, German, and Tejana women’s experiences. Finally, two essays examine the problem of refugee women in east Texas and the dangers facing western frontier women. These essays develop the historical understanding of what it meant to be a Texas woman during the Civil War and also contribute to a deeper understanding of the complexity of the war and its effects.

A well-researched volume, drawing from primary documents, official records, manuscripts and printed sources and works of other Texas and Civil War historians.

In Why Texans Fought in the Civil War, Charles David Grear provides insights into what motivated Texans to fight for the Confederacy. Mining important primary sources—including thousands of letters and unpublished journals—he affords readers the opportunity to hear, often in the combatants’ own words, why it was so important to them to engage in tumultuous struggles occurring so far from home. As Grear notes, in the decade prior to the Civil War the population of Texas had tripled. The state was increasingly populated by immigrants from all parts of the South and foreign countries. When the war began, it was not just Texas that many of these soldiers enlisted to protect, but also their native states, where they had family ties.

Moneyhon looks at the reasons Reconstruction failed to live up to its promise.

Following the Civil War, the United States was fully engaged in a bloody conflict with ex-Confederates, conservative Democrats, and members of organized terrorist groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, for control of the southern states. Texas became one of the earliest battleground states in the War of Reconstruction. Was the Reconstruction era in the Lone Star State simply a continuation of the Civil War? Evidence presented by sixteen contributors in this new anthology, edited by Kenneth W. Howell, argues that this indeed was the case. Topics include the role of the Freedmen's Bureau and the occ.

When civil war broke out in the United States in 1861, Texas joined the Confederate States of America. This book describes the role that Texas and Texans played in the greatest conflict on American soil. Graphic organizers aid readers in understanding this incredibly interesting and tumultuous era.