The Civil War Ended In Texas

Historians usually fail to mention it and Yankees don't believe it, but the fact is the last battle of the Civil War was fought in Texas and won by Confederate forces. It happened on May 13, 1865, exactly 34 days after the war supposedly came to an end.

Colonel John S. "Rip" Ford, a former Texas Ranger who, since 1861, had been in the Rio Grande Valley recruiting and commanding a volunteer force to keep the area in the hands of the South, had succeeded in keeping Brownsville an open port. Yankee forces had taken Brazos Island and blockaded or captured almost every other Confederate port, but never managed to capture Fort Brown or the port of Brownsville. In the spring of 1865, the Union troops, numbering about 2,000 on Brazos Island and about 600 Confederates in Fort Brown and around Brownsville had peacefully co-existed as both sides realized the southern cause was coming to an end. However, in late April, a Union change of command changed things.

Colonel Theodore H. Barrett of the 62nd U.S. Colored Infantry assumed control. Barrett had never led men in combat and he seems to have thirsted for a little battlefield glory before the war ended altogether. In the early hours of May 11, he ordered approximately 300 men, most from the 62nd U.S. Colored Infantry, to proceed from Brazos Island to White's Ranch, where he believed a contingent of Rebels were camped. Arriving at the ranch at 2:00 AM, May 12, they found the Confederates had left several days earlier. They burned the ranch and made camp close to Palmetto Ranch, about 1 1/2 miles away. About noon, they made contact with the handful of Rebels at the ranch, but nobody was hurt as the vastly outnumbered southerners made a strategic advance to the rear. A couple of Texans who were to sick enough to be bedridden were captured along with 4 head of cattle.

Soon afterwards, Colonel Ford arrived on the scene with 200 men and 6 cannon and immediately ordered an attack by 1/2 of his men on the left flank of the Federals. After one volley from the Rebels, the Yankees broke and stampeded in retreat. They reformed about 1/2 mile later though and began a counter attack. Once again, the Rebels fired a volley and this time, several of the cannon joined in. The Yankees stopped in their tracks as they weren't aware the Confederates had any cannon with them. Colonel Ford rode in front of his troops and shouted, "Men, we have whipped the enemy in all our previous fights and we can do it again!" His men responded with cheers and the Rebel yell and began their own counterattack, rushing forward and shooting at everything that moved. From that point on, the fight became a rout.

In their headlong run back to the safety of Brazos Island, the Yankees littered the road with dropped canteens, haversacks, and rifles. When the sun went down, a handful of them fired shots toward the following Confederates and both sides decided to retire for the night. The next morning, May 13, shots from the Rebels proded the Yankees to resume their retreat. Once they neared Brazos Island that evening, the 200 Confederates, knowing there were 1,700 Federals in reserve, backed off their attack and watched as the Yankees pushed and shoved each other trying to get into the skiffs that would take them across the water and to safety.

As darkness descended and the men settled in for the night, a Federal gunboat, the S.S. Isabella, which had entered the Rio Grande, lobbed a shell toward the Rebels. It landed harmlessly in a nearby field, but it angered a 17-year-old Rebel private who leaped to his feet and fired at the gunboat with his Enfield rifle. The last shot of the Civil War had been fired. (see Who Fired The First Shot of the Civil War.)

When the reports were filed, despite all of the shooting, only one man was killed; Union Army Private John Jefferson Williams, of Jay County, Indiana; the last battlefield death in the Civil War. Nine Yankees had been wounded and 103 officers and men captured, most of them from the 34th Indiana. On the Rebel side, there were "only 5 or 6 wounded" according to Colonel Ford. Even the 2 bedridden  Texans captured in the beginning stages of the battle were left behind by the retreating Yankees and found by their southern brothers. The Confederacy had the satisfaction of claiming victory in the last battle of the war.
 

England Day 10

Picture taken from our balcony our last
morning - sunrise over the River Thames.

Got up at 4:00 as we had to finish packing, get checked out of the hotel and be picked up by the car service at 5:15. While reviewing the invoice during check out, I discovered they had charged us for an extra night, plus they had added a 1 Pound charge 5 times for a contribution to "Make A Difference," a local charity. Company won't pay for that and it pissed me off they added it without asking so I had them take it off along with the erroneous extra night. They even charged 30 pence (about 48 cents American) for a room-to-room call one of the guys had made! I'm surprised they didn't add 50 pence every time somebody flushed a toilet. It was a nice hotel, but unless you are made of money, my advice would be to find somewhere other than The Compleat Angler in Marlow, UK.

At the airport, they checked our passports at the ticket counter. Then, they were checked again while waiting in line to get our passports checked (that made a lot of sense) plus we were asked a lot of questions about why we had been in the country, what we had done there, if we packed our own bags, etc. Next we got to the desk where they check your passport and they were checked again. I was in front of the wife and Youngest-daughter with our passports, the security guard checked all our passports and airline tickets, asked the same questions we had just been asked by the previous guard, and waved us on through. As I walked away, I heard him say, "Wait a minute." He evidently had glanced in the wife's handbag and saw a couple of apples she had brought as a snack. No fruit allowed. Now we all had to go to a security checkpoint where they checked our passports and all of our carry-on luggage. Threw away the apples. Walked for what seemed a mile to get to our gate. But before we could go in, we had to go through another security station where they checked our passports and again x-rayed our luggage. Youngest-daughter and I passed on through, but the wife got busted again - she had a bottle of water. How had nobody caught this before now? Had to wait again while they threw away the water and went through all of her luggage.



The big silver bird that will whisk us
back home.

After all the security checks, which I actually didn't mind all that much, we made it to the duty free shopping area and bought a couple of t-shirts. Can't go on a trip like that and not get a t-shirt! Arrived at the gate and only had to wait about 10 minutes before boarding.

A long flight, but fairly comfortable. Each seat had it's own individual screen with plenty of choices of movies, TV shows, and music videos to watch. You could also look at a screen which showed our position, speed, etc. And again we were fed 2 meals, snacks, and beverages.

Shortly before landing, I filled out the little card stating we were not bringing back over $600 worth of personal goods and nothing that would be commercially resold. The wife wanted to know what I was filling out so I handed it to her. Apparently unnerved by her recent security experience, she marked through the check I had placed next to "No" and checked that we were bringing back some food. We had a nice little chat which started with me saying, "Why in the world did you do that? They don't care that we have a couple of boxes of chocolate covered shortbread cookies!" Landed at O'Hare and had to go through security where they checked our passports again. As we were being waved through, once again I heard, "Wait a minute." Uh-oh. "You checked that you are bringing in food so you have to go over there in that other line and get your bags checked." Wonderful, just wonderful. After once again having our carry-on checked (they didn't care at all that we had a couple of sealed boxes of chocolate covered cookies), we had to retrieve our checked luggage, get to another terminal, check in our luggage and go through security again. Since the wife had been relieved of all her contraband, we all made it through OK this time. Good thing we breezed through because we barely made it to our gate in time.

Landed in Little Rock, Arkansas 5 minutes ahead of schedule. A bit weird to leave London at 7:00 AM, travel for 12 1/2 hours and arrive home at 1:30 PM. After retrieving "Little Black Dog" from the kennel, we pulled into our driveway a few minutes before 3:00. I made it until 7:00, when my body was screaming, "It's 1:00 AM fool and you've only had 4 hours of sleep in almost 2 days!" and passed out on the couch. Woke up at 8:30 only to crawl straight into bed and immediately crash again. So tired I slept all the way to 3:30! It's gonna take a couple of days to get the body clock right again, but we had survived another great adventure.
 

England Days 7, 8 & 9

The next 3 days were big for the wife and Youngest-daughter; for me, not so much. Some of the wife's English relatives came to pick them up Monday morning and they went to Windsor Castle and several other places I can't remember. Of course I worked all day. They were nice enough to wait on my return that evening and we all went out to eat. Wife and I had another bland hamburger and chips and Youngest-daughter had chicken strips, all for a mere $65. Those people should be drawn and quartered for charging such outrageous prices for such tasteless food. And it wasn't like we went to some posh, multi-star foo-foo place; we were in a friggin pub!

Tuesday was a worrisome day for me. Wife rented a car early that morning and drove with Youngest-daughter to some other relative's homes about 2 1/2 hours away in Stoke-on-Trent. Another big day for them as they visited the house where my wife's mom grew up, saw the places she told the wife about when she was a kid, met more relatives and looked at pictures of her young mom and grandparents. The wife is not known as a good driver even in America so I had visions of her causing a mass pile-up trying to drive safely on the wrong side of the road. Evidently the concentration required resulted in her being cautious and she made it safely. She spent the night there so I had the bed to myself after another evening of uninspiring expensive food with a large group of people from work.

As I indicated before, we had lunch brought in by the client's food vendor each day so we could continue to work through. Unfortunately, they served the same exact thing every day - weird little dry finger sandwiches (pimento cheese on wheat was the best; little tiny shrimp on white the worst) with no mayo or mustard, hard, dry corn chips and mild "hot" sauce. The first day it wasn't so bad; the 2nd it was ok, but by the 3rd, we were getting pretty tired of them. The 1st day almost all were eaten; the 2nd day a few were left, and the 3rd, only about 1/2 were eaten. On the 4th day, people started verbally protesting and on the 5th, very few were eaten and a full revolt was imminent. Wednesday, our last work day, our host went down and requested they bring us something else. When we received those same sandwiches, we delivered them to a group of web developers (they'll eat anything if it's free!) and our host paid for us to eat in the cafeteria to avoid being beheaded by us peasants.

Wife and Youngest-daughter returned Wednesday evening, once again safe and without a scratch on the rental car. Yes, miracles still happen! It was raining hard and we had to pack for a 4:00 wake up to get to the airport the next morning so we decided to just get room service. Ham sandwich with a few potato chips and a salad with chicken strips wasn't bad - until I got the bill the next morning and found that in addition to the 17 Pounds for the food, they charged a 12.5% tip, a 3 Pound delivery charge and another 3 Pound charge for "tray pickup" - $40 for a room service ham sandwich and salad with chicken strips! Starting to get the picture? It was VERY expensive over there!

And so our trip was basically at an end. My team and I got a lot of work done and wife and Youngest-daughter enjoyed themselves immensely. Youngest-daughter can now go back to school having first hand knowledge in history and geography classes, plus the benefit of learning about a side of her family genealogy. I would judge the trip a success.