Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

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Presidio del
Rio Grande
Eagle Pass
Fort Duncan
Freedom by the Sword: The U.S. Colored Troops, 1862–1867
R io Grande
Nueces R
Fort McIntosh
C o l orado R
Isla del Padre
An 1859 map shows the central Rio Grande position City of Kentucky between two future Confederate
Ringgold Barracks
states, Tennessee and Virginia, and four that remained in the Union, Ohio, Indiana,
Mier
Brownsville
Illinois, and Missouri. Lincoln is Edinburg reputed (but Fort Brown not proven) to have quipped, “I hope to
Brazos Santiago
have God Reynosa on my side, but I must have Kentucky.”
Monterey
SOUTH TEXAS
1864–1867
0 20 40
80
160
M E X I C O
Map 9
Miles
Laredo
San Antonio
Roma
Corpus Christi
Matamoros
AUSTIN
T E X A S
English-speaking Texans. Although this last outbreak, named for the landowner
Juan N. Cortina, involved only a few dozen men on each side, United States troops
had to quell the disturbance. Despite these violent episodes, Brownsville thrived
during the 1850s. By the end of the decade, its 2,347 residents made it the fifthlargest
city in Texas. 3
On 2 February 1861, thirteen years to the day after diplomatic representatives
of the United States and Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the state
of Texas adopted an ordinance of secession from the Union. First on its list of
grievances were Northern schemes to abolish “the institution known as negro slavery.”
With that, the Rio Grande became the Confederacy’s only land frontier with
3 Census Bureau, Population of the United States in 1860, pp. 486–87; Benjamin H. Johnson,
Revolution in Texas: How a Forgotten Rebellion and Its Bloody Suppression Turned Mexicans into
Americans (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), pp. 10–25; David Montejano, Anglos and
Mexicans in the Making of Texas, 1836–1986 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1987), pp. 26–33;
Jerry Thompson, Cortina: Defending the Mexican Name in Texas (College Station: Texas A&M
University Press, 2007), pp. 22–23, 35.
Victoria
Bagdad
B r a z o s R
Indianola
Palmetto Ranch
Richmond
Matagorda
Matagorda Bay
Houston
Trinity
Tri n i t y R
Galveston
Nacogdoches
Beaumont
Galveston Bay
G U L F O F M E X I C O
Sabine R
L O U I S I A N A
Fort Sabine