Matagorda, C.S.A.

Near the mouth of the Colorado River, twenty miles to the south, Matagorda was the second most important port of entry in early Texas. During the Civil War, it was the center for rich farmlands and one of eight Texas ports used by blockade runners to take out tons of cotton while delivering guns, munitions, clothing, and other vital goods to the Confederacy. Because of the declared blockade, Federals claimed to hold Matagorda, yet their own ships had to refuel, even for drinking water supplies, in New Orleans. When the crew of a blockading ship went ashore near Matagorda on November 20, 1862, Confederates captured every man. Federals used hit-and-run tactics to destroy salt works and other property, but they found Matagorda Peninsula impossible to occupy. On December 30, 1863, C.S.A. cottonclads, ships bulwarked with cotton bales in which guns were set, moved men out of Matagorda to expel a Federal unit from a beach below Confederate works at Caney Creek. As troops tried to land, a sudden norther lashed the bay and swamped their skiffs. Before the ships could pick them up, twenty-two men died by drowning or freezing, and Captain E.S. Rugeley lost his own seventeen-year-old brother in the tragedy.

Bay City, Texas · United States