When was palmito ranch

At participating sites, volunteers receive a free water bottle while supplies last and have the opportunity to hear historians interpret the battle. Standing on historic ground and hearing the stories of those who came before us puts people in a perfect frame of mind to consider their cultural heritage and the importance of preserving it for future generations. To that end, the THC and its supporters established a Radio Broadcast Repeater System in that makes available locally on AM, the history of the battlefield to tourists driving the length of the national historic landmark on State Hwy 4 Boca Chica Rd.

Located on the south Texas border region known as the Rio Grande Valley, this trail traverses a five-county region along the Rio Grande between Brownsville and Laredo with a few sites inland where applicable. Learn more here. Through another successful project with the U. John Salmon Rip Ford , commander of the southern division of Slaughter's command, at Port Isabel on March 11, , in hopes of arranging a separate peace. Wallace promised no retaliation against former Confederates so long as they took an oath of allegiance to the United States.

Anyone who preferred to leave the country would be given time to gather up property and family before doing so. An informal truce was arranged while Ford and Slaughter sent Wallace's proposals up the chain of command, and Wallace informed Grant that the rebels in Texas would soon be surrendering.

Slaughter's superior in Houston, however, Maj. John G. Walker , denounced Wallace's terms and wrote a stinging letter to Slaughter for having listened to them in the first place. Edmund Kirby Smith , was not ready to abandon the cause either. On May 9, , he told the governors of the western Confederate states that despite Lee's surrender, his own army remained, and he proposed to continue the fight. The Confederates in Texas were aware of the fate of the Confederacy's eastern armies.

The paper contained the news of Lee's surrender, Lincoln's death, and the surrender negotiations between Johnston and Sherman. Within the next ten days several hundred rebels left the army and went home.

Those who remained were as resolute as their commanders to continue the fight in Texas. The federals, meanwhile, had received an erroneous report that the southerners were preparing to evacuate Brownsville and move east of Corpus Christi. Carrying five days' rations and rounds of ammunition per man, the Union troops crossed over to the coast at P. Under the command of Lt. David Branson, this detachment marched all night and reached White's Ranch at daybreak.

There Branson's men halted and tried to conceal themselves in a thicket along the Rio Grande. The camp was spotted by "civilians" probably Confederate soldiers on the Mexican side of the river. Realizing that any hope of surprising the Confederates was lost, Branson immediately resumed his march toward Brownsville. At Palmito Ranch the federals encountered Capt.

Robinson's man company of Lt. George H. Giddings 's Texas Cavalry Battalion, which skirmished briefly with the Union force before retiring. Though Southern troops had by no means disbanded, the Union forces were aware that the Confederates in the east were all but vanquished, and received word in April of General Lee's surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox.

A gentleman's agreement arose between the Union and Confederacy that precluded fighting in the area. The truce was broken when Colonel Theodore Barrett dispatched men under the command of Lieutenant Colonel David Branson on May 11, , to attack Confederate outposts. Having met little resistance along the way, the troops succeeded in scattering the Confederate forces at Palmito Ranch also spelled "Palmetto". However, they were driven back by Confederate forces and eventually engaged by a cavalry force under the command of the famous Colonel John S.

After a brief skirmish including artillery fire by the Confederate cavalry, Branson ordered a retreat and escaped to nearby Boca Chica, having suffered more than casualties.

For the majority of the conflict, headlines with news of catastrophic Union defeats were uncomfortably common. It was doubtlessly upsetting for many in the North to realize that the last battle in the Civil War or at least the last time that casualties were claimed would go down in history as a Confederate victory.