TEXAS HORSEMEN OF THE SEA, IN GALVESTON HARBOR, JANUARY, 1863
General John Bankhead Magruder was born in Winchester, Virginia, on
the 15th of August, 1810. He came of not only a distinguished but a
martial family. Singularly attractive in personality, he entered West
Point and graduated from that institution in 1830.
Thirty-six years of age when the Mexican War began, he was not
without a wide military experience, and on many battlefields had
exhibited the superb courage which marked his entire career as a
Confederate officer. He won fame at Palo Alto in the Mexican War, he
earned a brevet at Cerro Gordo, and at Chapultepec and in the City
of Mexico he added still more largely to his splendid reputation
for gallantry and dash. Imbued with all the patriotic state pride
and love of a native born Virginian, he early resigned his position
in the United States army and took service under the Confederate
government.
By March 16, 1861, he was colonel; ninety days later a brigadier
general; less than four months afterward he was a major general;
and, with probably one exception, when it was claimed he was tardy,
he justified the opinion of his friends and superiors that he was a
great soldier, an eminent strategist, with extraordinary aptitude for
all phases and departments of war.
In the Virginia-Yorktown campaign in 1861, he fought the Battle of
Big Bethel. He was then only a colonel, but there he ranked such men
as D. H. Hill and others of great future renown.
Big Bethel was not much of a battle after all, but it served to
stimulate and nourish Southern pride, and helped also to arouse
Northern patriotism. With one man killed and seven wounded, it is
with reluctance that it can be called a battle at all. The most that
General Magruder could enumerate as a loss on the Federal side (with
all the bias of a general anxious to promote hope in his countrymen),
was from twenty-five to thirty killed and a hundred and fifty wounded.
On this field fell the first martyr to the Southern cause. He was a
member of the 1st North Carolina Infantry, and volunteered with four
others to cross the firing line and burn a house, from which it was
supposed the Federals would have superior advantages in their assault
on the Confederate position. When he fell, his companions were
recalled.
North Carolina, with the noble impulses of a great state, and with
commendable pride in its magnificent reputation in the Confederate
War; has builded a monument to the first, not only of her sons, but
all the South’s sons, who laid down their lives for the life of the
Confederacy.
This young man was Henry L. Wyatt, only a private in the 1st North
Carolina Regiment, yet he won imperishable fame by his service,
which, while not more glorious than the thousands of others who
later made the great sacrifice for their country, became preeminent
because he was the first to shed out his blood for the Southland.
From this battle, so ably directed by General Magruder, comes North
Carolina’s claim, “First at Bethel.”
Not only in the United States army, but in the Confederate army,
General Magruder was known as “Prince John.” Careful of his person,
inclined to stylishness in dress, even before the war, at Newport,
Rhode Island, he was considered among the handsomest, as well as the
most courteous and gracious of American soldiers.
In the seven days’ battle around Richmond, and at the sad finality of
that wondrous campaign, Malvern Hill, Magruder bore a distinguished
and valorous part.
In the fall of 1862, matters had reached almost a crisis in Texas.
Jealousies, which calmer judgment now declares unfortunate though
not unusual, among proud and patriotic men, had seriously affected
the success of Confederate arms west of the Mississippi. A head was
needed, and so, of the general officers in the East, General Magruder
was selected by the government, not only as a successful soldier,
but as a high grade organizer, to assume charge of the affairs of
the great territory west of the Mississippi. This department had
boundless possibilities. It had material for great soldiers. Its men,
accustomed to hardships, trained to the highest physical endurance
by their daily surroundings, and accustomed to danger and adventure,
were ready to volunteer with readiest alacrity, and to fight without
fear. The splendid achievements of the trans-Mississippi volunteers
will stand the closest scrutiny, and the sharpest comparison
with any of those heroes, who by their courage and endurance won
renown for the armies of Tennessee and Northern Virginia. Their
deeds, though not yet justly and fully chronicled, will, when truly
recorded, add still more resplendence to the name of “Confederate
Soldier.”
It was believed that the generals, hitherto operating with separate
commands, would recognize General Magruder’s superior ability
and justly earned reputation, and that under his guidance, wide
experience and honorably won fame, would co-operate in the campaigns
in Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas and Missouri, and when massed under
a man of General Magruder’s genius and skill would stay threatened
Federal invasion and produce the results their fighting qualities
might reasonably be expected to evolve.
After starting upon his journey, circumstances arose which recalled
him temporarily; but toward the end of October, in 1862, he reached
Texas.
General Magruder early realized the necessity of holding the line
of the Rio Grande, which for more than twelve hundred miles was the
boundary between the Confederate states and the Republic of Mexico.
Along so many hundreds of miles of waterway, and a line which
presented a great many military difficulties, it was impossible for
the United States, without a base on the Gulf of Mexico, to interrupt
or prevent the transportation and sale of cotton and the return of
supplies through Mexico, which at that time were almost absolutely
necessary to maintain an organized army in Texas. The preservation
of this territory was a military necessity. It divided the Federal
forces and kept a great number of men engaged in defending the
flanks of the armies operating along the Mississippi River and the
Gulf of Mexico.
Up to the time of Magruder’s coming, those in command in Louisiana
and Texas had practically conceded that a full defence of the Texan
coast was impracticable. Galveston, by reason of its peculiar
topographical position, had been abandoned. A small Federal force was
quartered on the wharves, close to the limits of the city, while the
Federal fleet, outside, prevented egress and ingress to the harbor,
and only waited reinforcements to make a more permanent and extensive
occupation and by closing the avenues to Mexico, make complete the
blockade of the entire borders of the Confederacy.
General Magruder was considered one of the best strategists in the
Confederate army. By quick movements and the rapid disposition of
troops, he had delayed General McClellan’s march along the Yorktown
Peninsula several weeks, and he was now resolved to rid the coast of
Texas of Federal invasion and to restore Galveston to Confederate
control. He had but few of the more powerful resources of military
arts at his command; his artillery was limited; he had no gunboats
and no material from which to make a gunboat that could ride the
ocean storms; but his coming with a magnificent past of military
achievement, and his personal confidence and courage, quickly
inspired the people in the proximity of Galveston with the highest
opinions of his talents and gallantry, and created hope where the
surroundings declared there could be no hope.
It is fifty miles from Houston to Galveston, and the Brazos River,
together with the bayous, afforded communication with the Gulf,
through the harbor at Galveston to that city. Prompt in action and
resolute of purpose, General Magruder reconnoitered the situation at
Galveston, and determined to re-take the place. He only proposed to
make this attempt after a very careful survey and an equally careful
arrangement of his plans. The Federal fleet blockading Galveston was
not very extensive, yet was so out of proportion to anything that the
Confederates could bring to bear upon it, that an attack on it was
considered absolutely foolhardy.
General Magruder had brought with him from Virginia a few hundred
Enfield rifles. These proved of tremendous value in the operations
he was to undertake at Galveston. Shotguns and ordinary hunting
rifles were not very satisfactory, unless at very close range, and
while General Magruder may not have anticipated such service as they
should render at Galveston, it was deemed by his followers extremely
fortunate that he had the foresight to introduce, with his coming to
his new field of operation, these English guns.
Among Federal vessels blockading the port at Galveston was the
_Harriet Lane_, commanded by Captain Wainwright; she carried four
heavy guns and two twenty-four-pounders. The _Westfield_, mounting
eight guns, was a large propeller, and the flagship of Commodore
Renshaw, in command of the blockading fleet. The _Owasco_, another
propeller, carried eight heavy guns; the _Clifton_, a propeller with
four heavy guns and an armed schooner were among the vessels which
composed the fleet which General Magruder, with the most inadequate
means, proposed to attack and destroy, or put to flight.
As early as the beginning of 1863, the Confederate cavalry had been
taught to be ready for any service, whether in scouting, raiding,
assaulting infantry or defending forts. In the demands upon cavalry,
the Confederate authorities were no respecter of persons, and that a
man belonged to the cavalry gave him no exemption from any service
that infantry or artillery could perform.
By the 1st of November, 1862, General Magruder issued a call for
volunteers. Hand bills were distributed throughout the city of
Houston, calling for enlistments. It had been given out that Captain
Leon Smith would have charge of the operations by water. These
calls received few responses. Some said it was the hazard of the
expedition, others were unwilling to volunteer under Captain Smith,
a stranger. Call after call fell on deaf ears, and incredible minds
and unwilling hearts, so far as the citizens and the sailors about
Houston were concerned.
General Magruder’s plans seemed doomed to failure, when Lieutenant
Colonel Bagby of the cavalry suggested to General Magruder that
Colonel Tom Green was a man of boundless courage and also of
unlimited resources. The history of General Green’s intrepidity,
fortitude, and superior ability in extricating his brigade from New
Mexico a few months before had spread abroad through Texas, and after
this superb performance, many people thought there was nothing that
General Green could not accomplish.
General Magruder promptly sent for General Green and unfolded to
him his plan of attack on Galveston, and suggested to him to take
three hundred volunteers from his cavalry, and with these, on board
two steamboats under command of Captain Leon Smith, aid in General
Magruder’s attempt to recapture Galveston. But General Green,
conscious of his power and confident of his ability as a leader of
men, declined to embark on boats under the command of Captain Smith,
insisting that, as he was supreme on the land, he must also be
supreme on the sea; and then it was that General Magruder, pleased
with the spirit of the man, entrusted to Colonel Green the command
of the two river steamers, the _Bayou City_ and the _Neptune_, which
had been rudely converted into marine rams with a few cotton bales to
protect their wheels and engines.
It required immeasurable courage in such frail and unseaworthy boats
to pass out into the Gulf of Mexico, or into the harbor at Galveston,
and attack war vessels. General Green, now fifty-one years of age,
had led a most strenuous life, and it was too late for him to take
counsel of fear. He went back to his command full of the excitement
and glamour of glory’s calls and issued the following order:
“Soldiers, you are called upon to volunteer in a dangerous
expedition. I have never deceived you, I will not deceive you now. I
regard this as the most desperate enterprise that men ever engaged
in. I shall go, but I do not know that I shall ever return; I do not
know that any who go with me will, and I want no man to volunteer who
is not willing to die for his country and to die now.”
None could say that they misunderstood the purport of this laconic
but stirring and impassioned appeal. The 5th and 7th regiments had
been recruited to a full quota. Not five in a hundred had ever been
to sea; they knew nothing of the management of any sort of seagoing
vessel, but they did know that General Green wanted them to go and
they did go, largely because he was going with them. When the two
regiments were drawn up in line and volunteers called for, be it said
to the renown of Texas and to the honor of the Confederate soldier
that, without an instant’s hesitation, or a moment’s delay, every man
in these two regiments stepped forward and declared his willingness
to take the chances of war in an expedition of which they knew
nothing, except that their beloved commander told them that while
it might lead through the paths of glory, it also might lead to the
grave.
In all the history of the Confederate armies, so replete with the
highest and noblest heroism, there is no record of anything grander
or more inspiring than this act of the men of these two regiments,
offering, in the face of the warning of their beloved commander, to
go with him, if needs be, even unto present death, to serve their
country.
A cavalryman never likes to give up his horse. There is a sense of
safety, as well as a sense of pride in the cavalry mount. And when
those valiant Texans went away and committed their steeds to the
care of their comrades, it added a new radiance to their courage
and valor. Ready to leave their beasts to enter upon an element of
which they knew nothing and engage in an enterprise of which they
were profoundly ignorant, all because, through the voice of their
commander, they heard the call of country bidding them go to meet the
foes of the land they loved, was both an unusual and an extraordinary
exhibition of patriotism and of obedience to duty’s demands.
But, like those with Gideon of old, three hundred alone could assume
the dangers and win the honors of this peculiar engagement.
Some members of the 4th Regiment heard of the expedition, and these
hurried forward to offer their services, but they were reluctantly
denied the valued privilege, and ordered back to their command.
Satisfied to obey, they were filled with grief which later became
even more poignant when they understood the result of the splendid
victory of which they were denied a share.
It was a difficult task to determine who should go, in face of the
universal and intrepid desire manifested by these volunteers, to take
part in this desperate and dangerous enterprise.
With that abandon of courage that marks the really brave, these three
hundred soldiers, one-half from the 5th and one-half from the 7th
Regiment, marched down to the wharf at Houston, and took passage on
the _Bayou City_ and _Neptune_.
General Green remained with the _Bayou City_. The _Neptune_, the
faster boat, was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Bagby, on which were
volunteers from two artillery companies. But the main fighters and
the great fighting machine, the real men behind the guns, were those
who handled the Enfield rifles which General Magruder brought over
from the far East.
With such unworthy seagoing vessels, protected with a few bales of
cotton, likely to be blown up by the first well-directed shell,
only the most valiant of men would have undertaken so hazardous
an enterprise. The remaining men of the 4th, 5th and 7th Cavalry,
composing Sibley’s brigade, had been dispatched to Galveston to
engage in the assault by land and the defense of the guns on the
beach.
General Magruder led the land forces in person. Along the wharves and
shores of the bay, all the Confederate artillery was put in position.
There was little, if any, protection to the guns or gunners. They
were coming out in the open to fight the men who were protected in
ships, and they were eager for the unequal fray.
General Magruder had announced that he would fire the first gun, and
that when this was heard, all the artillery should turn loose upon
the Federal fleet.
Under Colonel Cook, five hundred men plunged into water waist deep,
carrying upon their shoulders the scaling ladders, upon which to
climb upon the barricades held by the Federals on the remains of the
City Wharf.
Neither wind nor wave had aught of terror for these splendid knights
of the sea, who, in the darkness of the night, guided only by the
pale stars, encumbered with guns and ladders, were hunting for their
foes, who, safely barricaded, were waiting to send death-dealing
missiles into their ranks. On land, such an assault had terrifying
elements, but wading out into the sea, with neither beacons nor
torches to guide their steps, carrying or pulling scaling ladders, by
which alone they could hope to engage an enemy entrenched high above
them upon wooden wharves, reaches to the sublimest heights of human
courage.
The dismounted cavalry had been brought within a short distance of
Galveston, and when the first gun was fired, with brave and steady
heads and fleet of foot, they pressed forward to the front, on the
line held by the venturesome artillery.
The Federal ships were not slow to take their part in this
magnificent night pageant. Shells and bombs and shot plowed through
the walls and over the fortifications and played hide and seek
amongst the guns and caissons, that stood out on the land with
distinctness, when the flashes of the cannon lit up the weird scenes
of the fateful hour. The men in line on the shore were unable to
reach their enemies, who were safely anchored out in harbor. Though
their position was made uncomfortable by the fierceness of the fire,
none flinched and none sought to avoid the consequence of the unequal
affray.
So close were the combatants together that shells alternating with
grape and canister speeded forth from the Federal gunboats, and from
midnight until morn this contest was waged. From two o’clock until
the dawn of day, fierce and fast flew the shells; and the roar of
artillery and the flashes of the guns made the bay a scene of terror.
[Illustration: GENERAL JOHN B. MAGRUDER]
Magruder turned his eyes anxiously towards the direction from which
his navy should come. The men aboard the steamboats heard the sound
of artillery and, catching the inspiration of the hour, with illy
suppressed anxiety and impatience, urged that they push forward
into the midst of the conflict. They had waited from midnight until
four in the morning for the sign which would bid them to enter the
arena, and when at early morn they heard the call for them to come,
it was with difficulty that their commanders could restrain their
impatient ardor.
As they sailed down the Bayou, they caught sight of the flashes which
marked the place where the artillery duel was being fought out. The
clear starlight, with the moon gone down, was a splendid background
upon which was painted the illuminations created by rapidly firing
ordnance. This was more brilliant and more beautiful than any display
that fireworks might produce.
The roll of the cannon was sweet music to the patriots now afloat and
being propelled with quickening revolutions of the wheels into the
turmoil and excitement.
The Federal ship, _Harriet Lane_, being nearest the shore, was
the first to receive the attention of the Confederate navy. The
_Neptune_, the fastest of the flotilla, came quickly within range of
the Federal fleet, and in swinging around to the side of the _Harriet
Lane_, was struck amidships and quickly sank. The water was so
shallow that it did not reach the upper part of the vessel. Without
being deterred from the serious business in which they were engaged,
the cavalry mounted on the highest portion of the boat and with their
Enfield rifles poured a deadly fire upon every part of the _Harriet
Lane_, and practically drove her gunners from their posts.
The _Bayou City_, not so swift, but manned by none the less
determined soldiers and sailors, swung promptly into action.
Compared with the _Lane_, she was helpless in an artillery fight, but
those aboard of this frail ship had no dread of any danger that the
exigencies of the hour could precipitate. As she advanced into the
battle, her best piece of artillery burst and the valiant captain,
Wier, who had volunteered to direct the guns, fell dead by their side.
Disregarding all ideas of prudence, and casting to the winds or
the waters all fear, the _Bayou City_, with her improvised ram,
made straight for the _Harriet Lane_ and drove her iron nose into
her sides. The blow was given with such force that it disabled the
_Harriet Lane_; the vessels appeared as one forum of raging conflict.
With grappling irons, the Confederates held the two vessels fast
together, and then in obedience to the call of General Green, every
man from the _Bayou City_ sprang upon the deck of the unfortunate
_Lane_.
There were no words of parley, there were no calls for surrender, but
the brave Texans, under their valiant commander, with Enfield rifles
and their swords, made quick work of the crew of the Federal ship,
and in the briefest period the storm quieted to the stillness of
death.
The commander of the _Lane_, Captain Wainwright, was killed.
Lieutenant Lee, his junior officer, was mortally wounded. There was
nothing to do but ask for quarter. The Federal troops on the wharves,
who, by reason of the shortness of the Confederates’ scaling ladders,
had escaped capture, now surrendered, and fate with relentless and
pitiless edict, gave the Federals over to complete defeat.
When Captain Lee, a Confederate officer, one of those manning the
_Bayou City_, looked into the faces of the Federal prisoners, he was
shocked to see that the dying lieutenant on the _Harriet Lane_ was
his own son.
Commodore Renshaw, in command of the _Westfield_, was not disposed to
rush away and leave his comrades on the _Harriet Lane_ unsupported.
The shallowness of the water and the limited space in which these
vessels had maneuvered caused the _Westfield_, Commodore Renshaw’s
boat, to run aground. The _Mary Boardman_, one of the transports,
gamely essayed to help the _Westfield_, and the _Clifton_,
another propeller, tendered her assistance in her extremity. The
laurel wreath had been woven for the brow of the daring, fearless
Confederates, and no effort of the brave Federals could stay the
losses. When the enterprise was first considered, only hope stirred
the hearts of the men in gray. They scarcely calculated that, under
the most favorable conditions, any such consequence could come from
the expedition. Brave and fearless, they were not prepared for such a
wonderful result. True, they were guided by Magruder’s genius, aided
by Smith’s skill, led by Green’s immeasurable courage, helped by
Bagby’s experience, impelled by Scurry’s valor, encouraged by Cook’s
dauntless bravery, and inspired by McNeill’s calm and imperturbable
gallantry; but none dared to believe that so much could be
accomplished in so brief a period, or such transcendent success crown
even the bravest of men, facing such difficulties with such splendid
reward. The Federal vessels which escaped sailed away. They left
Galveston a Confederate possession. The survivors were glad to go
beyond the reach of horsemen, who were as reckless and enterprising
on the sea as they had proven themselves on the land.
It was a great victory. It cost the Confederates twenty-six killed
and one hundred and seventeen wounded, but the success of the
enterprise and the flight of the Federal vessels from Galveston set
abroad a great wave of enthusiasm and patriotism. Few could realize
that such glorious results could be obtained by men, handicapped by
insufficient resources, even when sustained by the highest courage
and noblest spirit. What had been done stirred the hearts of all the
people of Texas. They recognized in General Magruder an illustrious
soldier, and in the Texas cavalry, whether on land or sea, an
invincible host, which had the apparent power to wrest from fate
victory under any conditions, however adverse or stormy.