Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

South Texas, 1864–1867 451
ists evacuated Bagdad and Matamoros. In the course of the summer, the Liberals
finally gained control of all of northern Mexico. 68
The expulsion of the Imperialists by no means resulted in a reign of law and
order. The new governor of Tamaulipas imposed a policy of forced “loans” and
confiscation that hurt the leading merchants of Matamoros, many of whom were
United States citizens who had favored the Imperialists and had grown rich trading
in cotton and arms on behalf of the Confederacy. The president of Mexico,
Benito Juárez, himself disowned the governor’s actions. Another local strongman
proclaimed himself governor, but before he could march on Matamoros, other parties
there overthrew the incumbent, who escaped across the river to Brownsville.
Juárez detested the new regime in Matamoros as much as he had the old one, and
in November Escobedo led an army of thirty-five hundred men toward the city. 69
With a battle imminent, the merchants of Matamoros looked for means of staving
off the new governor’s defeat until they could collect debts amounting to some
$600,000 that he had accrued during his three months in office. The merchants found
their means in Col. Thomas D. Sedgwick, of the 114th USCI, who commanded the
post at Brownsville. The merchants convinced Sedgwick that the governor’s troops
might riot and pillage the town. No doubt remembering the days of disorder at Bagdad
in January, the colonel agreed to send a small force across the river. Although
he wrote to Sheridan on 22 November, telling him of his plan, his letter could barely
have reached Sheridan’s desk in New Orleans by the time he acted. 70
The black infantry companies in the Brownsville garrison were responsible for a
military pontoon bridge that they had brought from Virginia. On the night of 24 November,
two companies of the 19th and 114th USCIs crossed the Rio Grande in boats
and secured a site on the Mexican bank. The next day, they assembled the structure
of boats and planks and 118 officers and men of the 4th U.S. Cavalry clattered across
it to occupy Matamoros. The black infantrymen guarded the south end of the bridge
and a ferry landing two miles from the city while a battery of the 1st U.S. Artillery
positioned its guns at the north end of the bridge. No longer responsible for patrolling
the town themselves, the defenders of Matamoros were able to repel a Liberal attack
on 27 November, inflicting some one thousand casualties on Escobedo’s force. 71
Weeks earlier, Sheridan had warned Sedgwick that the United States pursued a
course of strict neutrality in Mexico’s quarrels but contradicted himself somewhat
by emphasizing that the policy was in force especially “against the adherents of the
imperial buccaneer representing the so-called Imperial Government.” When Sheridan
learned that Sedgwick had acceded to the request of the Imperialist sympathizers
of Matamoros, he ordered him to withdraw United States troops across the river at
68 Maj Gen P. H. Sheridan to Lt Gen U. S. Grant, 7 May 1866 (“The Liberals”), NA Microfilm
Pub M1635, Headquarters of the Army, LS, roll 94; Thompson, Cortina, pp. 175–81 (“Canales
outlaws,” pp. 175–76).
69 “Occupation of Mexican Territory,” 39th Cong., 2d sess., H. Ex. Doc. 8 (serial 1,287), p. 3;
Thompson, Cortina, pp. 181–85.
70 Col T. D. Sedgwick to Maj Gen P. H. Sheridan, 22 Nov 1866, and Maj Gen P. H. Sheridan
to Gen U. S. Grant, 27 Nov 1866, both in Andrew Johnson Papers, Library of Congress; “Mexico,”
39th Cong., 2d sess., H. Ex. Doc. 17 (serial 1,288), p. 177; Thompson, Cortina, pp. 185–86.
71 NA M594, roll 216, 114th USCI; NA M617, roll 152, Fort Brown, Nov 1866; “Present Condition
of Mexico,” 39th Cong., 2d sess, H. Ex. Doc. 76 (serial 1,292), pp. 550–52, 554; Thompson, Cortina,
pp. 186–88.