How much Unionism existed in Texas during the war?

And GEE WHIZ. It is of course as raucous, unbelievable, huge, shocking and varied as you would have to expect- crazy. Wigfall! Surely no one can discuss the man without reading all of these books? Or being born there. I know I never make the attempt, just kind of know when I'm in way over my head, you see Wigfall make an appearance in discussions. So Texas during secession was like all the other states combined, on.. well, a stimulant.

SO many legendary events related to the war- " The Great Hanging ", seems ridiculous not to have heard of it! Goes on the list although not exactly looking forward to it.

Their was extensive guerrilla warfare in areas the Union Army occupied . I am not aware if any historian as given a reasonably good estimate of how many guerrillas, free lance bandits and militias and home guards their where. That number would have to be well over 10 thousand. Daniel Sutherland has a recent book on Unionist guerrillas.You might want to check out my thread. Texas had some guerrilla warfare but nothing compared to some other Confederate States.
Leftyhunter


Thank you! No idea why, it's only just become clear, this whole guerilla thing- what an insane, out of control situation it was for locals, no matter which loyalty they held. Had it in my head guerilla activity was small- and confined, too. AND consisted of raids on at least more military objectives than civilian. Has anyone extensively covered civilian casualties of guerilla activity? Just curious. I understand yes, all the information would be around somewhere, in some archives, university libraries and collections, etc. I mean compiled anywhere. Not just Texas, all the states suffering this affliction.
 
Those are sources that should enable you to do some more reading....in the meantime, I'll keep fighting with our crummy search function, which simply doesn't work on older threads. Hopefully someone will turn up more. In the meantime, I'll leave you with three big reasons Texans voted for Secession.....Louis Trevezant Wigfall.


:roflmao::rofl::roflmao:
 
The vote on secession in Hunt County was close. 416 voted for joining the Confederacy and 339 opposed it. Family lore has it that my grandfather joined the 14th Kansas as they offered the largest bounty money. I just think he was a loyal Union man being born and raised in Montgomery County Illinois.
 
This thread is great, but overwhelming for me... I want to contribute a ton of stuff, but keep getting all tangled up trying to figure out where to start...:furious:

My familial history ties into all this directly... while several of my ancestors were in Texas pre-revolution, even more were called upon to come once the Adelsverein ramped up and started sailing ships out of Antwerp carrying those from the Rhineland to the Texas coast.

Here is a great example of a native-language Adelsverein agreement bearing the name of one of my ancestors, J.J. Haas. His son, (W.R.) would join up with the confederacy and be killed at Galveston 2.

Notice the Adelsverein seal on the second page.

(I suppose my last name is now known to CWT!)

View attachment 99193
View attachment 99194

My ancestors played a contributing part in the establishment of New Braunfels (Comal County) and while some stayed - others moved northwest towards the ultimate destination lying within the boundaries of the Fisher-Miller land grant. (Your stomping grounds, @Nathanb1!)

(Here is another interesting document - this is a grant bearing the anglicized name 'William' Haas. He had immigrated to Texas ~18 years prior to obtaining this additional tract in 1860. Does anyone recognize the name that appears both first and last on this document?

View attachment 99195
View attachment 99197

(Sorry about the offset scan, the original documents are huge broadsides.)


Within a few short years, my family name was scattered seemingly everywhere between New Braunfels and Llano - many of these homesteads were situated near locations that were still a few decades away from even being given a name.

Although the Meusebach Treaty largely alleviated problems between the Comanche and the Adelsverein Germans within the Fisher-Miller grant, a lot of my ancestors also fell south of these boundaries and more than had their hands full warding off the occasional raiding parties, resupplying from a town several days away, aiding ranger patrols, and keeping a very close eye on livestock that liked to 'make off in the night'... all while hand-laying miles worth of stone fence and chinking their signature fachwerk cabins.

(Speaking of John Meusebach and the Fisher-Miller Colony...)

View attachment 99199


When the ACW came to the Texas Hill Country my ancestors were pretty evenly split down the middle - those in and around Comal County volunteered for Confederate service and went off to do their part, mainly with Sibley in New Mexico.

The other half of my ancestors did the fairly typical Texas-German thing - they minded their own business. The indifference that a lot of the germans displayed out here on the edges of the (then) Texas frontier didn't sit too well with the rest of the Anglo population, and the widespread assumption became that if one was not actively foaming at the mouth to join a local company, they must be a 'd*mned dutch abolitionist'.

@major bill mentioned previously that the german population of Fredericksburg went to great lengths to resist the pressures of the confederacy - But in reality it wasn't really any more/less different than many other places in the Texas Hill Country - it just happened to be recorded/reported more because Fredericksburg was a major 'hub'.

That just goes to show how skewed the common understanding of Texas-German sentiment during the ACW is today...

Fredericksburg - the staunch german-unionists stronghold - also had a confederate percussion cap factory.

Check out the last names!


View attachment 99198

:sneaky:

After the war, my (surviving) ancestors continued on farming and ranching the same as they did before and during... and we are still here (and there, and everywhere in between) today on the original tracts.

On a related note - one of my (a bit more recent) ancestors dedicated a large portion of his life to compiling & translating a massive amount of wartime correspondence penned by Comal County confederate soldiers from german to english - and found time along the way to literally write the history book on the county it all started in!

View attachment 99200

Can I run away from home and live with you?
 
German settlers began populating the southern part of the Hill Country north and northwest of San Antonio in the 1840's during the Republic, founding towns like New Braunfels and Fredericksburg. (Admiral Chester Nimitiz of WWII fame was one of their Fredericksburg descendants.)

Just as we do today, my ancestors used to utilize Fredericksburg for mail/barter/buy/sell/resupply/etc...

The only difference is that it was a 4 day round trip for them!

It wasn't even a great distance (~25 miles)... it was/is just that rugged of country.

Fredericksburg is still the nearest place to the ranch with a cash register.

My mother also runs an establishment on Main Street within spitting distance of the Nimitz Hotel/National Museum of the Pacific War.
 
Just checked my shelves, and I don't have this one... just ordered it.

The Gainesville title that I have read had a contribution by McCaslin, though!

(His 'Portraits of Conflict' was great!)

View attachment 99189
Lol. I have two of the old ones. Once I found out about the hanging. I started scooping up everything I could find.
 
I am reading Look Away! by William C. Davis in chapter 9 he seems to indicate that pro Union sentiments were fairly common in Texas trough out the war and by the end of the war had grown. For example German immigrants in Fredericksburg refused to pay their property taxes to the Confederate state government. and only one of the county officers would take the required oath of allegiance to the Confederacy. They even raised a home guard that may or may not have supported the Union. At the start of the war some northern Texas counties gave some thought of seceding from Texas and form a new Union State.

I have to wonder if Mr. Davis is not overstating the amount of Union support in Texas.
Texas certainly did not have the same amount of Unionists has Tn, Nc and Al Tn had approx 42k men enlisted in the Union army plus thousands more where in Unionist militias and guerrilla groups. Then again Tx didn't have that many people during the CW.
"McCulloch tried every tactic available to him. He negotiated with the guerrilla leaders, most notably Henry Boren a"desperate character" who led as many as five hundred deserters,skulkers and bad men" in Collins County.McCulloch offered amnesty to deserters who would rejoin the army and guaranteed the safety of their families and property. The appeal brought hundreds of men from the bush, though not the distrustful Boren. McCulloch organized a special, five hundred man "Bush Battalion" to break up the remaining gangs, but it proved ineffective .He recruited much of the battalion from his repentant deserters which should of worked to his advantage. Unfortunately for the peace of the region, many of the men while glad to leave the bush, had not lost their lust for booty. When disciplined for theft, the former deserters deserted again. By mid-March 1864 with fewer then 2/5ths of the Bush Battalion still in service, McCulloch abandoned the experiment.
Sutherland p.219
Leftyhunter
 
For those who like numbers as reference points -

In 1860, New York CITY had a population of 805,000.

The entire state of Texas only had a population of 604,000.

:cold:
If possible do you have the number of Confederate enlisted from Texas so I can calculate what the percentage is vs Texas Union Enlisted. In other words assuming 22k men where Confederate enlisted the the 2,200 Texans who enlisted would equal 10% which is about average other Confederate States give or take.
Leftyhunter
 
If possible do you have the number of Confederate enlisted from Texas so I can calculate what the percentage is vs Texas Union Enlisted. In other words assuming 22k men where Confederate enlisted the the 2,200 Texans who enlisted would equal 10% which is about average other Confederate States give or take.
Leftyhunter

~90,000 Texans served the Confederacy throughout the course of war.
 
~90,000 Texans served the Confederacy throughout the course of war.

So, if 90,000 Texans served out of a scant population of around 600K, that's let's see, why did I begin this sentence 38 years after my last math class? Still around a 1/6th of the population, even at my age, which is terrific math because I'm sitting at zero miles an hour without having left the station. ( word problem, now required for SAT's )
 
~90,000 Texans served the Confederacy throughout the course of war.
I went online to try to find out how Confederate enlisted per each state. I could only get rough estimates . If we use the metric of highest Union Army enlistment has a percentage of Confederate enlistment it would appear that Texas had more pro Union sentiment then South Carolina but far less than Tennessee and Virginia. Of course a major caveat is the above states were always at least partially occupied by the Union Army therefore they could easily recruit white Southerners has well as black Southerners for the USCT vs Texas where they could not.
Leftyhunter
 
I am reading Look Away! by William C. Davis in chapter 9 he seems to indicate that pro Union sentiments were fairly common in Texas trough out the war and by the end of the war had grown. For example German immigrants in Fredericksburg refused to pay their property taxes to the Confederate state government. and only one of the county officers would take the required oath of allegiance to the Confederacy. They even raised a home guard that may or may not have supported the Union. At the start of the war some northern Texas counties gave some thought of seceding from Texas and form a new Union State.

I have to wonder if Mr. Davis is not overstating the amount of Union support in Texas.
"In Texas's Rio Grande county of Zapata, local Hispanics denounced the Confederacy ,formed a band of pro-Union partisans and plundered the property of loyal Confederates. In Bandera County, just west of San Antonio residents became so upset with the inequitable tax system that they formed a pro-Union militia,declined to pay their taxs and swore to kill anyone who tried to make them do so. At the staes northern extreme, near Bonham, several hundred anti-Confederates established three large camps close enough that the entire force could assemble in two hours. They patrolled the region so effectively that no one could approach it without their knowing of it. In the central Texas county of Bell, deserters led by lige Bivens fortified themselves in a cave known as Camp Safety. From their they mounted raids against the areas Pro-Confederates. According to an 1863 report, two thousand Texas deserters'fortified themselves near the Red River and defied the Confederacy. At last account they had been established ... eight months, and where constantly receiving accession of discontented rebels and desperadoes"
P.159"The South Bitterly Divided" David Williams' thepresscom
Leftyhunter
 
I am not totally sure but your governor was a true union man and write about the ending.
 
I am not totally sure but your governor was a true union man and write about the ending.

I feel that this statement should come with a caveat...

Sam Houston was a 'Union Man' out of a feeling of necessity... hardly because of any intense amount of pro-union sentiment.

Perhaps it is better said that it was done the exact opposite of the whole 'Robert E. Lee / Virginia' thing...?

Some may say that it is splitting hairs - but motive is key in the interpretation of the viewpoints held by historical figures.

Those of us who study the history in depth shouldn't lump the 'ardent unionist' and the 'anti-secessionist' into the same category.

:thumbsdown:

Respectfully,

~Tejaas/7th TMR~
 
Like many other states, the level of Union support was fluid and situational, depending on when you posed the question. Sam Houston was elected over a secessionist incumbent for governor in 1859. In the area I am most familiar with from my research, San Antonio, there was a large Union element, as well as a Union newspaper. You cannot look at the lopsided result of the secession convention and derive too many conclusions about the actual level of Union support in the months leading up to that event. When the flame of Texas secession was kindled (John Brown's raid, I would argue), then burst into a full-fledged conflagration (Lincoln's election), the revolutionary impulse and emotional tide towards secession became overwhelming, as it did in Georgia, where I have spent most of my research hours. Emotions run very hot and things change quickly at the beginning of a revolution, whether it was the ACW or the Arab Spring.

Please consider also that it is very difficult to label a person "Union" or Secessionist". These were gut-wrenching choices and each person had to perform what I have called a "mental calculus" of allegiance to determine which of the many loyalties they held (to the old flag, to their state, to their family, God, neighbors, political party, economic well-being, etc...) took precedence at the time. This, too, could change as the war went on. A man could be a strong Union man ("unconditional"), a rabid "fire-eater, " someone who hated the idea of disunion, but cooperated for one of many reasons, a "conditional" Union man, etc... This is a complex question with no easy answers. De le Teja's book is a good primer.

In the end, people had to choose one side or the other. In their hearts, however, it was not so clear-cut. This inner conflict had implications for morale on both sides as the war dragged on.
 
"In Texas's Rio Grande county of Zapata, local Hispanics denounced the Confederacy ,formed a band of pro-Union partisans and plundered the property of loyal Confederates. In Bandera County, just west of San Antonio residents became so upset with the inequitable tax system that they formed a pro-Union militia,declined to pay their taxs and swore to kill anyone who tried to make them do so. At the staes northern extreme, near Bonham, several hundred anti-Confederates established three large camps close enough that the entire force could assemble in two hours. They patrolled the region so effectively that no one could approach it without their knowing of it. In the central Texas county of Bell, deserters led by lige Bivens fortified themselves in a cave known as Camp Safety. From their they mounted raids against the areas Pro-Confederates. According to an 1863 report, two thousand Texas deserters'fortified themselves near the Red River and defied the Confederacy. At last account they had been established ... eight months, and where constantly receiving accession of discontented rebels and desperadoes"
P.159"The South Bitterly Divided" David Williams' thepresscom
Leftyhunter

I have a definite problem with this, which seems to me a gross generalization. This is basically describing the same area as I did in one of my posts concerning the "thickets." It's certainly true that area was the resort of many who sought to avoid the draft, etc.; but this makes it sound like it was a permanent situation for the duration. If that were entirely true, Martin Hart's "gang" would've never been apprehended. This was an ongoing problem that fluctuated throughout the war as either Henry McCullough's or Hamilton P. Bee's (I forget which - both were brothers of Confederate generals killed in the first year of the war who never quite measured up to the status of their deceased siblings) command operating in the North Texas area sought to eradicate them, sometimes with more success than others.
 
Not surprised on the Germans. William Penn could have given anyone the head's up. He stuffed them in here, in PA as a buffer between unsurprisingly annoyed Native Americans on the rampage and his Quakers. Idea being they'd take the hit, Quakers could move in. Germans stubbornly held- most beautiful farmland in the country a 5 minute drive from here along with monuments to massacres as testimony to German tenacity.
As a person raised in Texas, and descendant of Germans who entered the U.S. via Galveston in the 1870s, I have this book on my wishlist: The German Settlement of the Texas Hill Country. The description says the book goes through 1865, so I'm assuming it covers the Germans' resistance to the Confederacy.

One book that I have already read and can vouch for -- in fact, can't recommend it highly enough! -- is Frederick Law Olmsted's The Slave States. It's Olmsted's commentaries from his journeys throughout the South in the early 1850s. It's all fascinating, but as a person with German ancestry, I found his chapters on the German settlers in Texas particularly so. To borrow a phrase, for the first time in my adult life, I felt proud to be a German-American. :wink:
 
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