Finally, on May 26, Lieutenant General S. B. Buckner, Kirby Smith’s Chief of Staff, negotiated a “military convention of peace” with high Union officials in New Orleans.[129] This act was finalized on June 2 when General Kirby Smith formally signed the articles of surrender aboard the Union warship Fort Jackson in Galveston harbor. In the same month Federal troops arrived to occupy Texas. To impress French observers in Mexico, the Rio Grande was made a point of concentration for occupation soldiers. A strange sight was seen in Galveston on June 16 when the occupation officially started. Three hundred silent Texans watched as a United States transport ship loaded with soldiers was tied to the landing while a blue clad band played “Yankee Doodle.” Three days later, on “Juneteenth,” Major General Gordon Granger, recently named commander of Union forces in Texas, landed at the same port and immediately issued a proclamation declaring free all Texas slaves.[130] Eventually there were over 50,000 Federal soldiers in Texas. Parts of Herron’s Division occupied northeastern Texas. Mower’s Division occupied Galveston. Custer and 4,000 cavalrymen occupied Austin. Merritt occupied San Antonio with an even larger force of mounted men. Elsewhere the state was occupied by the Fourth Corps, the Thirteenth Corps, and the Twenty-Fifth Corps.[131]
The war was at last over. Some Texans were able to express pleasure that the end had finally come while others were not talking. A few of the state’s leaders during the war fled to Mexico. The solid citizenry of the state faced the task of creating a respected state government and an enduring nation. They faced this task with a firmness of purpose that has characterized our citizens since the establishment of the Republic of Texas.
NOTES
1. To the north were Commanches and Kiowas, to the west were Apaches and hostile New Mexicans, and to the south were unfriendly Mexicans.
2. Population of the United States in 1860 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1864), pp. 472-90.
3. Ibid., Agriculture of the United States in 1860 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1864), pp. 140-51. A. B. Bender, “Principal Military Posts in the Southwest” in The March of Empire (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1952), opposite p. 284.
4. Ernest W. Winkler, Platform of Political Parties in Texas (Bulletin of the University of Texas, 1916: No. 53), pp. 11-80. Llerena Friend, Sam Houston The Great Designer (Austin: The University of Texas Press, 1954) pp. 241 ff. Charles W. Ramsdell, “The Frontier and Secession” in Studies in Southern History and Politics: Inscribed to William Archibald Dunning (New York: Columbia University Press, 1914), p. 74.
5. Hattie J. Roach, A History of Cherokee County (Dallas: Southwest Press, 1934), pp. 61-62. Anna I. Sandbo, “Beginnings of the Secession Movement in Texas” in The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, XVIII, No. 2, Oct., 1914, pp. 169-72.
6. The convention call referred to Section I of the “Bill of Rights” of the Texas Constitution of 1845. This section provided that “All political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority, and instituted for their benefit; and they have at all times the unalienable right to alter, reform, or abolish their form of government, in such a manner as they think expedient.” Constitution of The State of Texas (1845) in H.P.N. Gammel, The Laws of Texas 1822-1897 (Austin: The Gammel Book Co., 1898), II, p. 1277. Oran M. Roberts, “The Political, Legislative, and Judicial History of Texas for its Fifty Years of Statehood” in Dudley G. Wooten, A Comprehensive History of Texas 1685 to 1897 (Dallas: William G. Scarff, 1898), II, p. 88.
7. Edward R. Maher, Jr., “Sam Houston and Secession” in The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, LV, No. 4, Apr., 1952, pp. 453-54. Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, The Writings of Sam Houston 1813-1863 (Austin: The University of Texas Press, 1943), VIII, pp. 220-21. Ernest W. Winkler [ed.], Journal of the Secession Convention of Texas 1861 (Austin: Austin Printing Co., 1912), pp. 9-13.