Dating when the American Civil War ended is a point of debate. All that can be agreed upon is that the fall of Richmond and Petersburg, followed quickly by Robert E. Lee’s submission at Appomattox, created a chain reaction that assured collapse. Lee and his ability to hold Petersburg and Richmond was the hope the diehards clung to in 1865. Now it was gone.
Aiding this was William Tecumseh Sherman’s advance through North Carolina and the fall of the last major coastal bastions at Charleston, Wilmington, and Mobile. James Wilson ripped through Alabama and into Georgia and Florida, destroying the last of the South’s industrial base. Joseph Johnston, who was never as committed to the Confederacy as others, surrendered on April 26 after long negotiations. The last major force east of the Mississippi River was surrendered by Richard Taylor at Citronelle, Alabama, on May 4. The next day, Jefferson Davis dissolved the Confederacy and was himself captured on May 10, the same day Florida’s forces submitted.
Even as the Confederacy fell apart, some wanted to continue. Many were looking to their political future. Taylor observed with his usual sarcasm that “many Southern warriors, from the hustings and in print, have declared that they were anxious to die in the last ditch, and by implication were restrained from so doing by the readiness of their generals to surrender. One is not permitted to question the sincerity of these declarations, which have received the approval of public opinion by the elevation of the heroes uttering them to such offices as the people of the South have to bestow; and popular opinion in our land is a court from whose decisions there is no appeal on this side of the grave.” Taylor believed such dramatic statements were hollow.
Johnston had a spat with Thomas Clingman, who was perhaps looking to his political future. Clingman wanted to “make this a Thermopylae” rather than surrender to Sherman. Johnston retorted that he was “not in the Thermopylae business.” Johnston had already told Davis it was over, and Taylor told his men not to turn guerrilla lest they “be hunted down like beasts of prey.” Kirby Smith’s Trans-Mississippi Department was different. It was filled with guerrillas and rough-hewn cavalry. If a true guerrilla war or insurgency were to happen, it would be here, where there were actual diehards as well as men who feared retribution. They might keep fighting.
Smith was tired of his command and asked for reassignment months before. His department was under constant strain and reeling from Sterling Price’s disastrous Missouri invasion. Supplies were dwindling, inflation was high, the men were unpaid, and many were leaving. Smith resorted to freely executing deserters, but it did little good. Some 50 men in the 29th Louisiana left as deserters from east of the Mississippi streamed in, bringing stories of disaster at Nashville and Petersburg.
Not until April 19 did Smith know of Lee’s fate when John Pope informed him. It was kept from the men until April 21. The initial reaction from the top brass was to keep fighting, confirmed in a meeting on April 29 in Shreveport. That same day, George Flournoy, backed by Louisiana Governor Henry Allen, said that Smith planned to surrender the department to Pope. Adding to Flournoy’s case, John T. Sprague, Pope’s chief of staff, was at Alexandria waiting for Smith to submit. Smith denied that he wanted to yield, but now there were rumors in a chaotic situation.
Price wanted to arrest Smith. However, Smith’s spies warned him, and Smith ordered Price to Washington, Arkansas, to get him out of Shreveport. How serious Price was is debatable, but it is unnerving that he even contemplated anything. Smith, though, decided to hold on in case Davis made an escape.
Smith had some 50,000 men in arms, but once the news of Lee’s surrender arrived, the department’s shaky discipline and morale collapsed. Desertion accelerated. Officers left and were followed by their men, some destroying their weapons. Lawlessness was so bad that Smith and his staff did not leave their quarters at night.
Texas troops abandoned the cause first. John N. Edwards, a member of Joseph Shelby’s staff, insulted them in 1867 in strong words, that it “never occurred to her galloping, spur-jingling, half-horse, half-alligator Yahoos, that some bastard Federal lieutenant would erect branches of his negro bureau in every available town, and through the magic of a shoulder-strap whisp away the half dozen revolvers girt about them, and the fearful yells with which the long-haired man-eaters were wont to extinguish the ‘Yankees’ and devour the ‘Dutch.’ Where now are the ‘three-foot’ bowie-knives? Where the coiled lassoes for fancy work about the skirmish lines? Where the unterrified, unextinguishable, unadulterated, unuttterable Tex-i-ans, who swore as an excuse for clandestinely disbanding, that if the ‘Yankees dared to pollute the sacred soil of Texas, every rivulet should run with blood and every bayou should be a battle-field ?’ Herding harmless cattle in the sunlight, and promising great things some day — subjugated, oppressed, trampled upon, and despised by the very ‘Yankees’ to whom they marched three hundred miles to surrender, and for whose sakes their guns were consumed in the prairie grass, and their swords beaten into plowshares.”
On May 8, Sprague met Smith at Shreveport and told him Johnston had surrendered. Smith wavered, knowing there was no major army east of the Mississippi outside of Taylor’s forces, which had just taken a beating at Mobile and Selma. Regardless, Smith turned down Pope on May 9, in part because Pope’s message was too harsh. Meanwhile, morale utterly collapsed in the department at the news of Johnston’s surrender, and now most generals and politicians decided it was truly over. In a May 13 meeting at Marshall, Texas, the various governors advised Smith to surrender.
Despite all the bad news, Shelby would not give up. He wanted to replace Smith with Simon Buckner. The plan was to keep on fighting until driven across the Rio Grande, where the Rebels would help either side in the ongoing Mexican Civil War and from there found “an Empire or a Republic.” When Shelby told Smith his plan, Smith cried and promised to hand command to Buckner, who agreed to take command only if Smith gave it up willingly.
Buckner apparently agreed with Shelby at this point, but there is some doubt about how serious he was. However, most soldiers wanted to give up, and Buckner was fast losing hope, if he had any. Smith, meanwhile, at Shelby’s behest, sent William Preston to Mexico to apprise him of the situation. There were vague hopes of Mexico letting the Rebels in or even asserting some authority over Texas. Smith also expected Davis to arrive via Cuba, not knowing yet he was in Wilson’s custody. At the same time, Smith sent a letter to Pope to reopen talks.
That the war would end was certain, but the situation was in flux and dangerous. The next few weeks would determine if the bloodshed would end sooner or later. And in this situation, Buckner would play a key role.
Simon Buckner had taken a tortured road to his 1865 command. He tried to get Kentucky out of the Union and had the sad duty of surrendering Fort Donelson. He spent most of the war in district commands, but led a corps at Chickamauga. Buckner was assigned to the Trans-Mississippi Department on April 28, 1864, at Kirby Smith’s request. Jefferson Davis appears to have wanted Buckner to help in an invasion of Missouri, where many Kentuckians settled before the war.
Buckner eagerly accepted his new assignment, crossing at Tunica, Louisiana, on June 13, 1864. He did well as essentially Smith’s second in command and was popular with the men. For his efforts, Buckner was promoted to the Confederacy’s second-highest rank at Smith’s insistence. However, Buckner tried to cross troops to the east bank, but it was determined only small groups could come over. An idea by P.G.T. Beauregard to strike at New Orleans in February 1865 was squashed by Smith and Buckner.
Fighting was at a near end. CSS Webb, which made a run from Shreveport to the gulf, was almost successful before being destroyed near the mouth of the Mississippi on April 25, in one of the most dramatic naval actions of the war. The skirmish at Palmito Ranch near Brownsville, Texas was brought on by a controversial Union attack. On May 17 Smith went to Houston without giving Buckner command, leaving before an angry Sterling Price could confront him. He intended from there to gather his forces and wait for Davis, who was said to be making his way west.
In Texas, Smith found out almost all the troops under John G. Walker and John Magruder had disbanded. Smith called himself “a commander without an army.” John N. Edwards noted that in Texas, “everything was collapsing as fast as a patient in the last stages of cholera.” Joseph Shelby found his men having to resist marauding ex-soldiers, particularly in Tyler, Texas. His men maintained order where they could, but Texas was too vast, and its unionist element was asserting itself.
Price, against Smith’s orders, went to Shreveport. By then, the remaining Louisiana and Texas Confederates were deserting, many turning to banditry. Rations were dwindling, which caused the 26th and 28th Louisiana to evaporate after a march from Natchitoches to Mansfield. The 26th Louisiana ripped apart their banner, each man getting a piece as a memento. Their commander, Winchester Hall, burned the flagstaff.
Only the Missouri and Arkansas troops remained, and they asked Buckner to make an orderly surrender. For his part, Buckner was appalled by the chaos in the area and thought only Federal troops could restore order. Some of it was self-inflicted. The 3rd Louisiana, one of the best regiments, only dissolved on May 19-20 when they were placed under guard. The enraged men proceeded to disperse and liberally loot. Only a small part of the 17th Louisiana remained.
Buckner’s surrender would be a relief to E.R.S. Canby, the overall commander west of the Mississippi and along the Gulf Coast. As late as May 20, Peter Osterhaus, Canby’s chief of staff, reported that Smith and Buckner planned to keep fighting. By one account, an alarmed Canby was preparing to drive into Texas on May 27.
In reality, May 20 was when Price decided to surrender. Price went with Buckner and each man taking part of their staff. Shelby, after hearing this, made for Mexico. As for Osterhaus, he received word from Buckner on May 21 and informed Canby, who was in Mobile. Buckner was not a moment too soon. Independent of Buckner, Harry Hays on May 23 had already sent Joseph Brent to talk with Francis Herron, commander at Baton Rouge, about surrendering Louisiana. John Magruder also had a delegation sent to surrender Texas, but they did not arrive in time.
Upon reaching Baton Rouge on May 24, Herron, escorted Buckner, Price, and Brent to New Orleans. Canby and Buckner arrived in New Orleans on May 25. Buckner did not dally. He went straight to the St. Charles Hotel. The building was a massive structure, built atop a previous hotel that burned down. It was here that Benjamin Butler made his headquarters, and it remained so for the Union forces in Louisiana. It was here the Bayou Teche, Port Hudson, and the Red River campaigns were planned. Today it is the site of the massive Place St. Charles. There is no historical marker for what unfolded there.
To aid in the talks, Buckner asked for Richard Taylor to assist. He was in New Orleans waiting for his family. He had established good relations with Canby, who also wanted Taylor there. However, Taylor had exchanged barbed words with Osterhaus weeks before. There might be another dramatic exchange ripe for newspapers and memoirs.
The terms were the same Ulysses S. Grant gave Robert E. Lee and which John Pope offered Smith weeks earlier. Buckner tried to get better ones, but it went nowhere, and William Tecumseh Sherman’s generous terms to Joseph Johnston would be impossible. The Rebels agreed to terms that night, but not until May 26 would everything be signed and finalized. By all accounts, the meeting was relatively pleasant and without any humorous or dramatic incidents. There was no pathos in New Orleans. No Sherman hogging whiskey, Taylor sparring with Osterhaus, nor Grant asking Lee if he remembered them meeting back in Mexico.
Osterhaus signed for the Union, as he was Buckner’s Union equivalent. Osterhaus recalled, “With these capitulations, the great war came to its conclusion. To me, it will always be a highly valued recollection, that it was my good fortune to set my name under these final agreements.” As for Taylor, he wrote, “So, from the Charleston Convention to this point, I shared the fortunes of the Confederacy, and can say, as Grattan did of Irish freedom, that I ‘sat by its cradle and followed its hearse.’”
There would be another hearse on May 26. That same day, some of the Union’s last executions occurred, as ten men, eight from the 52nd USCT, were hanged for murder. The other two were also from USCT outfits.
Back in Louisiana, Buckner inevitably thought back to Fort Donelson, saying it “was but an illustration of what I did here.” There was the parallel of him being left by a superior to carry out the act. Buckner also surrendered on his initiative at both places. Unlike Fort Donelson, though, his men were mostly eager to give up. Just as Nathan Bedford Forrest escaped Fort Donelson, Shelby fled to Corsicana, Texas.
Smith considered going to Mexico and asked Buckner to join him on May 28, unaware Buckner had already given up. On May 30, Smith gave up all hope of good terms and contacted John Sprague. On June 1, Smith went to Galveston and found out Buckner had already surrendered. The next day, he finalized the capitulation in Galveston harbor aboard USS Fort Jackson, adding only that Confederates be allowed to make a home out of the country.
By then, Arkansas was in chaos, and those troops were dissolving. On June 2, Price told his Missouri men it was over. They were among the few to maintain some discipline and reacted with joy, dejection, or anger depending on the man. June 3 saw the Red River squadron surrender. On June 6, Herron arrived in Shreveport. Slavery was ended in Louisiana on June 10 and in Texas on June 19.
On June 2, Shelby’s men split up, some going to Shreveport and the rest going with him from Waco to Austin. At some point, Price joined him. At San Antonio, they found the city in the clutches of disorder and a number of prominent Confederates milling about, including Smith, Magruder, Thomas Hindman, Hylan Lyon, Danville Leadbetter, Cadmus Wilcox, Henry Allen, Isham G. Harris, and others. From there they went to New Braunfels with these fellow Confederates in tow. Smith led the vanguard.
Shelby reached the Rio Grande at Eagle Pass with 1,000 men. The Confederates dumped their flags in the river on July 4, 1865. Whatever hopes they had of service in Mexico or raiding Texas ended as they were disarmed after crossing over.
Many blamed Smith and Buckner for what befell the department, even though Smith went with Shelby to Mexico. Edwards, ever ready with an insult, thought Smith was “totally destitute of enterprise, without the faint whisperings even of ambition ; slow, nerveless, indifferent ; more of an Episcopalian preacher than a revolutionary leader; he demoralized the entire department, mildewed the army, disgusted his subordinates.” Of Buckner, he wrote, “His enthusiasm was short lived, his determination was never compact, his romance was a practical kind, and he had the mournful satisfaction of surrendering the first and the last army of the subjugated and destroyed South.” Edwards, though, penned those words during the height of Southern bitterness, and the reality was Buckner and Smith had little choice.
While Smith left for Mexico, Buckner judged it undignified to flee. He oversaw the paroling of the department. While he thought he would parole 38,000, it was only around 17,000 due to desertions, exiles, and men going home directly. The work was done by June 8. Buckner wrote a farewell to his men, soldiers he had known for nearly a year and had not led into battle, but who retained great confidence in him though no longer in the cause and its chances. He told them to “cultivate friendly relation with all, abstain from all hostile acts, and discountenance every attempt at disorder.” The next day, he wrote a farewell to his staff. He then returned to Kentucky.
Several history books have made a case for May 26 as the war’s true end. While the department was dissolving, it could have held out under different circumstances, particularly if Smith made plans in regard to Mexico weeks before Appomattox. Collapse east of the Mississippi came too fast to a department already in a leadership crisis because Smith was dejected, Buckner lacked will, and Price was under a cloud due to his disastrous 1864 Missouri invasion. Only Shelby and his brigade, probably the best west of the Mississippi, soldiered on, having a leader of iron will commanding a coherent fighting force. Stand Watie also held out until June 23, but that had more to do with the politics of Indian Territory than a true diehard last stand.
There is a contingent of historians who say the war never ended. The nation is still divided along the same lines, and Reconstruction saw an insurgency. However, Reconstruction was not an insurgency, as the American army was not targeted. It was more a manifestation of the type of political violence that was already common in America before the war, which already had a racial dimension.
One would do better to compare Reconstruction violence to New York City and New Orleans in the 1850s, than they would Iraq or Vietnam. There have been massacres, riots, and skirmishes since 1865, and beyond Reconstruction. There would be Colfax, Haymarket, Tulsa, and Ruby Ridge, violence across the political spectrum, with varying dimensions of race, class, ideology, and even religion. However, an actual war, where Americans participated in mass, consistent, and constant organized violence, was at an end the moment Buckner and Osterhaus signed in the St. Charles Hotel.
–emergingcivilwar.com
