Hidalgo County
Project participants have identified key locations in the Rio Grande Valley that played significant roles in the Civil War history and place these on a physical map/brochure. Each of these locations are associated with an audio podcast that will explain the site’s significance and share interesting details about the action that took place there. These podcasts are accessible on this website and are accessible via cell phones through QR codes and by dialing (956) 847-3002.
Resting in this cemetery are two Union Army veterans, Sergeant Ignacio Zamora and Private Jose Maria Loya. Zamora enlisted in the 2nd Regiment, Texas Cavalry Company, at Brownsville in 1864. Private Loya enlisted in the Independent Partisan Rangers, Texas Cavalry, in 1863. Both descended from Spanish Colonial families who founded the settlement called Peñitas in the mid-1700s, which then—like all of Texas—was part of New Spain, and after 1821, the Republic of Mexico. After the U.S.-Mexican War ended in 1848, the Mexican government was forced to recognize the Rio Grande as an international boundary. People of Mexican origin whose homes lay north of the boundary often became targets of land theft and violence. This may have inspired them to join the Union army as a form of retaliation against their Confederate neighbors. Many willingly went to Brownsville to enlist into local regiments, such as the 2nd Regiment of the Texas Cavalry, in fear of being conscripted and sent far away. It is also noted that bounty money was offered to enlist in the Union Army. This appealed to some local vaqueros who were not only opposed to slavery but as ranchers and farmers were dealing with the loss of family land grant properties at the end of the Mexican American War.
In the 1850s, this ranching settlement on the Rio Grande had become an important crossing point between the United States and Mexico. Later renamed Edinburgh, it had a mercantile store along with a ferry and steamboat landing. Located roughly halfway between Fort Brown and Ringgold Barracks, the town became a strategic objective for Union forces and Confederates alike during the Civil War. Founded by Spanish frontiersmen around 1750, today's "Hidalgo" was originally called La Habitación and became part of a major “salt trail” from La Sal del Rey to central and northern Mexico. In 1848, the United States forced Mexico to give up its claims to northern territory and the village became part of the United States. A Scottish merchant named John Young opened a store here in 1852. Despite its Spanish and Mexican name and culture, Young re-named the settlement Edinburgh after his home city. With a ferry across the river and a steamboat landing, Edinburgh grew in population and military importance. The Military Highway between Fort Brown and Ringgold Barracks ran nearby. During the Civil War, Edinburgh passed back and forth between Union and Confederate control. When Union forces occupied Brownsville in late 1863, the main Confederate cotton trail to Mexico shifted upriver to Edinburgh and the cotton trains headed farther west to Rio Grande City and Laredo. After July 1864, Confederate forces controlled the town and crossing again until the war ended in May 1865 when Edinburgh was occupied by Union forces, including U.S. Colored Troops. It was renamed Hidalgo in 1885.
Now dry, La Bolsa, or “the pocket”, was a northward loop of the Rio Grande on the boundary between Hidalgo and Cameron counties. On February 4, 1860, Mexican rancher, politician, military leader, outlaw and folk hero Juan Cortina attacked the silver-laden steamboat Ranchero as it navigated La Bolsa en route to Brownsville. This was one major event in what is sometimes referred to as the “Cortina War,” an armed conflict between various local elite groups which became enmeshed with the Civil War when that reached the Valley in 1861. Soldiers from Ringgold Barracks were on board the steamboat to guard the valuable cargo. Texas Rangers from Rio Grande City rode along the north bank as added security; more Rangers and a U.S. Cavalry troop from Fort Brown also approached from the east. All of these forces converged on La Bolsa. As the Ranchero entered the narrow bend the cortinistas opened fire from the south bank. Those on board returned fire with rifles and two cannons. As Cortina prepared a second attack, Col. John S. “Rip” Ford and the Rangers from Rio Grande City crossed the river on the Ranchero and charged Cortina’s position. The cortinistas and their leader retreated, leaving behind many dead. The Ranchero delivered her cargo safely to Fort Brown, but in the wake of the incident the U. S. Army sent Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee from San Antonio to the Rio Grande with orders to inform the Mexican authorities that if they could not corral Cortina the U. S. Army would enter Mexico in order to do so. For a time, Juan Cortina withdrew south, into the Mexican interior, but he returned to the border in 1861 as a Union officer to resume his war with local rivals, particularly Confederate commander Santos Benavides.
One of many ranchos along the Military Highway, Havana was founded in 1767 and was named for the Spanish port city in Cuba. When the Civil War began, Havana found itself caught up in the sectional conflict. Generations of vaqueros and workers were born on the ranch and lived here. Among them was Patricio Pérez, who like most vaqueros was a skilled horseman. After Texas tried to leave the United States in 1861, many Tejanos used their skills with horses by joining the Confederate forces as cavalrymen. But Patricio Perez remained loyal to the Union. When federal troops occupied the Valley in late 1863, Pérez rode to Brownsville, where he enlisted with the Second Regiment of Texas Cavalry, one of many Tejanos to join Texas’ federal forces. He was issued the standard uniform, saber, and revolver, but a wartime photo shows him holding a big sombrero instead of regular army headgear. Pérez earned the rank of sergeant in 1864. The Second Regiment saw duty in the Brownsville area until it was ordered to New Orleans in July 1864. It remained in Louisiana and Mississippi until the war ended. Its soldiers, Sgt. Pérez among them, mustered out in November 1865. Patricio Pérez returned to Havana and to his life as a vaquero and rancher. He died in his seventies in 1908, and lies in the town’s cemetery, his wife Martina resting beside him.
For centuries, this remote site was a destination for American Indians, Spanish settlers, Mexican traders, and Anglo-Americans who sought the rich source of valuable white crystals known as salt. La Sal del Rey is the site of a large salt lake and was South Texas’s main source of vital salt during the Civil War. In addition to seasoning, salt was the chief means of preserving meat and fish. Livestock, including cattle, mules and horses needed it and the white crystals were used in curing leather for shoes, harnesses, and other military goods. Wagon loads of salt went south to Brownsville for shipment from Matamoros and Bagdad. Empty cotton wagons returning from Brownsville often stopped here to load salt for destinations in central and east Texas. In 1863, Union forces destroyed the salt works. The following year, when Confederates took control of the Valley again, they used La Sal del Rey as a staging point and re-opened the mines. The name La Sal del Rey is Spanish, meaning “The King’s Salt," a reference to royal ownership of valued mineral sources in colonial times. After the Civil War, a legal controversy over the lake’s ownership led to the State of Texas declaring that mineral rights belonged to private property owners and not to the general public. Salt mining continued at La Sal del Rey until the 1940s. Today it is a federal nature preserve, looking much as it did during the 1860s.
With its soaring main tower, the Museum of South Texas History (MOSTHistory) is a signature landmark on the north side of Edinburg’s Courthouse square. Accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, MOSTHistory occupies an entire city block with Spanish Revival buildings and landscaped parking areas. Founded in 1967 as the Hidalgo County Historical Museum in the 1910 Hidalgo County Jail, today the museum preserves and presents the borderland heritage of South Texas and Northeastern Mexico through its permanent collection and the Margaret H. McAllen Memorial Archives and exhibits spanning prehistory through the 20th century. Its collections include significant holdings relating to the American Civil War, including sabers, carbines and other weapons as well as bullets from the Palmito Ranch battle site and other reminders of the Civil War’s last land battle, fought near Brownsville in May, 1865.
Along the Rio Grande in Hidalgo County lay the Jackson Ranch and Eli Jackson Cemetery, once owned by Nathaniel Jackson, a loyal Unionist during the Civil War. In the 1850’s, Jackson left Alabama with his African-American wife Matilda Hicks, his son Eli, and other adult children. They hoped to escape the intolerance of inter-racial marriage they had known in the South. Accompanying the Jacksons were eleven African-American freedmen. In 1857, Jackson founded his ranch on a former Spanish grant. His property is said to have become a refuge for runaway slaves from Texas and the Deep South. Today, many people know about the Underground Railroad that shepherded enslaved people to freedom in the northern states and Canada, but few know about the route to freedom in Mexico. The Jackson Ranch lay near the Military Highway between Fort Ringgold and Fort Brown, and would have been visited by Confederate and Union troops as they fought for control of the Lower Valley in 1863 and 1864. Jackson died in 1865, the same year that his son Eli established the family cemetery where members of the clan now rest. Nathaniel Jackson’s grave is unmarked.
In the 1860s, the Rancho Santa Anita, owned by Irish merchant and stockman John McAllen, was one of many ranches in Hidalgo County. Its abundance of water wells made it a natural magnet for freighters, travelers and soldiers. McAllen had mercantile operations in Matamoros, Brownsville, and Edinburgh, now called Hidalgo. A British citizen, he declared himself neutral in the Civil War. McAllen, his son James, and his step-son John Young supplied beef, hides, and tallow to Confederate and Union forces alike. During the Valley’s Union occupation in 1863 and 1864, cavalry troops from Fort Brown camped at various spots on his Santa Anita ranch and elsewhere in South Texas. The federals searched for enemy patrols and tried to disrupt the wagon trains carrying cotton and salt to Mexico. Ranchers with known Confederate sympathies often found their properties raided and burned, but due to its owners' neutral stance, the Santa Anita was not among them.
USCT United States Colored Troops
Webber’s Ranch and cemetery lies beside the Rio Grande near the old Military Highway, south of Donna in Hidalgo County. John Ferdinand Webber, a Vermont native, was among the earliest Anglo-American settlers in Texas. In 1832, he resided in Wells Prairie, south of Austin, which eventually developed into the village of Webberville. There he bought the freedom of Silvia Hector, an enslaved African-American woman, and the freedom of their first three children together. As more settlers from the Deep South moved into the area, discrimination grew against Webber and his family. In 1853, the Webbers moved to the border with its more tolerant racial attitude. Here Juan Fernando Webber, as he was known locally, bought acreage from Spanish land grants and established his rancho. During the Civil War, Webber and his growing family remained loyal to the Union. For his own safety, Webber crossed into Mexico while Confederate troops occupied the Valley. In June, 1864, rebel forces under John S. “Rip” Ford and Santos Benavides drove the federals back toward Brownsville. At the ranch, the Confederates arrested Webber’s sons as Union sympathizers, but one son escaped, rode to Brownsville, and told the federal commander that Ford had only about sixty men. Union troops were dispatched to find the enemy but Ford struck first, scattering the Yankee force. John Webber returned to his ranch after the war ended and died there in 1882. His wife, nicknamed “Aunt Puss,” survived him by nine years. Both lie in the ranch cemetery, along with other family members and ranch workers.
Early in 1863, Abraham Lincoln observed: “The colored population is the great available yet unavailed of force for restoring the Union.” Two months later the War Department issued General Order #143 which sanctioned the creation of the United States Colored Troops (USCT).Three regiments of the USCT entered the Rio Grande Valley in the fall of 1864. Encamped at Brazos Santiago, a detachment of the 62nd Infantry fought Confederates at the Battle of Palmito Ranch on May 13, 1865. Two weeks later, on May 30, the 62nd, along with other U.S. Army units, moved into Brownsville. By May 1865, nearly 16,000 USCT veterans of the 25th Corps arrived at Brazos Santiago from City Point, Virginia, and were quickly dispersed to Forts Brown at Brownsville, Ringgold Barracks at Rio Grande City, Fort McIntosh at Laredo, and Fort Duncan at Eagle Pass, as well as to smaller posts where they were assigned to prevent former Confederates from establishing their defeated government and army in Mexico. Later, the USCT, along with their successors the "buffalo soldiers"—as they were called by Plains Indians—patrolled the border to stop ongoing violence in Mexico from spilling into the United States, and to discourage bandits and Indians from attacking civilian communities. The black soldiers made a fine adjustment to the hot desert terrain and diverse culture of the Valley, as explained by Sergeant Major Thomas Boswell of the 116th: "If our regiment stays here any length of time we will all speak Spanish, as we are learning very fast." The last USCT regiment, the 117th U.S. Colored Infantry, left the Rio Grande in July 1867.