A Deep Dive Into the History of the Texas Navy With Andy Hall

I sit down with Andy Hall to discuss the FIRST and SECOND Texas Navy that played a vital role during the Texas Revolution and during the years of the republic of Texas!

Andy Hall has volunteered with the office of the State Marine Archaeologist at the Texas Historical Commission since 1990, helping to document historic shipwrecks in Texas waters. From 1997 to 2002, Hall served as Co-Principal Investigator for the Denbigh Project, the most extensive archaeological investigation of a Civil War blockade runner to date in the Gulf of Mexico.

Hall has written two books on Texas maritime history, The Galveston-Houston Packet: Steamboats on Buffalo Bayou and Civil War Blockade Running on the Texas Coast, both published by the History Press of Charleston, South Carolina. Hall writes and speaks frequently on the subjects of Texas' maritime history and its military conflicts in the 19th century. Hall is a Texas Navy Admiral, and recently completed two consecutive terms as a member of the Board of Directors of the Texas Navy Association. He currently serves as Commander of the Texas Navy's Charles E. Hawkins Squadron in Galveston.

The Texas Navy Association: https://texasnavy.org/

Andy Hall's Books:
Civil War Blockade Running on the Texas Coast : https://www.amazon.com/Civil-Blockade-Running-Texas-Coast/dp/1626195005
The Galveston-Houston Packet: Steamboats on Buffalo Bayou: https://www.amazon.com/Galveston-Houston-Packet-Steamboats-Buffalo-Bayou/dp/1609495918

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Governments in those days liked privateers because
they didn't have to invest inanything.
They planted the flag andclaimed the island of Cozumel
for the Republic of Texas.
That is a commission from thegovernor of the state of Texas,
from Greg Abbott, commissioningyou as an admiral in the Texas
Navy.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hello and welcome to Galveston Unscripted.
I have got a fun one for youtoday.
I sit down with Andy Hall anddiscuss the Texas Navy.
That's right, the Texas Navy.
The Texas Navy played acritical role during the Texas
Revolution.
If you like history, especiallyTexas history, you are going to
love this episode.
Andy knows what he's talkingabout.

(00:36):
Andy has volunteered with theoffice of the state marine
archaeologist at the TexasHistorical Commission since 1990
, helping to document historicshipwrecks in Texas waters.
He even served as theco-principal investigator for
the DIMB project.
To this day, it has been themost extensive archaeological
investigation of a Civil WarBlockade Runner in the Gulf of

(00:58):
Mexico.
Andy has written two books onTexas maritime history Civil War
Blockade Running on the Texascoast and the Galveston Houston
packet Steamboats on BuffaloBayou.
Andy writes and speaks onmatters of Texas history
frequently, especially Texasmaritime history and military
conflicts, which is why we havehim in the new studio today
discussing the Texas Navy.

(01:20):
Andy Hall is a Texas Navyadmiral and I am extremely
excited to share with you whatAndy Hall, my first guest in the
Galveston Unscripted PodcastStudio, brought me today.
Andy has served on the board ofdirectors for the Texas Navy
Association, whose focus is oneducation and the preservation
of Texas history, especially itsmaritime history.

(01:40):
Andy currently serves as thecommander of the Texas Navy's
Charles E Hawkins Squadron herein Galveston.
I am very excited to share thisepisode with you.
Wherever you are watching orlistening, please make sure to
like, subscribe and share.
The focus of this podcast is topreserve and promote history,
and I could not do any of thiswithout you.

(02:02):
Without further ado, let's hopright into this episode with
Andy Hall discussing the TexasNavy and the Texas Navy
Association.
As an added bonus, we alsodiscuss other aspects of Texas's
maritime history.
Welcome to Galveston,unscripted Andy Hall.
Thank you so much for joiningme on the Galveston Unscripted

(02:24):
Podcast.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
Jared, thank you for having me.
I appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yeah, I really appreciate you coming up here.
You were the first officialpodcast guest in the studio, so
thanks for helping me work outthe kinks with the mic check and
everything like that.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
I don't know if being first is great or not being
great, I don't know.
We'll see.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
I don't know.
We're going to figure that out.
Yeah, so could you tell us alittle bit about yourself and a
little bit about your background?

Speaker 1 (02:48):
Sure, I'd be happy to .
My name is Andy Hall.
I'm originally from Galveston.
I was born here, I grew up here, spent most of my life, I've
lived here most of my life.
My interest is in maritime andmilitary history, particularly
of this geographic area, and soI've done a lot of research and

(03:10):
writing on those subjects.
Something I've been involvedwith for the last several years
is the Texas Navy Association,which is a 501C3 nonprofit
educational organization that istasked with preserving and
presenting the history of theTexas Navy the Navy that
actually existed during the timeof the Texas Republic to a

(03:33):
wider audience.
We have a whole range ofactivities that we do to help do
that, to help promote that, topromote that local history.
A lot of folks don't realizethat there actually was a Texas
Navy during the Texas Revolution, and we hope to correct that.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, I mean when I moved back down here in 2018, I
had heard of the Texas Navy, butI didn't know too much about it
.
And then down at Pier 21,.
I stumbled upon a littlehistorical marker down there and
really started to dive into it.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
Right, that's a historical marker that not a lot
of folks know where it is.
It's at Pier 21.
It's right at J Little Park,right adjacent to Harbor House.
It's where we hope there willbe a major, major new naval
history attraction soon.
But yeah, that's a marker.
I think that dates from theTexas Centennial in 1936.

(04:30):
And it records it commemoratesthe original.
The quote unquote first TexasNavy we may get into that a
little bit later about the firstand second Texas Navy.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
Yeah, that's something too I didn't know
either.
Even just reading online, it'skind of hard to distinguish
between the two.
But yeah, of course, Andy, Iwanted you to come in today and
talk a little bit about theTexas Navy, or the both Texas
Navy's right.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
The first and second Sure.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
But yeah, so could you tell us a little bit about
the Texas Navy, why it wassignificant, maybe even start
with the revolution, TexasRevolution and kind of roll into
that?

Speaker 1 (05:03):
Well, sure I'd be happy to.
The first thing that folks needto understand, just as
background and as context I knowyou certainly don't need, I
know you certainly have anappreciation of this is the
importance of maritime trade andcommerce to the development of
early Texas.
Most of the settlers, most ofthe goods, most of the things

(05:24):
that came to Texas, startingwith Austin's colony and of
course Texas had been part ofpart of the Spanish Empire and
later, after the revolution,part of Mexico.
But the settlers that came in,beginning with Austin's colony
not just Austin's colonists butall the folks who were not

(05:45):
authorized who came into Texas,most of them came by sea.
They didn't come by landbecause transportation by sea,
then as now, is generallyespecially for large, for bulk
cargoes, and it was in thosedays it was faster and it was

(06:06):
more comfortable than travelingoverland.
And so the early settlers inthe 1820s and 30s leading up to
the Texas Revolution had a hugeappreciation for maritime trade
and the importance of keepingthat connection open.

(06:26):
That connection to most of themcame from the United, southern
United States, so they wanted tomaintain those connections to
ports like New Orleans andMobile particularly, and further
along the Gulf and up aroundthe East Coast.
They saw those as reallyimportant.
And so when there was, when inthe mid-1830s there began to be

(06:48):
this tension between the Texascolonists and the Mexican
government, one of the firstthings they did was try to find
a way to protect that connection.
One of the things that theMexican government did very
early on was they startedharassing ships that were
trading with Texas, with theTexas colonists.

(07:13):
There was an early incident offthe mouth of the Brazos in the
fall of 1835, called the SanFelipe Incident.
That involved this is beforethe Texas Navy existed that
involved a civilian schoonerbringing supplies into the port
of Velasco and altercation witha Mexican naval gunboat.

(07:39):
And that was one of the earlysort of indicators that made it
clear to the settlers in Texasthat we have to find a way to
protect ourselves and ourinterests in the maritime sphere
.
And so there was a lot of.

(07:59):
There was a big push in thefall of 1835 to establish both a
naval force and a force ofprivateers Now privateers
there's a lot of confusion aboutwhat those are.
Privateers are private ventures,they're commercial ventures,
they're privately owned shipsthat receive a license.

(08:19):
It's called a letter of markfrom the government that allows
them to prey on, to seize tocapture vessels of a specific
foreign government that its owngovernment, the privateer's own
government, is in conflict with.
That's.
There's a lot of gray area inwhen it comes to privateering,

(08:44):
partly because it is a it isvery much a for-profit business.
The governments in those daysliked privateers because they
didn't have to invest inanything.
They didn't have to buy theships, they didn't have to hire
the crews.
On the other hand, they didn'tnecessarily have as tight a
control over what privateers didin their name as as they would

(09:07):
with a regular naval vessel.
Privateering was in fact by the1830s privateering was sort of
on the way out internationally,and some years later there was
actually an internationalconvention that flat out
outlawed privateering.
But that didn't come for somefor some time later.
Privateering is a mechanism thatis typically used by

(09:32):
revolutionary movements,movements, revolutionary
governments that don't have alot of resources to establish a
regular navy, and they do itbecause it's inexpensive and
it's convenient.
It's also kind of hard tocontrol.
So there were, there was a moveboth to establish privateers on

(09:53):
behalf of the provisionalgovernment of Texas and a
regular navy and finally, inlate November of 1835, the Texas
provisional government actuallyestablished past legislation
that established the formalTexas Navy and over the next
several weeks into early 1836,texas provisional government

(10:15):
acquired four small schoonersthe Liberty former privateer
William Robbins was, I think,the first.
There was a, there was aschooner built in Baltimore
called the Invincible.
There was another schoonercalled the Brutus and last there
was a former US Coast Guardrevenue cutter that they

(10:38):
purchased that was originallycalled the Ingham.
That was renamed Independenceand so those four schooners
became the core four ships ofthe Texas Navy.
Those are sometimes called thefirst Texas Navy because they
were, you know, first Right andthen, as we'll get into this a

(11:01):
little bit further, all of thosefour schooners by the fall of
1837, all of them were lost toone cause or another and the
Republic of Texas spent the next18 months or two years actually
without any formal Navy at all.
And so when they reestablishedthe, when they, when they, under

(11:23):
the Lamar administration, whenthey passed legislation to
contract, to purchase ships, tohave ships built to, to equip
the Texas Navy, that happened inbeginning and at the end of
1838 and into 39.
That became what is known asthe second Texas Navy.
And there it's.
It's an easy conceptual thing,to, to, to and a break.

(11:49):
There's an easy, it's an easyconceptual thing to discuss it
in that way and to use thoseterms, because there's a clean
break in in terms of vesselsthat the Republic had between
the first four and then the onesthat came later.
So that's, that's what thefirst and second Texas Navy are.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
Okay, gotcha, gotcha.
So yeah, that's a very clearline of where.

Speaker 1 (12:09):
Yeah, it makes sense Now.
First and second Navy, firstand second Texas Navy.
Those are modern terms.
I think they were first used inthe around 1908, 1909 by
historian writing about theTexas Navy by the name of
Alexander Deinst I think he was.
He was the one who coined thatterm.
They weren't called that at thetime, but it's actually very

(12:32):
useful conceptually for us totalk about that now and to make
that distinction.

Speaker 2 (12:37):
So where, or initially where, did they get
all these ships?
Did they actually sail to theseother ports or send someone up
to these other ports likeBaltimore, or they sent agents?

Speaker 1 (12:47):
on behalf of the Texas government to purchase
ships that were available Duringthe first four.
They were all.
They were all already existingships.
The invincible was purchased inBaltimore.
It's generally acknowledged tohave been a Baltimore clipper
Very common, very common ship.
In those days.
They tended to be verydistinctive very fast.

(13:09):
Baltimore clippers were is atype that was originally sort of
evolved from the late 1700s on.
It probably reached its peak inthe 1810s or 1820s.
They were very popular for useas warships.
They're very popular for use asthey're popular for use as

(13:32):
privateers and they were popular, frankly, they were popular for
use as slaving vessels.
But the invincible was built inBaltimore.
We don't think it ever sailedunder that name before it was
purchased by the Texas Navy, bythe Republic of Texas.
It served until August of 1837when it was wrecked off the end

(14:02):
of Galveston.
That's a little bit.
That's another story.

Speaker 2 (14:06):
Has it ever been?
Have they found that one?

Speaker 1 (14:08):
Has it been found?
No, it has not.
Oh wow, it's the one.
There are two known Texas Navywrecks that are here in
Galveston.
One is a steamship that camelater.
That was part of the secondTexas Navy, the Zavala, which is
located within the boundariesof the port of Galveston on the

(14:29):
harbor that ship was basically.
That ship basically died ofneglect because there wasn't any
money and it was left to rot atits moorings and eventually a
lot of that material was sold atauction and the halt was just
left there.
And when the port came along inthe late 1800s and expanded,

(14:53):
that area where that ship was inthe water was subsequently
filled in and it is now, I think, west of the second cruise
terminal.

Speaker 2 (15:07):
Oh, wow, okay yeah.
So, it's not very far fromwhere we are right now.

Speaker 1 (15:13):
And then the Invincible was wrecked in a
battle with two Mexican warships.
In August of 1837.
The Invincible and the Brutus,which at that point were the
last surviving vessels of theFirst Texas Navy, had been on an
extended cruise around Cozumel,all along the Yucatecan coast,

(15:37):
and they planned the flag andclaimed the island of Cozumel
for the Republic of Texas, which, unfortunately, we didn't
follow up on that.

Speaker 2 (15:44):
Yeah right, beautiful island right, beautiful place.

Speaker 1 (15:49):
So they claimed the island of Cozumel.
They did a lot of raiding allalong the Yucatecan coast and
the idea was well, we're inconflict with Mexico and we want
to keep them away from theTexas coast, and the best way to
do that is to stir up thingsdown here, because Yucatán had
its own revolutionaries, it hadits own independence movement at

(16:14):
the time, and Mexico was notjust dealing with a bunch of
ornery settlers in Texas whowanted independence, they were
dealing with an insurrection inthe Yucatán Peninsula as well.
And so taking the Texas Navydown there and stirring up

(16:36):
trouble was, strategically, itwas a very good, it was
strategically sound or perceivedto be strategically sound.

Speaker 2 (16:46):
Right.
You want to score your enemythin, that's right.

Speaker 1 (16:49):
And of course and as you probably remember, that was
what Commodore Moore was doing afew years later with the Second
Texas Navy.
He was taking the fight to themthere, so we didn't have to
fight them here.
At any rate, they conductedthis raid.
It was a couple of months long,stirred up all sorts of

(17:10):
hornet's nests.
The Brutus and Invincible werefollowed back to Galveston by
two Mexican warships and onAugust 27th of 1837, they
arrived back at Galveston at theend of their cruise.
The Brutus was the smaller ofthe two ships.
And the Brutus entered theharbor.

(17:31):
It was a falling tide.
The Invincible was quite a bitlarger and drew more water, and
so they waited offshore becauseit was not perceived to be
terribly safe to attack, toenter the harbor and try and get
across the bar.
And these two Mexican warshipsshowed up and they ended up in a

(17:56):
long running battle.
Two or three hours they triedto get the Brutus back out to
help and assist the Invincible,but the Brutus ran aground and
unshipped a rudder and thatdidn't work.
Finally, Captain Thompson ofInvincible decided this is not

(18:17):
going to end well and, eventhough they were still on a
falling tide, tried to make arun for the harbor and,
unfortunately, grounded and theship was lost.
By most accounts the ship waswithin 24 or 48 hours, was

(18:39):
battered to pieces by the surfso that nothing was visible
above the water and the wreckhas been lost really ever since.
There was a little bit ofsalvage work done, that
recovered some things, but forthe most part the wreck is still
out there.
Various groups, including theTexas Navy Association, have
been looking for it, wanting tofind it, for a long time, and we

(19:04):
haven't found it yet.
But it's out there.
It's out there at what was thenthe entrance to Galveston Bay
and unfortunately we don't havean exact position from the
historical records.
So we've got to go out and findit and it's probably.

(19:28):
We don't know whether it's inthe water, we don't know if it's
in the marsh or if it's underthe beach, and it is now
somewhere in the vicinity ofEast Beach.
Again, it could be out in thechannel, but it's in that
general area, Could be in thevicinity of a big reef.
A lot of your listeners will befamiliar with big reef.

(19:50):
It's somewhere out there.
The challenge there are a lotof challenges to finding it.
One challenge is if it's stillthere, it intact.
Well, it was probable the wreckwas probably broken up further
a few weeks later, in October of37, when Racer Storm came
through.

Speaker 2 (20:08):
Oh yes.

Speaker 1 (20:09):
Which was a tremendous hurricane, wrecked
almost everything on the island,in fact, but the wreck was
probably broken up further andscattered then.
The other challenge is that.
Another challenge is that lotsof ships and lots of vessels
have been lost trying to get inand out of Galveston.

(20:30):
So even if you're able to finda wreck and identify it and be
sure okay, this is for sure thisis an historic shipwreck.
There are a lot of wrecks outthere.
And so it's going to be an evenbigger challenge to be sure that
this is the right one, right,yeah, so.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
I was doing a ton of research on the Jetys and the
Jety project Building theGalveston and Bolivar Jetys
essentially, and why they neededto build those because of the
silting, the sandbars and thingslike that and why it was so
important.
And then you realize how manyvessels have been stuck on those
sandbars or lost completely.

Speaker 1 (21:08):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (21:09):
Coming in and out of the ship channel prior to
building of Jetys and you'd haveto wait so the highest tide and
then, even then you might getstuck on a sandbar.

Speaker 1 (21:15):
That's right, and they built the South Jetty right
through the area where theinvincible probably is.
So I personally think that wasextremely unhelpful, but they
went ahead and did it anyway.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
Yeah, and the economics of Texas kind of
trumped that one.

Speaker 1 (21:30):
I think right, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (21:32):
Exactly.
Well, I think this entire storyof fighting right during the
Texas Revolution, fighting rightoff the coast of Galveston,
it's relatively unknown, becausewhen I think of the Texas
Revolution I think of, of course, san Jacinto, the Alamo and
things like that Right A lot ofpeople from just who I've spoken
to over the past couple ofyears they don't really think of

(21:53):
a Navy, they don't really thinkof these maritime operations.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (21:56):
And for revolutionary battles to happen really close
to where we're sitting right now, you know.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
Right, that's right.
And the Texas Navy, the firstTexas Navy, played an important,
very critical role in the TexasRevolution itself.
You had the invincible, whichcaptured a brig called the
pocket, down near the mouth ofthe Brazos River excuse me, the
mouth of the Rio Grande, andthat carried supplies that made

(22:30):
it back up to Galveston and up,we believe, to Sam Houston's
army.
Prior to the battle, theSchooner Liberty captured a
vessel called the Pelikano, offof the town of Sisal, which is a
little, tiny, tiny, tiny,little town on the coast of the
Yucatan Peninsula.

(22:51):
They captured it.
It had several hundred barrels,so they thought, of flour and
apples and basically foodstuffs.
They brought it back to, theytook it as a prize, brought it
back to Texas.
They were returning to Matagorda, and to get into Matagorda you

(23:13):
have to go through Pascavallo,which is, if anything, a more
difficult entry to the bay thanhere at Galveston.
And sure enough, the Pelikanowas wrecked, trying to get in
across the bar.
And while they were in theprocess of salvaging the cargo
which, again, as far as theywere aware, was flour and apples

(23:36):
and potatoes or whatever theyhappened to stove in a barrel,
no-transcript, and inside thebarrel they found a keg of
gunpowder, oh, and so theystarted opening the other
barrels and they ended up withtheir varying accounts, but
between 250 and 300 kegs ofgunpowder.

Speaker 2 (23:55):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 (23:57):
Now, this is this.
This that would have been.
That was in late March of 36.
This is at a time when theTexian army is completely in
retreat.
The Alamo has fallen, the, theand its garrison massacre killed

(24:19):
.
Very soon after you had, verysoon after that, you had the,
you had Fanon's surrender andthen the execution of Fanon's
army at, at Presidio Labaia in.
Goliad.
This is the period in Texashistory called the runaway
scrape, where all the settlersare packing up everything they

(24:40):
can and they're heading easttrying to get keep ahead of the
of the advancing Mexican army.
The Mexican army was was movingacross Texas in two or three
major columns, and so the Texasaren't, and the and Sam Houston
was trying to balance his army.
The army he had under hisdirect control at the time was

(25:03):
very small.
They were getting new supplies,they were getting new recruits,
they were getting newvolunteers all the time, but he
wasn't ready to fight.
He wasn't sufficiently strongenough to fight the Mex, to
stand and fight the Mexican army.
So he is having to balance.
So he he's, his army isretreating ahead of the

(25:27):
advancing Mexican army.
He's trying to balance how farcan I retreat and still keep the
army together versus at whatpoint will I have enough
supplies and enough troops thatwe can actually hit them back?
And so the supplies from thepocket managed to get to Sam

(25:50):
Houston at the time.
Both armies were prettydesperate by the middle of April
of 36.
Much of Santa Ana's army wasdetached.
Many of his troops weredetached from the main body of
the army, just going out andforaging and trying to bring in
supplies just to keep the armyfed.

(26:11):
He had way outrun his supplytrain.
Sam Houston was also.
His army was also in bad shape,and so they very desperately
needed those materials broughtby the captured and seized by
the Texas Navy.
In fact, sam Houston wrote in,he wrote a famous proclamation

(26:33):
addressed to all the people ofTexas and the world from his
camp on the Brazos.
I think it was on the last dayof March 1836.
And he's trying to explain hisstrategy and how they have.
Yes, we're retreating, but wehave not lost hope.
We're going to manage this, youknow, and we call on all
Liberty loving people around theworld to, you know, and he

(26:57):
actually mentions Captain Brownand the and the and the Liberty
that had captured all thesesupplies and the gunpowder.
And so we like to say that'sthe last, that was the last nice
thing he had to say about theTexas.

Speaker 2 (27:14):
Navy.

Speaker 1 (27:15):
Yeah so, but but yeah so, the Texas Navy did play an
important critical role.
It's not a glamorous role, butit's an important and critical
role in the revolution itselfand contributing to the victory
at San Jacinto.
There is a and it was the TexasNavy that managed to announce

(27:37):
to the citizens of Galvestonthat the victory at San Jacinto
had been had been won.
Oh yes, there's a painting, arecent painting by an absolutely
fantastic artist by the name ofPeter Rindlisbacher, that shows
that moment, because the, afterthe victory at San Jacinto, the

(27:58):
Army sent down a couple of guysin a boat from San Jacinto to
come to Galveston, which iswhere the Texas government had
finally reached the end of theline, right, the Texas
provisional government.
They don't know where they'regoing next Because, you know,
galveston is an island,galveston is the end of the line
you know, yes, literally.

(28:18):
And and and lots of evacueesfrom all over Texas were
congregating here.
And these guys.
It took them several daysactually to make it down the
length of Galveston Bay from SanJacinto through through the,
the entrance to to Buffalo Bay,which of course is rather
intricate and difficult aroundMorgan's Point up there.

(28:42):
But it took them several daysto get to Galveston.
And the first vessel theyencountered when they got to
Galveston was a Texas Navyschooner.
And they shared the information, the victory, and the Texas
Navy ship began firing itscannons in celebration.
And that was not taken well bysome of the folks on the island

(29:05):
who were expecting the arrivalof the Mexican army at any
moment.
And so there was, there was alot of, there was a lot of
displeasure with the Texas Navyfor scaring everybody.
But yeah, so the so, the so theTexas Navy, in a, in a dramatic
and somewhat and initiallymisunderstood way, actually

(29:26):
provided the note, the notice tothe folks at Galveston that the
, the battle of San Jacinto hadbeen one Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 (29:32):
So that's fascinating .
Yeah, that is fascinating, ohmy gosh.
So okay, that pretty much mostof what we've been discussing so
far was the first Texas Navyright through the actual Texas
Revolution until the Revolutionends, right, right, so then we
go for a period without a Navy.

Speaker 1 (29:51):
That's right, and it was a very difficult period
because the thing to remember isthat the government of Mexico,
santa Ana, was president and hewasn't president, and he was
president again.
Santa Ana was in and out ofbeing president of Mexico about
11, 7, 11, 7 times.
Right, but Regardless, and it'seasy to focus on on him solely.

(30:17):
But even when he was out ofpower, the government in Mexico
City never really recognized theindependence, the Republic of
Texas, and so during the entireperiod of the Republic, ten
years to the mid 1840s, mexiconever recognized the
independence of Texas.
Texas was at a, texas and Mexicowere in conflict and Sometimes

(30:42):
there were actual battles andmilitary, because sometimes not.
But there was always thistension in this hot, real
hostility there and the reputand and Texans Texians Really
were expecting another invasionfrom Mexico.
There was, there was a casethat happened here in Galveston,
where there was an alarm thatwent up that that there was,

(31:09):
that there was and that aMexican invasion force had
landed down the island and wasmarching on Galveston and
someone reported they could seethe Mexican troops marching with
their flags Right and it and it, you know, and then the alarm
went out and people were rushingaround and panning and it
turned out it was it was.
It was not that it wasSomebody's laundry on the line

(31:32):
or something.

Speaker 2 (31:33):
Oh my god it was it was.

Speaker 1 (31:34):
It was something else , completely innocuous, but that
speaks to the.
It was false alarm, yeah, butthat speaks to the way.
People were genuinely,sincerely, really, constantly
worried about that.
There were several efforts toorganize militia groups to

(31:54):
patrol the coast.
There was a group called theGalveston Coast Guards that they
didn't accomplish much, butthey had absolutely fantastic
uniforms because they had khakitrousers and bright scarlet
hunting shirts and they werearmed with shotguns and rifles
and enormous Um Tomahawkboarding acts type things.

(32:17):
Wow.
So so I don't know how, I'm notsure they were terribly
effective as a military force,but man, they looked good.
But there was, but it was.
But kidding aside, it was.
It was a serious concern.
Now, sam Houston was the firstpresident of the Republic of
Texas under the new Constitution.
He was president until 1838.

(32:40):
Until late 1838 His focus wasalways to.
His focus was always to keepthings calm, keep things stable,
because he was always focusedand prioritizing Bringing Texas
into the United States.
That was always sort of histhing.
He was replaced in late 1838 byMirabeau, lamar and Lamar, or

(33:10):
39 or 38, and Lamar was.
He was entirely the opposite.
He was a we might call him anationalist.
He saw Texas as, in amaximalist way, he saw Texas as
it's not not just, not justindependent, remaining

(33:32):
independent, but expanding,mm-hmm.
He saw Texas potentiallyreaching all the way to the
Pacific.
Oh, wow, wow.
And if you'll remember Texas,if you'll remember your, your
Texas history books, theRepublic of Texas actually
claimed a huge swath of theAmerican Central, long, narrow

(33:53):
swath, yes, of the Texas or,excuse me, of the US, of the
what is now the, the continentalUS, going all the way up to
Colorado or Wyoming or something.
Mm-hmm and so.
Cheyenne, I believe yeah so, so, so Lamar Was very expansionist
.
He organized an expedition tothe Santa Fe, expedition to, to

(34:18):
ostensibly organize a tradingmission to, to Santa Fe, which
was the.
The trading mission had onewagon full of Goods to trade and
300 soldiers in a cannon.
Right, yeah, okay.
So what are their priorities?
Yeah, yeah so Lamar convincedthe Texas Congress and they

(34:42):
appropriated a ton of money tore-equip the Navy.
The first Navy, the first shipthey bought, was a civilian
steamship called the Charlestonpassenger steamship.
And they rechrist, theyoutfitted that as a warship and
christened at the Zavala Mm-hmm.
And that's.
That's the second shipwreckthat's here in Galveston, that's
that's the one under the portright and they they outfitted

(35:07):
the Zavala as as a warship.
now, the Zavala was a Wascommissioned as a warship, she
was part of the Texas Navy.
She was not ever reallyIntended to be to serve in a
fighting role and she actually,the Zavala, by virtue of being a
steamship, actually served insome ways a more important
mission, because the Texas Navyused Zavala as a ship carrying

(35:32):
dispatches and personnel andsupplies to support the sailing
Texas Navy warships when theywere operating off the coast of
Yucatan down in the southern.
Gulf of Mexico.
The credit.
The important thing about asteamship is not necessarily
that they're faster than sailingships, because in the right, in
the right weather conditions,the sailing ship will will

(35:53):
outpace a steamship.
The important thing about asteamship in that day is that
they weren't dependent on thewind and they could operate on a
regular and reliable schedule.
Yep, okay, you don't have to befast if people know, if you
know when you're gonna get there, if you and everybody else
knows when You're gonna getthere and when you're gonna
leave.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
Mm-hmm right, so instead he wins the race.

Speaker 1 (36:16):
So well, yeah, sort of sort of kind of.
And so the Zavala was usedprimarily as a dispatch vessel.
But the Texas Republic of Texasalso contracted with a
shipbuilder in Baltimore by thename of Frederick Dawson To
build six sailing warships, andthe largest of these was the
Austin.
It was a 20 gun, what was thencalled a sloop of war.

(36:40):
It was ship rigged, it hadthree masts with square sails on
all three.
In another Navy, in theprobably in the French Navy
would be called a corvette.
It's smaller than a frigate butit's still a full rig ship.
So there was one of those.
There was the Austin.
That became the flagship of theTexas Navy.
There were two Briggs, the, thearcher and Wharton, and, and

(37:05):
there were three schooners, sanBernard, san Antonio and San
Jacinto, and those six shipsComprise the actual fighting
force of what we call the secondTexas Navy.

Speaker 2 (37:19):
During the Republic of Texas.
Yes, this is during theRepublic this is.

Speaker 1 (37:23):
This is beginning in 1839.
Mm-hmm, this is during yes,this is all still during the
Republic Yep the To they begantrying to recruit officers from
from other other sources.
One officer that was interestedwas a man by the name of Edwin

(37:45):
Moore Mm-hmm.
He was a lieutenant in the USNavy.
He was in his late 20s at thetime.
He's a lieutenant in the USNavy.
He had served in the Gulf ofMexico, he had encountered Texas
warships and he and he and hewas.
He was very familiar with sortof the strategic political

(38:06):
Situation in the Gulf involvingthe Republic of Texas and he
also was probably a little bitfed up with the lack of
Opportunities for advancement inthe US Navy, because promotion
then for officers was reallybased on whether or not
positions opened up above you,mm-hmm, which works great in a

(38:28):
wartime.

Speaker 2 (38:29):
Yeah right.

Speaker 1 (38:31):
Works great in wartime, not so great in
peacetime.
And so he saw the text.
He saw the Republic of Texas asan opportunity for professional
advancement.
So he moves from the US Navydirectly to being a what was
called a post captain in theRepublic of Texas Navy, post

(38:53):
captain being the Highest rank,official rank in the Texas Navy.
That's a title that carriedover, was adopted from the
British Navy Mm-hmm, whichsimply means you are a full
captain of a ship of a certainsize or above.
So his official rank was postcaptain because he was the
senior officer of the Texas Navy.

(39:14):
He is generally referred to asCommodore Ah.
So that's why we know him ascon.
That's why we know him, and hewas addressed at the time as
Commodore Moore Mm-hmm.
He was Very energetic guy.
He was extremely professional.
He didn't like to Let the grassgrow under his feet, which is

(39:36):
kind of a bad metaphor for anable officer, but he was very,
he wanted to be very aggressivewith the Navy and he was a very
good fit with President Lamarand Lamar administration,
because Lamar administrationsaid you go, do it, man, and so
more.

(39:57):
Again, he adopted that, thatApproach that we're going to
take the Navy away from theTexas shore and we're going to
operate Off of Yucatan, we'regonna operate in the southern
Gulf.
He made alliances with therebels in Yucatan, rebels in
also the rebels down in Tabasco.

(40:19):
Mm-hmm, at one point heactually, he actually had the
Zavala's tow, the Austin andanother Texas Navy warship up
the Tabasco River, about ahundred miles, oh wow, to to a,
to a city, a regional capitalthat at the time was known as

(40:41):
San Juan Bautista.
It now, today, it's known asvia Hermosa, and and helped the
rebels capture that Because hethreatened to bombard the city,
yeah, with his, with his navalforce, which is something that
it, that's a, that is a veryisolated, that's a very isolated

(41:02):
place down in, down in Mexico,and and the, the, the Mexican
government's centralist troops,as soon as the Texas Navy showed
up, they just they capitulated.
And then the rebels who hadpromised Commodore Moore payment
for doing this, they didn't payhim, and so he threatened to

(41:26):
bombard the rebels.
Yeah and, and sure enough theypaid him.
But.
But he found what, what morefound?
And this?
This really changed, especiallyafter after Houston became
president in, after Houstonsucceeded Lamar, because the
Republic of Texas, the president, couldn't serve consecutive

(41:46):
terms.
When Houston came back in Again, he wanted stability.
He especially wanted fiscalresponsibility, which wasn't
Existing in the Texas Republic.
The Texas Republic didpractically everything on credit

(42:10):
, and so even when the TexasCongress appropriated funds for
to be used by the Navy, houstonwould not release them.
So Moore was left with theseships, which are expensive to
maintain, with crews that areexpensive to pay and and

(42:32):
supplies that are expensive tobuy, without actual, with
minimal funding from theRepublic of Texas government.
And so he ended up Essentiallythe sounds crass, but he didn't
have a lot of choice.
He ended up hiring out theTexas Navy to the rebels in
Yucatan For, like, I think,eight thousand dollars a month

(42:57):
or something.
Oh, wow, to keep to keep theNavy operating, to give him
funds that he needed To maintainthe ships, to, to, to pay them,
to pay the crews and to providesupplies.
Navy's, navy's are really,really expensive.
In those days, if you had anarmy, a land army, you could

(43:17):
disband the regiment and sendpeople home, and then you could
send them to the Navy.
Send people home and put thestuff in a warehouse and you no
longer have you.
No longer it's no longer amajor expense to the government.
Navy's don't work that way, andanyone who's ever owned a boat
knows this Right.

(43:37):
So so you know, if, if you, if,if you've ever tried to worried
about maintaining a 30-footsailboat, yeah, you're in and
you're out Now.
Now imagine that with on a shipwith a full-time crew of 200,
200 people.
Okay, and it's not fiberglass,it's wood.
Yeah, right yeah, a lot ofmaintenance, a lot of

(43:58):
maintenance so, so, so more, didwhat he could to keep the Navy
operating and he really, itreally concerned Houston because
Houston first of all saw whatmore was doing as not being
helpful to his agenda of keepingthings stable, maintaining good

(44:21):
, at least passable, relations.
He again, he was focused ongetting Texas brought into the
United States and he knew thatwas probably not going to happen
if Texas was seen as as asstabilizing, that would make

(44:42):
Texas very unattractive to theUnited States, absolutely.
And he didn't like the factthat Moore was down running at
600 miles away from the Texascoast where Houston really
didn't have a lot of control.
And things came to a head inthe fall of 1841 when Houston

(45:06):
appointed commissioners,official representatives of the
US government, to go to NewOrleans and order Commodore
Moore and the fleet back toTexas where the fleet would be
disbanded and officers and crewsdismissed.
They arrived in early 1843.

(45:28):
Excuse me, I said 41.
It was late 42.
They arrived in New Orleans inearly 1843.
Moore said, well, okay, I'llbring the fleet back to
Galveston.
At this point the fleet thequote unquote fleet consists of
the Austin and the Brig Wharton.
And he says, well, bring thefleet back to Galveston, but the

(45:53):
Mexicans now.
They recently acquired twosteam powered warships,
guadalupe and Montezuma.
These are an immediate anddirect threat to the Republic of
Texas.
We need to go down and dosomething about that.
He convinced the commissionersto go along with it, to go with

(46:14):
him to return, to quote unquote,return to Galveston by way of
Campeche oh my gosh, to go dealwith that.
And so they did.
And they sailed in April of1843 for Campeche.
They arrived at the end ofApril.
They had one running gun battlewith the Mexican steam ships on

(46:36):
April 30th.
That was inconclusive, with theTexas fleet chasing the Mexican
steamers.
That kept withdrawing.
That was inconclusive.
Finally, the two fleets, thetwo squadrons met, actually in
action in on May 16th 1843.

(46:59):
There were no ships werecaptured, but it was a
tremendous gun battlebombardment.
The Mexican steam ships notonly were, not only were steam
powered, and so they had anindependence of movement that
the Texas sailing ships didn'thave, they were also firing,
they also had work with shellfiring guns that fired exploding

(47:22):
shells, not just solid ironcannonballs, but exploding
shells up to 68 pounds, oh mygosh.
And in the battle I think theAustin was hit 12 times by these
, by these exploding shells, andthey had significant casualties
.
There were significantcasualties on the Mexican side
as well.
Eventually, the Mexican fleetbroke off the Texian fleet.

(47:47):
The Austin and the Wharton werepretty badly shot up and they
were not really in a position tofollow, but they retained the
field, so to speak, and so itwas a solid tactical victory for
the Texian fleet, and that issaid to be the only time that

(48:07):
sailing ships have defeatedsteam ships in open battle ever.

Speaker 2 (48:13):
Ever, oh, my God, wow , I'm going to have to go scour
the history, yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:21):
So you know fact checkers.

Speaker 2 (48:23):
Here you go.
Yeah right, yeah, send us anemail if you find another
example, right.

Speaker 1 (48:28):
So, but and so it was .
It was considered a tremendousvictory.
It's sort of the apex of theRepublic of Texas Navy story
that Commodore Moore's fleetdefeated this Mexican squadron.
They returned to Galveston.
As you might expect, theyreturned to Galveston to a
hero's welcome.
Galveston always loved theTexas Navy because they saw the

(48:53):
Texas Navy as being their firstline of defense at literally,
literally, yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:59):
Galveston's easy to capture and easy to roll up onto
.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:02):
So as soon as, as soon as they arrived, moore and
his officers were dismissed.
Yeah, the crews were discharged.
The ships were ordered to be putin ordinary or what we would
now call, put them in mothballsand were ordered to be sold at
auction.
And there is a story that whenthe when the day for the auction

(49:23):
came, they were, the ships weregoing to be auctioned in all
the supplies, here here inGalveston, and no one would bid.
Oh, is it because they didn'twant to be?
They didn't want to be part ofdisbanding the Navy?
Yeah, I'm not entirely certainhow accurate that is.

Speaker 2 (49:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:46):
But it's certain it reflects.
It reflects how it reflects howthe Navy was perceived here in
Galveston Now.
Moore was arrested, he was putup on, he was ordered
court-martialed on charges ofdisobeying orders and
misappropriating funds andmurder.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
The charges came from Texas.
Charges came from the Republicof Texas.
The Republic of Texas, okay.

Speaker 1 (50:12):
From the Texas government, from the Secretary
of War and the Navy, and he wascharged with murder because he
had hanged for mutineers who hadmutinied.
The year before, in February of42, aboard the Texas Schooner
San Antonio at New Orleans, hewas charged with murder.

(50:33):
He was acquitted.
He was charged withmisappropriation and misuse of
government funds.
He was acquitted.
He was charged withdisobedience to orders, which
they sort of found him guilty,and the judgment of the court
was don't ever do that again.
They issued him a very sternlyworded letter right, and so he

(50:58):
didn't face any.
The court-martial was held insegments and the court-martial
itself went on for months andmonths.
In the end he was essentiallyexonerated, but it was the end
of his career in the Texas Navy.
The remaining ships of theTexas Navy and whatever supplies

(51:20):
were left were eventuallytransferred to the United States
Navy.
When Texas was annexed at theend of 1845, early 1846, they
became part of the US Navy.
That actually includes thewrecks of Texas Navy ships.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
Oh, really Okay.
Yeah, that's another topic.

Speaker 1 (51:40):
That's a whole other show.
But so and the Austin andWharton were eventually taken to
Pensacola.
The US Navy never used them andeventually they were sold and
broken up and that was the endof the historic Texas Navy.
It's kind of a sad ending.

Speaker 2 (52:04):
So yeah, you mentioned Sam Houston gets a
kind of a bad rap for becauseI've heard he hated the Texas
Navy, he didn't like it.
But from what you kind ofexplained he really didn't have
too much choice.

Speaker 1 (52:19):
Yeah, he does get a bad rap.
People make jokes about SamHouston hating the Texas Navy.
I think I made one a littlewhile ago myself.
And so I'm certainly guilty ofthat, but I don't think it was.
It sometimes is presentedalmost as a caricature, sort of

(52:44):
a jokey kind of thing.
But he had some sincere issueswith the Texas Navy.
I don't.
For his part, I don't blameCommodore Moore or Fault
Commodore Moore for his approach, because he was the commanding

(53:04):
officer of the Texas Navy and byGeorge, if there's anybody
who's going to be an advocatefor the Texas Navy going out and
doing Navy stuff, it should bethe Commodore of the Texas Navy,
right?
Yeah, exactly, he was andshould have been, was properly
the one who was always pushingfor the text for the Navy to be

(53:26):
more active, to be moreproactive, to be more aggressive
.
Houston had a very differentperspective, necessarily, so we
hope that's a topic we hope toexplore in the future.

Speaker 2 (53:43):
Yes, yes okay.

Speaker 1 (53:44):
Because it's again the relationship between Sam
Houston and the Texas Navysometimes gets kind of written
off as being sort of twodimensional, and it wasn't.
There's actually a lot morethere that is sometimes not
appreciated.

Speaker 2 (54:02):
Well, yeah, that's most aspects of history, right?
All these little details thatyou hear whispers of, almost
like hearing Galveston.
You hear whispers of the TexasNavy, but don't really
understand that they wereoperating in Mexico, doing all
these other things, working andbasically becoming privateers
for Mexico.

Speaker 1 (54:23):
That's right.
But Galveston has a strongconnection with the Texas Navy,
was not originally, didn'toriginally operate out of
Galveston, because during thetime of the Revolution 1835, 36,
there was not a lot, therewasn't a lot of Galveston to be
had.
It operated mostly out of, outof Matagorda and Velasco, along

(54:48):
the coast, because those are theports that were used by
Austin's colony, by the Texiansettlers.
By the late 1830s.
Galveston had been officiallydesignated as the port, home
Port of the Texas Navy and theyestablished a Navy yard here.
That was located on the harbor,again not far from where we are

(55:10):
today, was located on theharbor west of 25th Street and
that's where the Navy yard was.
There's lots of, there are lotsof.
There are a number of TexasNavy people who are have
connections to Galveston.
There are several Texas Navypersonnel who were buried in the

(55:33):
cemeteries out on Broadway.
We have, as you've mentioned,we have the.
There's the monument down atPier 20, next to Harbor House.
There is another monument tothe Texas Navy which you, which
you profiled the other day, Ithink, at Menard Park.

Speaker 2 (55:51):
Yes, yes, I went to the World War I monument Right.

Speaker 1 (55:56):
You were at the World War I monument but right next
to it is the is the Texas Navymonument that also dates from
the Texas Centennial in 1936.
So there are.
There are hints and echoes andwhispers of the Texas Navy.
It's our hope, with the at theTexas Navy Association, that we
can do more to educate peopleand inform people and give a

(56:19):
little bit better appreciationfor that.

Speaker 2 (56:23):
So I know you've done tons of work in writing and in
Galveston history just ingeneral, right.
So you're obviously verypassionate about maritime
history, texas early maritimehistory.
But one thing we haven'tdiscussed today are some of the
books you've written.
Could you tell us a little bitabout some of these, these books
?
That you've written here, theGalveston, houston packet

(56:44):
Steamboats on Buffalo Bayou andlet's see Civil War Blockade
running on the Texas coast.

Speaker 1 (56:51):
I actually fell into both of those books somewhat
inadvertently.
Oops, you have to leave that inthe show.

Speaker 2 (57:01):
Yeah, I'll leave it in I'll leave it in.
I make mistakes.

Speaker 1 (57:07):
I fell into both of those actually kind of
accidentally.
Years ago I was on the staff ofthe Texas Maritime Museum down
in Rockport and we did anexhibit on Texas river boats.
Now that's another thing thatpeople don't associate with.
Texas is river boats.
Yes, I mean river boats like onthe Mississippi, not

(57:29):
necessarily very big river boats, not the huge grand floating
palaces, because Texas riversare not big enough to
accommodate those, so scale themdown a bit, but otherwise
they're very similar.
Okay, never mind.
During the first half, up untilthe first half of the 19th
century, up till about 1875 or1880, there was a huge amount of

(57:54):
river traffic and it was farmore important in the
development, commercialdevelopment, transportation of
goods and people than railroads.
Railroads began expanding reallybig in the 1870s in Texas, but
prior to that it was mostly onthe rivers, and so the first
book I wrote in 2012 is theGalveston Houston packet, which

(58:17):
is a very narrow, focused,narrowly focused book on the
development of steamboat trafficbetween Galveston and Houston
and both of those ports actuallydeveloped as a result of that,
because in Galveston in the 19thcentury became the leading port
in Texas.
Galveston would not have been aleading port anywhere if it did

(58:42):
not have those connections tothe interior and in the 1840s,
50s, 60s connection by water,particularly to Buffalo Bayou
and the Trinity River going upinto East Texas.
Those were the primary routesinto the interior of Texas.

(59:02):
The blockade running book cameabout as a result of my work
with the Institute of NauticalArchaeology some years ago on a
blockade runner rec here inGalveston.
It's actually across the shipchannel, it's very close to the
North Jetty and it's a vesselcalled the Denby.

(59:23):
It was originally built in atBirkenhead, which is the sort of
industrial town across theMersey River from Liverpool Stan
.
Mallow Okay yeah, marshallSpicer, she was launched as an
excursion steamer, as apassenger steamer, in 1860.
And in 1863, she was purchasedand put into blockade running

(59:47):
between originally betweenMobile and Havana, and they were
running cotton out.
At that point cotton was theprimary commodity coming out of
the South, at least out of thedeep South, and they were
bringing in supplies and asurprising amount of civilian
goods.

(01:00:07):
We tend to think of blockaderunners as carrying military
stuff, weapons and uniforms andammunition.
And they did carry that stuff.
But they carried a surprisingamount of just plain old
fashioned civilian goods,because those were high dollar.
Stan Mallow, yeah, marshallSpicer.
Even during the war, in thesummer of 1864, the port of

(01:00:33):
Mobile was closed.
When the US Navy which wasblockading the entrance to
Mobile Bay, they forced theirway into Mobile Bay.
That was the battle of MobileBay in August of 64.
That was where Admiral Farragutlashed himself into the rigging
and his famous line.
They were leading the shipsinto the harbor in the first

(01:00:55):
monitor armored warship leadingthe line struck a mine, or as
they call them then, torpedoes,and the mine detonated and the
thing rolled over and sank inabout 60 seconds.

Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
Stan Mallow.
Oh, my goodness Marshall.

Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
Spicer, this is some.
Just almost instantly.
And one of the ships lashedalongside Farragut's flagship
said did you see that?
And supposedly Admiral Farragutsaid damn the torpedoes, full
speed ahead, Stan.

Speaker 2 (01:01:29):
Mallow.

Speaker 1 (01:01:29):
Oh, so that's where that comes from Marshall Spicer.
That's where that comes from.

Speaker 2 (01:01:31):
Stan Mallow.
Oh, I did not know that,marshall.

Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
Spicer.
So that was the battle thatclosed off Mobile as a blockade
running port for bringingsupplies and people in and out
of the Confederacy.
At that point Mobile hadn'tbeen a much, much bigger
blockade running port thanGalveston ever was, because
Galveston was really far awayfrom the center of the conflict.

(01:01:53):
It was not bringing material inand out.
Of.
Galveston was geographicallysort of isolated from the rest
of the Confederacy, especiallyafter the United States took
control of the entireMississippi, the entire length
of the Mississippi River.
Texas and western Louisianawere sort of cut off from that,

(01:02:17):
from the rest of the Confederacyto a large extent.
But after Mobile was closed,galveston suddenly had this huge
surge of blockade running andwe had like a hundred blockade
runners come in and out steamblockade runners Come in and out
of Galveston between then andthe end of May 65.
And this wreck, the Denby, waslost May 23, the night of May 23

(01:02:41):
, 1865.
Stan Mallow oh, wow, marshallSpicer, this is six weeks after
Lee surrendered at Appomattox.
Stan Mallow.

Speaker 2 (01:02:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:02:50):
Marshall Spicer, which is generally taught as oh,
that's when the Civil War ended.
Stan Mallow, yeah, marshallSpicer.
Well, no, stan Mallow, yeah,marshall Spicer.
It wasn't because Lee's armysurrendered, but the Confederate
government never formallysurrendered and folks and
Confederate military commandsand civil authorities around the

(01:03:11):
south were basically left to.
You guys figured out foryourselves.
And Galveston was stillblockade runners were still
coming in and out of Galvestonfrom Havana in May of 65.
Stan Mallow, yeah, and Denby wasDenby and another blockade
runner, denby, was lost comingin, another blockade runner did

(01:03:32):
make it in I think that was theWren and was tied up at Central
Wharf right here, which is whichwas about where, again, about
where Harbor House is, aboutwhere Pier 20 is, and it was
swarmed by a mob.

Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
Of citizens, yeah, because they?

Speaker 1 (01:03:52):
because by this point everybody was desperate, yeah,
and they eventually Left, andthat was the last blockade
runner to leave Galveston.
Mm-hmm.
Okay, us Navy has beenblockading Galveston since the
beginning of the war.
Mm-hmm.
In 18 and in excuse me in June.
I Think it was June 2nd.

(01:04:13):
Need to check the book.

Speaker 2 (01:04:16):
Yeah, right, yeah, maybe I'll.

Speaker 1 (01:04:20):
In June of 65, june 2nd I think, senior officers of
the Confederate TransMississippi Department,
including Kirby Smith, mm-hmm.
Went out to the fleet offshoreoff Galveston and Signed the
instrument that surrendered theTrans Mississippi Department to

(01:04:42):
the United States and that wasdone right off.
That was that was done.
That was done about four milesright over that way.
Wow and in the, in the, in thecaptain's cabin of the USS Fort
Jackson, off of get off ofGalveston.
That was the last major command, major component of Confederacy

(01:05:03):
to surrender.
Now there were other units hereand there.
There was the famous case ofthe Shenandoah, which Turned up
a year later in the UK saying,oh, the war's been over, we, you
know, there's, there's a groupof Indian militia under a
standwadi in what is nowOklahoma that surrendered after

(01:05:26):
that, but in term.
But the Trans Mississippiactually Was was a major command
that included all of Texas andLouisiana and Arkansas.
Yeah, and the surrender of thathappened right off Galveston, I
had no idea, on June 2nd.
That's why I like to say theAmerican Civil War didn't end at
Appomattox, it ended here,mm-hmm, and it ended at the

(01:05:49):
courthouse over on 20th Street,mm-hmm.
Because they waited three daysfor word to be passed among the
Confederate units here mm-hmmwhich, for the most part, had
been abandoned anyway.
Soldiers, they just went home,yeah, and US fleet comes into

(01:06:09):
the harbor Fort Jackson is toobig to make it into the harbor,
so they come in on on a, on aship USS Cornubia which was
which had itself been a blockaderunner before it was captured,
and the commander of theblockading squadron here, a man
named Benjamin Franklin Sands,comes ashore with his detachment

(01:06:32):
, and this was very important.
He didn't bring a, an armedguard with him, mmm, he didn't
bring a bodyguard.
He and his officers came ashore.
There are half a dozen of them.
They came ashore in GalvestonWith their, with their sidearms,
with swords, mm-hmm.

(01:06:52):
And, as he explained later, hesaid I carry a sidearm as a sign
of respect for you, not becausewe can, not because we can
actually do anything.
Yeah, yeah, with this and and hecame ashore and he met the
mayor at the city hall.
He came ashore again right downthere on the on the waterfront,

(01:07:13):
met the mayor at city hall,which then was located in the
Esplanade on 20th Street,between market and mechanic.

Speaker 2 (01:07:20):
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 (01:07:21):
It's where the, where the the parking garage
crossover.
Yeah, the Korean War Memorial isyeah so he comes to, he Comes,
meets with the mayor and theysay you know all the right
things.
And then they all go togetherto the courthouse on on 20th
Street, mm-hmm.

(01:07:41):
Now that was, I Am toldfact-checkers make a note.
That was, I am told, the firstFederal government building in
Texas.
That was not a militarystructure.
It is the oldest federalgovernment building built in
Texas, mmm, and it was finishedin early 1861, just prior to

(01:08:07):
Texas's secession.
And it was.
It was rushed to completionBecause the contractor was
concerned that if it waiteduntil after Texas seceded he
would never get his money Right.
Yep, they even scaled down thedesign to get even it was
originally a three-storybuilding and they scaled down
the design and the contract.

Speaker 2 (01:08:29):
The general contractor who was supervising
construction that building wasyou told me this and now I
cannot remember who it is.
I forget.
I'm sorry, it was Edwin, that'sright, yes, yes, who?

Speaker 1 (01:08:42):
who had been, who 15 years before had been Commodore
of the Texas Navy.
So, so, so they, so they go.
So it all comes back to theTexas Navy, right?
So they go, all they go in agroup down to the, the customs
house.
Yeah it had a flagpole, thenmm-hmm.
On the roof and they, theyformally raised the United

(01:09:04):
States flag and and Commodoresands says this is now we.
I formally now take possessionof Texas on behalf of the United
States government.
And Then he said the closingchapter in this great conflict
is now resolved.
That's a, that's a, that's aparaphrase, but it's very clear.
It's the closing act.

(01:09:25):
The closing act of therebellion Mmm is resolved.
That's powerful.
It's powerful, that's and that'swhere the Civil War ended.
Mm-hmm.
At the at the customs house,the.
The document was signedoffshore on the on June 2nd.
Flagraising took place on onJune 5th.

(01:09:48):
Wow, and you could and then, andthen, of course, a few weeks
later, you have Union occupationtroops arrive.
They arrive on June 17th, setup command for General Granger
in the Osterman building on theStrand, and that's where he
begins, on the 19th, issuing hisgeneral orders for the

(01:10:09):
administration of Texas,including, of course, the famous
general order number three,which is now known as the
Juneteenth order.

Speaker 2 (01:10:17):
It's.
It's fascinating, there's somuch within a few blocks of
where we're sitting and it andit's all and it's all right here
.

Speaker 1 (01:10:23):
Yeah, it's all right here.
You could literally half thethings I've mentioned During our
talk today.
Yes, half the things I'vementioned you could.
You could walk to within fourblocks.
You can walk to within tenminutes.
Yes from where we're sitting.
It's, it's just astonishing theamount of, the amount of
history we are Fortunate to havehere in Galveston it is.

Speaker 2 (01:10:44):
It is fascinating and I enjoy sharing that yeah, no,
and I want to thank you so muchfor coming on and sharing with
that all of this with us, andI've talked for a long, long
time.
No, it's fine.
That's always welcome.
The long the more, the better.
Okay, but I do.
Is there anything else youwanted to talk about with the
Texas Navy before we close out?
Is there anything that standsout to you that you may have not

(01:11:05):
discussed yet, because I wantto make sure we have a chance to
cover it?

Speaker 1 (01:11:10):
not a, not anything that stands out.
But I don't think I've covereda lot of ground.
Yes for sure, but but I wouldencourage our Galveston folks To
follow us on, to follow ourlocal chapter here in Galveston
is the Charles Hawkins squadron.
Charles Hawkins was theoriginal first Commodore of the

(01:11:30):
Texas Navy.
He again is an is a wholeanother podcast issue, and boy
does he have issues.
But the, the Charles Hawkinssquadron is the local chapter of
the Texas Navy Association herein Galveston.
We meet every other month inodd numbered months, mm-hmm.
We're currently meeting on thecampus at Texas A&M University.

(01:11:52):
Follow us on Facebook, if youwould look, just search for
Charles Hawkins squadron,galveston, texas Navy.
And we have, we have lots of.
We have lots of stuff going on,lots of programs, and we're
we're very excited about that.

Speaker 2 (01:12:07):
That's exciting, and I'm going to put a link in the
description to both of thesebooks right here.
So we have Civil War blockaderunning on the Texas coast by
Andrew W Hall, and then we havethe Galveston Houston packet
steamboats on Buffalo Bayou.
So I'm really excited to sitdown and read these.
I'll be reading these very soon.

(01:12:28):
And I did want to say youbrought me a fabulous gift today
, a fabulous gift that I was notexpecting.
I just wanted to kind of showit off here Now.
Can you tell us what this is,can you?

Speaker 1 (01:12:41):
because I think you do a better job describing it
than I would well, um, one ofthe, that is a commission from
the governor of the state ofTexas, from greg abbott,
commissioning you as an admiralin the Texas Navy, and that is,
that is one of the highestawards that for a civilian Uh
that can be, that can be grantedby the state of Texas and that

(01:13:05):
is based on your commitment topreserving and promoting Texas
history, community service, andthere are very few people I've
encountered who Are moredeserving of that recognition
than you are.
Thank you, and so we're, we'revery pleased to to share that
commission with you.

(01:13:25):
We'll have a formal, we'll havea more formal presentation at
some point in the future.

Speaker 2 (01:13:29):
Yeah, for sure, for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:13:30):
But it's uh, it is a, it is a rare Uh.
It is a rare designation Uh,but in your case I think it's
absolutely Uh justified well, Icannot thank you enough.

Speaker 2 (01:13:39):
It means so more than you would ever know what that
means to me.
Um, you know, starting thiswhole thing was a journey and
it's, uh, still a journey, andit you've only just gotten
started.
Yeah, I know, it's, uh, it'sbeen two years since I started
the podcast and it's, it's crazy.
It's crazy how, how, you know,now we're in a new studio and,

(01:14:01):
um, I have the ability toContinue preserving history and
speak to amazing people like you, you know, who are doing your
own work in preserving historyand making it engaging and fun
and interesting.
So thank you so much.
Thank you, I appreciate it.
Thank you so much for tuning into galveston unscripted.
If you enjoyed this episode,please make sure to like,
subscribe, share, follow us onall social media.

(01:14:23):
We are everywhere.
Be sure to check the link inthe description to the texas
navy association and andy hall'sbooks Civil war blockade
running on the texas coast andthe galveston houston packet
steamboats on buffalo bayou.
I am unbelievably honored tohave been commissioned as a
texas navy admiral before andyshowed up to the studio.

(01:14:44):
I was not expecting Anythinglike that.
It is a true honor to have beenrecognized for all that I've
been working on over the pastcouple of years and I look
forward to continuing my work inthe preservation and promotion
of history, especially texashistory and even more especially
Galveston history.
And I could not do any of thiswithout you for watching,

(01:15:07):
listening, following us onsocial media and telling your
friends about the galvestonunscripted podcast and our deep
dives into history in video form.
Thank you so much for watchingand we'll see you next time on
galveston unscripted.