Jack of Harts

The Civil War left the Southern States in ruins. Forty percent of their livestock, farming equipment, and mechanized industries were wiped out. Their railroads had been torn up to destroy their ability to resupply their troops. And twenty five percent of all Southern free men were dead. Some estimates are higher or lower on each of these points, but the fact is that the Civil War shattered the Southern economy. And while Texas suffered very little actual damage, their mechanized industries had been far less developed than the older States. The loss of so many of their young men to the war, and the loss of so much livestock sent to feed the Confederacy’s army, left their economy in ruins, and what money they did have was effectively useless after their government surrendered. Northern men found riches of land and equipment for the taking when they arrived with their stereotypical carpetbags full of money to buy what they wanted and bring it back into operation. The New Age of Reconstruction had begun.

There were very few major battles on Texas soil during the Civil War. The Union blockaded their ports, and took over the port cities surrounding them when possible. Most of the largest battles that occurred were related to Texas defending or retaking those ports, or crossing their eastern border to delay Union armies marching towards Texas. The Union never actually conquered Texas, and it was a hotspot of blockade runners shipping Southern Cotton to buyers all over the world throughout the war. Texas was in fact still standing as a powerful State with an effective army when General Lee surrendered at Appomattox. Though most of them saw the writing on the wall as the other Southern armies began surrendering.

The State of Texas counted just over four hundred thousand free citizens when Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States. Just over forty thousand of them voted in favor of secession. Over seventy thousand, some estimates say as many as ninety thousand, Texans took arms in defense of their State and the Confederacy. And over two thousand took up arms for the Union. That is as many as twenty percent of their free population, effectively an entire generation of their young men. They raised over forty-five regiments of capable Texas cavalry troops to form the backbone of the Confederacy’s screening and harassing forces, along with heavy infantry and artillery support, and five more cavalry regiments on the Union side. Texans fought in every major battle of the Civil War, often on both sides, and it is impossible to underestimate how much the army they sent east changed the nature of the war. The South certainly would have fallen far sooner than it did.