Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

438
Freedom by the Sword: The U.S. Colored Troops, 1862–1867
a waterless stretch of eighteen miles that lay between the two. General Sheridan
reported that the Army eventually sold both lines to civilian operators at a profit. 34
The headquarters of Steele’s District of the Rio Grande and Weitzel’s XXV
Corps remained at Brownsville. The stations of most troops along the river, from
Brazos Santiago inland to Ringgold Barracks, lay in the lower valley, which was
less sparsely populated than the stretch upriver, northwest of Ringgold Barracks.
From their posts, the Americans kept an eye on the struggle between Imperial and
Liberal forces that flared up from time to time in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas,
which ran along the opposite bank of the Rio Grande from a point just north of
Laredo to the mouth of the river. Steele’s orders from Grant were to “observe a
strict neutrality.” The first step in that direction was to prohibit all enlisted men and
officers without passes from crossing the river at Clarksville to visit the Mexican
port of Bagdad. Prohibition or not, rumors soon gained circulation that black cavalrymen
were selling carbines and revolvers to Mexicans. Moreover, a Germanspeaking
officer of the 45th USCI stood accused of crossing the river to urge Austrian
troops in the Imperial army to desert. Attempts to restrict troops’ movements
during off-duty hours were never entirely effective. 35
Long before the XXV Corps arrived, one of the reasons for enlarging the
Union force on the Rio Grande had become outdated. On 10 May, Union cavalry
in Georgia had captured the fleeing Jefferson Davis. Still, the whereabouts of other
Confederates and their plans were less well known. Several hundred horsemen,
all that remained of General Shelby’s command, accompanied their leader across
the Rio Grande in early July. The tiny force made its way to Mexico City, where
Shelby offered its services to the Imperialist cause. When Maximilian declined,
the group dispersed. Other former Confederates had bolder ideas. Lt. Gen. Jubal A.
Early hoped to inspire a war between France and the United States that would drain
the South of occupying troops and make possible a Confederate military revival.
After a few weeks’ stay in the Mexican capital, he pronounced the Imperialist
movement “an infernal humbug” and returned eventually to the United States. 36
The end of Confederate military activity left several tasks for the Union occupiers
of southern Texas. Since the Rio Grande lay hundreds of miles from the
center of the state’s population, few of these duties had to do with the work of
Reconstruction that military and civilian officials pursued elsewhere in the South.
Relations between local residents and occupying troops along the Rio Grande,
where few black people had lived before the war, certainly differed from those far-
34 OR, ser. 1, vol. 46, pt. 3, p. 1193 (quotation); vol. 48, pt. 1, p. 299. 3d Div, XXV Corps, Special
Orders (SO) 7, 18 Jul 1865, and Maj F. D. Kent to Maj O. O. Potter, 18 Sep 1865, both in Entry 533,
RG 393, NA; Capt J. M. Lee to Maj L. S. Barnes, 15 Dec 1865, Entry 539, XXV Corps, Ltrs and Rpts
Recd by Inspector General, both in pt. 2, RG 393, NA; NA M594, roll 209, 38th USCI.
35 OR, ser. 1, vol. 48, pt. 2, p. 525 (quotation); Cav Bde, XXV Corps, GO 5, 5 Jul 1865, 5th Mass
Cav, Regimental Books, RG 94, NA; Col J. G. Jenkins to Lt Col D. D. Wheeler, 5 Apr 1866, 19th
USCI, Regimental Books, RG 94, NA. Brig Gen G. W. Cole to Brig Gen R. H. Jackson, 11 Jul 1865,
Entry 533; Maj Gen G. Weitzel to Commanding Officer, Bagdad, 12 Jul 1865, Entry 512; Lt Col D.
D. Wheeler to Brig Gen W. T. Clarke, 11 Sep 1865, Entry 2073, U.S. Forces on Rio Grande, LR; all
in pt. 2, RG 393, NA.
36 Andrew F. Rolle, The Lost Cause: The Confederate Exodus to Mexico (Norman: University
of Oklahoma Press, 1965), pp. 17–18, 74–77, 122–24 (quotation, p. 124); Thomas D. Schoonover,
Dollars over Dominion: The Triumph of Liberalism in Mexican–United States Relations, 1861–
1877 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978), pp. 189–90.