Texas In The Confederacy

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.

Military Installations, Economy and People.

The Lost Colony of the Confederacy is the story of a grim, quixotic journey of twenty thousand Confederates to Brazil at the end of the American Civil War. Although it is not known how many Confederates migrated to South America-estimates range from eight thousand to forty thousand-their departure was fueled by bitterness over a lost cause and a distaste for an oppressive victor. Encouraged by Emperor Dom Pedro, most of these exiles settled in Brazil. Although at the time of the Civil War the exodus was widely known and discussed as an indicator of the resentment against the Northern invaders and strict governmental measures, The Lost Colony of the Confederacy is the first book to focus on this mass migration. Eugene Harter vividly describes the lives of these last Confederates who founded their own city and were called Os Confederados. They retained much of their Southernness and lent an American flavor to Brazilian culture. First published in 1985, this work details the background of the exodus and describes the life of the twentiethcentury descendants, who have a strong link both to Southern history and to modern Brazil. The fires have cooled, but it is useful to understand the intense feelings that sparked the migration to Brazil. Southern ways have melded into Brazilian, and both are linked by the unbreakable bonds of history, as shown in this revealing account. The late EUGENE C. HARTER retired from the U.S. Senior Foreign Service and lived in Chestertown, Maryland, until his death in 2010. He was the grandson and greatgrandson of Confederates who left Texas and Mississippi as a part of the great Confederate migration in the late 1860s. Harter is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

"Historians examining the Confederacy have often assumed the existence of a monolithic South unified behind the politics and culture of slavery. In addition, they have argued for the emergence of a strong central state government in the Confederacy. In Texas in the Confederacy, Clayton E. Jewett challenges these assumptions by examining Texas politics with an emphasis on the virtually neglected topic of the Texas legislature. In doing so, Jewett shows that an examination of state legislative activity during this period is essential to understanding Texas's relationship with the Indian tribes, the states in Trans-Mississippi Department, and the Confederate government."--Jacket

“An accurate and absorbing account of all the Civil War campaigns in which any Texas organizations participated - such famous units as Hood’s Texas Brigade, Walker’s Division, Terry’s Texas Rangers and Sibley’s Arizona Brigades, as well as many little-known ones. Texas troops fought in every theater of the Civil War outside the state, and at home had problems to contend with that most of the other states didn’t have; a long coastline and a long frontier had to be guarded, one from the federals and the other from the Indians. The most brilliant operation fought, says Colonel Henderson, was the battle of Sabine Pass, September 8, 1863. The young lieutenant Dick Dowling and a company of 44 Irish guards successfully defended against an invasion attempt at the mouth of the Sabine River by a force of 5000 union soldiers. A full account of this engagement in the terms of a professional soldier is given under the “1st Heavy Artillery Regiment” chapter. One of the most daring plans of the South, aimed at seizing the entire Southwest to the California coast, was the invasion of New Mexico by a brigade of Texans under Harry Hopkins Sibley. The little-known story of this brigade and the battles it fought in the arid territory along the Rio Grande in New Mexico are told in the intensely human chapter on “Sibley’s Arizona Brigade”. TEXAS IN THE CONFEDERACY is doubly valuable for bringing together all the organizations into one handy book, and for creating through this compilation a stirring story of patriotism, bravery, humor and action that will be a source of pride for every Texan and of exciting reading for all.”-Print ed.

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.