Teaching the Civil War in Texas
guest blog post by Timothy Seiter, Assistant Professor of History, University of Texas at Tyler
I am a Texas historian who specializes in the colonial period, particularly the powerful Native peoples who dominated the region. As a result, I can quite happily spend hours unpacking the intricacies of eighteenth-century Texas. The mid- to late-nineteenth century, by comparison, are periods where I feel far less at home. So, when preparing lessons for my upcoming undergraduate courses, I did what any historian worth their salt should do—I read. And then I read some more.
In searching for strong secondary literature on Texas during the Civil War era, I worked through a number of well-known texts. Of all of them, Texas: An American History proved the most valuable for building high-quality, engaging lesson plans in a timely manner. That’s largely because each of Johnson’s chapters thoroughly address essential topics in our state’s past, while remaining impressively concise and compelling.
I have attached the lesson plan I developed for my classes using Texas as a main source. I have also included my PowerPoint, and I encourage other educators to adapt both to use in their own classrooms.
In this lesson, I was especially eager to highlight the concept of “civil wars within the Civil War,” showing students that this insurrection was far from universally accepted in the South. In fact, hundreds of thousands of people living in Texas, especially when we include Tejanos, enslaved Black Americans, and Native peoples, opposed secession and the violence it entailed. This helps explain why one of the earliest monuments to the conflict in Texas was a German memorial that declared “True to the Union.”
Johnson’s book, and the subsequent lesson plan, also highlight a diverse cast of historical actors from all walks of life. Some of these individuals included Juan Cortina, a Tejano rancher and political leader who resisted Anglo domination; Preely Coleman, an enslaved man from Tyler, Texas; and the more familiar figure of Sam Houston, whose refusal to swear allegiance to the Confederacy cost him his governorship.
If you are looking for a text that allows you to quickly develop high-quality lectures for Texas and U.S. history courses, Johnson’s Texas is the right choice.
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Texas During the Civil War Lesson Plan
The horizontal lines below represent PowerPoint slide changes.
This lesson, on average, takes 45 minutes.
It’s 1936, right in the middle of the Great Depression.
- Money is hard to come by
- A steady job even more so.
Therefore, President Franklin D. Roosevelt concluded that the federal government should provide jobs for Americans during the crisis.
- The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) put young men to work planting trees, building parks, and improving infrastructure.
- The Civil Works Administration (CWA) employed women as teachers, nurses, and seamstresses.
- Most famously, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) hired Americans to record oral histories from people across the nation.
- Americans who suffered from the Dust Bowl
- Americans who suffered from the Great Depression
- At the top of their list were formerly enslaved Americans.
- They would ultimately compile something called the Slave Narrative Collection a 17 volume work with over 2,300 first person accounts and over 2,300 black and white photographs.
When WPA interviewers reached Texas in the 1930s and began recording the oral histories of formerly enslaved people, nearly all of these folks recalled one moment from their lives with striking clarity.
- June 19th, 1865, they were declared free people.
- You’ve likely heard it referred to as Juneteenth
In Tyler Texas, Preely Coleman had this to say:
- “I well remember when freedom came. We were in the field and my master came up and said ‘You are all as free as I am.’ There was shouting and singing and before night we were all the way to freedom.”
Jacob Branch, a formerly enslaved person who at this point was 90 years old recalled his enslaver saying the following:
- “Well, y’all are as free as hell now”
- Branch’s stepfather was apparently so happy that he “rolled on the floor like a horse and kicked his heels.”
The joy these enslaved people felt at finally being free following June 19th 1865 was a long, long, long time coming...
Enslavement in Texas had been around for thousands of years.
- Native peoples frequently enslaved each other.
- But their enslavement often provided an opportunity to be incorporated into the Indigenous society over time.
- An example I like to use is El Mocho, a Tonkawa war chief in the 1700s.
- El Mocho was born as a Lipan-Apache
- But was captured as a boy by the Tonkawas and soon became a fully adopted member of their tribe.
- Later, he became one of their most prominent chiefs
- He frequently warred with the Apaches
- He was very much against Spanish colonization
- And ultimately, the Spanish assassinated him.
- That’s how enslavement typically operated during the indigenous period—it wasn’t a cemented, unchangeable status.
- An Apache boy, captured and enslaved by the Tonkawas, later rose to become their leader.
The Spanish form of enslavement in Texas operated in a much similar way.
- When Hispanos raided Native settlements, they often brought back women and children as enslaved captives.
- These individuals were either adopted by Spanish households or put to work in local missions.
- Over time, through baptism, marriage to someone legally recognized as Spanish, or service in the military, these Indigenous captives became regarded as white citizens of the Spanish state.
- Again, enslavement was often fluid rather than a fixed or permanent condition during most of the colonial period.
The Anglo Americans who came to Texas in the early nineteenth century practiced a system of enslavement that allowed little flexibility or social mobility.
- Known as “Chattel slavery.”
- Enslaved people are their enslavers’ property—they are not viewed as actual people.
- The enslaved, under chattel slavery, remain enslaved for life, as do their children.
- There’s no true way of being integrated into White society in any meaningful way
This chattel slavery is tied directly to the agricultural interests of the Southern states of the United States.
- They view these enslaved peoples as necessities.
- These states feel reliant on enslaved people
- And most of the new White arrivals in Texas come from this Southern tradition.
In 1830, the Anglo-American population numbered around 30,000 individuals.
- By 1860, the Anglo-American population had grown to be around 420,000 individuals.
- And these White Americans had fully cemented their form of enslavement in the region
- Chattel Slavery reigned supreme
- The days of a more fluid form of enslavement were gone.
In 1861, Confederate forces started the Civil War by firing on South Carolina’s federal-held Fort Sumter.
- In previous lectures, we explored the many complexities of the Texas Revolution, including the diverse groups of people who took part in the conflict.
- Native people like Chief Bowles and Tejanos like Juan Seguín were willing to participate for a multitude of reasons.
- To find a new home
- To make more money.
- To secure more land.
- We also examined the many reasons the war was fought. And although the vast majority of these reasons related directly to the expansion of slavery, the story does have some nuance.
- When it comes to the Civil War, the why of the war is FAR more cut and dry
- Southern Americans formed the Confederacy to maintain slavery.
- And the people of the South were not at all shy about stating why they were going to war.
In Texas, they had this to say in their declaration of secession:
We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.
That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states.
[Question for Class] These two paragraphs need to be analyzed. Did anyone else find the second paragraph incredibly jarring after reading the first?
Nearly every other state in the Confederacy have similar documents that say the same thing. Let’s look how Mississippi begins their declaration of secession:
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth.
I’m sure, however, that most people in this room have heard that the Civil War was started because of states rights instead of slavery.
This idea that the Civil War was not about slavery is often called “The Lost Cause Narrative.”
- This notion is named after a book written by a Confederate journalist named Edward Alfred Pollard with the same name.
- In the 1860s, every single American knew exactly why this incredibly devastating war was fought.
- The right for a human to enslave another.
- It was not contested in the least.
- After the war, during Reconstruction which lasted until around 1877, the same holds true.
- Everyone knows why the South fought the Civil War: to preserve the peculiar institution.
- However, as we will learn later in this class, Reconstruction was a huge huge HUGE missed opportunity.
- In effect, Confederate and other anti-Black leaders take back control of Southern governments
- It’s at this time, two decades after the Civil War, in the 1880s that we start to see the beginnings of what is called the Lost Cause Narrative.
- You have folks that realize how bad the Confederacy looks in the Civil War—and so they look for alternative reasons, aside from slavery, to substitute why the war was fought.
Interestingly, Southern women are often credited with promoting the Lost Cause narrative, particularly through organizations such as the Daughters of the Confederacy.
- In 1894, The United Daughters of the Confederacy form in Nashville, Tennessee
- They have a simple goal: to pay respects to the soldiers of the Confederate Army.
- Their fathers.
- Their brothers
- Their husbands
- Their cousins
- Their loved ones.
These women raise effectively raise large sums of money to remember their loved ones.
- They put up a slew of confederate monuments around the South.
- A good number of these monuments and statues were made from the cheapest materials to maximize quantity.
- As such, these statues often crumble when removed for preservation.
- They assembled archives with Confederate related documents
- And most importantly, they started to popularize the narrative that the Civil War was not fought over slavery.
Instead, they frame the Confederacy as simply protecting their rights and the Southern way of life against the tyrannical, overbearing North.
- They begin to spread falsehoods such as:
- The South’s leaders were noble.
- The South was not out-fought but merely overwhelmed by the North.
- Southerners were united in support of the Confederate cause.
- Slavery was a benign institution overseen by benevolent masters.
- In fact, by their estimates, Black Americans enjoyed being enslaved.
Most Importantly, these Confederate sympathizers attempt to instill this idea that you do not need to be ashamed of being from the South.
Rather, you should have SOUTHERN PRIDE.
- States control education
- And who were the people in power during this time, former confederates
- And so they teach these ideas to school children and it spreads and spreads
- And now the Confederate flag is often cites as a symbol of Southern Pride.
- Growing up, and occasionally today, you'll see a car driving around with that flag.
- They will say that the flag is a symbol of heritage, not hate.
- Think Dukes of Hazard.
It’s our responsibility to call it as it is: Confederate Propaganda.
Back on Subject: Texas was quick to join the Confederacy.
In fact only 18 counties out of 122 voted against secession
- This makes it seem as if a huge majority of individuals in Texas were for the Civil War.
- But if we count enslaved Blacks, folks such as Germans, and even the Native peoples, we see that hundreds of thousands of Texans were staunchly against the Civil War.
This has led one renowned historian to say that the Civil War created mini civil wars among various states.
- Texas is definitely one of those states.
For a great example, take Sam Houston, who served as governor during the period in which Texas joined the Confederacy
- Houston at all opportunities tried to persuade his fellow Texans avoid joining the Confederacy
- He refused to call the legislature into session so they couldn’t vote to join the Confederacy
- He ardently spoke out against the war.
- But the vast majority of White men in Texas wanted war, they wanted to join the Confederacy
- And so, ultimately, the legislature met and seceded regardless of the outcry by Sam Houston.
This makes Sam Houston seem like he was a champion of the enslaved.
- But it’s important to point out that Houston himself was an enslaver
- He wasn’t an abolitionist
- Rather, he placed a higher value on his loyalty as an American, and the Union, than he did on owning human property.
- He didn’t like that the Texans were leaving the United States.
- That’s why there are mini-Civil Wars
- People are unhappy about such a large scale war
- Their unhappiness does not always connect with enslavement
While hundreds of thousands of individuals were against the war, the vast majority of White men of fighting age were for the Civil War
- At the time, there were around 100,000 men of fighting age in Texas
- 90,000 will enlist in the Confederate Army.
Most of their fighting took place outside of Texas
- Texas was seen as the Western flank for the Confederacy
- You won’t have big battles like Gettysburg here (7,000 soldiers die/50,000 casualties)
- The Battle of the Medina, which we learned about previously, will remain the bloodiest battle ever fought in Texas and it took place 50 years before the Civil War
That’s largely because of its geographic location
- Texas was so far away from the major battles that most Southern States, later in the war, send their enslaved people there for safe keeping.
- So during the Civil War we see Texas’s enslaved population grow RAPIDLY
- Before the Civil War, the enslaved population is 180,000 people
- During the Civil War, an additional 50,000 enslaved people, if not more, made it to Texas.
Again, Most Texans fought the Civil War Outside of Texas.
The Most Famous Texas troop during the Civil War were known as John Bell Hood’s “Texas Brigade”
- This elite company fought with the Northern Virginia troops which was commanded by Robert E. Lee himself.
- In 1862 it led a charge that turned back Union forces threatening to take the Confederate capital of Richmond
- Viewed as the saviors of the Confederacy
- They would also fight at Gettysburg
- And also at Antietam, where nearly half of its soldiers will either be killed, captured, or wounded.
- This would, honestly, be the fate for most Texans fighting in the war.
- If you served with four of your friends
- 1 would die
- 2 would be injured
- And 1 would get away without any physical wounds, but likely suffered emotional wounds.
A Quick Question:
- I was hesitant to bring up John Bell Hood’s brigade? Why might that be?
Not all Texans went East to fight in major pitched battles
- Other Texans had their sights set on the West.
- They seized towns in present-day New Mexico and proclaimed it “Confederate Territory of Arizona”
- Think back to our previous lectures
- Anglo Americans in Texas were always trying to acquire more land for themselves and this is just an extension of that push.
There are also a handful of battles that occur in Texas proper.
- In the middle of the Summer of 1862, the confederate forces in Texas repel a Union landing in Corpus Christi
- They had less luck near the Sabine (border of Louisiana and Texas)
- Union ships entered the river and destroyed Confederate entrenchments near Beaumont
The most famous incident, at least for me growing up on the Texas Gulf Coast, were the landings in Galveston.
- All the way up to the year 1900, Galveston is probably one of the most important ports in the United States—certianly the most important in Texas.
- Union forces are going to invade the port, and take over the city and island of Galveston.
- They capture it in October of 1863
- And they will hold it until New Years
- The story is really interesting as to how the Confederates take it back, but unfortunately we just don’t have the time for it.
- I’ll just say that sandbars cause the Europeans a great deal of issues when they are trying to colonize Texas
- They will remain a problem in the 1860s.
To restate, the majority of White Texans were for the Confederate cause
But there were also a handful of groups of Texans that were white and very much against the war.
- For example, in Cooke County (north of Denton on the border of Oklahoma and Texas)...
- There was widespread resistance to the Confederate draft to go to war.
- Had done a great deal of business and received a great deal of protection from the nearby Federal U.S. Army forts
- These men just wanted to tend to their farms not go to war and die.
- And so they resisted the draft and that resulted in a Confederate colonel named William Young being sent in to area
- He decided to hang 21 men for treason
- Later, he would be assassinated by the locals
- And pro-Confederates in nearby areas formed a mob and lynched 19 more men that resisted the draft.
- Known as the Great Hanging at Gainesville
This sort of thing was actually much more common then we would imagine.
- Here’s another example
- In the hill country, so think Austin, Fredericksburg area, there are a large group of Germans
- They are generally anti-slavery (there are still some Germans who fully support enslavement.)
- They are looked down upon by many other Anglo-settlers
- Ultimately, they don’t want to go to war and die.
- Some of these Germans formed a Union Loyal League and began to organize themselves in a militia group
- They wanted to get organized so they could, as a community, resist the confederate draft.
- The Confederates in Texas got wind of this and sent a whole troop of soldiers to disband this Union Loyal League.
- They rode into their camp on the Nueces River
- Started shooting and killed more than 20 of the surprised men in the quick combat.
- The remaining men were nearly all executed.
- And sympathizers to the German cause were periodically assassinated thereafter.
Anti-Confederates in Texas found much more success among the Rio Grande, being closer to Mexico
- Take Juan Cortina, who was known as the Robin Hood of the Rio Grande
- Cortina’s family owned a large amount of land on and around the Rio Grande
- After the Mexican American War, the new border of the Rio Grande instead of the Nueces split his land holdings in half
- With that being the case, he had to deal with land hungry Anglo-Americans trying to steal his and all of his neighbors’ land.
- In his words, these whites were “Flocks of vampires, in the guise of men, who robbed Mexicans of their property, incarcerated, chased, murdered, and hunted them like wild beasts".
- He reacted with violence and effectively raided Anglo-American settlements
- He also organized paramilitary groups to protect the Tejanos of the Rio Grande
- We will talk more about him and what will become of this region later in the semester.
- But for our purposes today, it’s important to point out that Cortina welcomed people who allied with the Union with open arms.
- He would give them weapons, describe the best places to attack confederates in Texas and helped escaped enslaved people find freedom.
The last battle of the Civil War was actually fought here in Texas on May 13th, 1865.
- If you’re a Civil War buff that date might sound unusual because technically the war officially ended on April 9th, 1865—nearly one month earlier
- But the news hadn’t yet reached Brownsville
- And so you had the Texas Ranger named Rip Ford fighting a Union Col. Theodore H. Barrett
A few weeks later, on Juneteenth, General Gordon E. Granger sailed into Galveston and issued a proclamation that would cause enslaved people like
- Preely Coleman and Jacob Branch, who I talked about at the beginning of the lecture, rejoiced.