Lt. Commander Edward Lea
Galveston, Galveston County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(1837-1863) Maryland-born Edward Lea graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1855. At the onset of the Civil War, his father, Albert, unsuccessfully tried to persuade him to join the Confederacy. Edward became First Officer on the U.S.S. Harriet Lane. On Jan. 1, 1863, it was involved in the Battle of Galveston against Confederates under Gen. John B. Magruder, whose staff included Albert Lea. After the battle, Albert found, but could not help, his mortally wounded son, whose final words were reportedly, "My father is here." Recorded - 2005
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Edward Lea, a Maryland-born Naval Academy graduate, stayed loyal to the Union at the Civil War's outbreak despite his father Albert's urging him to join the Confederacy. As first officer of the U.S.S. Harriet Lane, he fought in the Battle of Galveston on New Year's Day 1863 against Confederate forces whose commander's staff included his own father. Mortally wounded, Edward is said to have spoken his last words — 'My father is here' — as Albert reached his dying son on the deck.
Why it matters
Few episodes capture the Civil War's tragedy of divided families as starkly as a Confederate father cradling his fatally wounded Union son on a captured warship.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
By the winter of 1862–63 the Civil War had hardened into a grinding national tragedy, and its reach extended all the way to the Texas coast. Galveston, the state's great port, was a prize both sides wanted: the Union had taken it, and the Confederacy was determined to win it back. Control of the harbor meant control of trade, blockade, and a symbol of who held Texas.
The United States Navy of this era was a small, close professional world. Its officers had trained together at the young U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, and when the war came, that shared brotherhood was torn apart as men chose sides — often along the fault lines of their home states and families. Maryland, a border state, split as painfully as any.
Into this setting came the Battle of Galveston, fought on New Year's Day, 1863. Confederate forces under General John B. Magruder launched a bold combined land-and-water assault to retake the city — and among the human stories that battle produced, one has never been forgotten.
People & events
Edward Lea was born in Maryland in 1837 and graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1855, a professional naval officer in the making. When the war came, his father, Albert, pressed him to join the Confederacy. Edward refused, holding to his oath and the Union flag — a decision that placed father and son on opposite sides of the coming fight.
Edward became First Officer aboard the U.S.S. Harriet Lane, and on January 1, 1863, that ship was thrown into the Battle of Galveston against Magruder's Confederates. By a cruelty almost too pointed for fiction, Albert Lea served on Magruder's staff. Father and son were now in the same battle, on the same water, under opposing banners.
The Harriet Lane was overwhelmed in the fighting, and Edward was mortally wounded. Albert reached the ship and found his dying son — close enough to be present, powerless to save him. The marker records that Edward's final words were, reportedly, "My father is here." Whether spoken as recognition, forgiveness, or simple comfort, they have carried across more than a century as one of the war's most piercing moments.
Its place in the American story
Americans have long called the Civil War the war that turned brother against brother, and no phrase captures the conflict's deepest wound more exactly. The story of Edward and Albert Lea gives that abstraction a face and a deck to stand on: a Confederate father unable to save his mortally wounded Union son on a captured warship.
The episode also anchors the Battle of Galveston in national memory. That New Year's Day fight was a genuine Confederate success on the Texas coast, and it mattered to the wider war for control of the Gulf. But it is the human cost, distilled into one father and one son, that makes people stop and remember.
Edward Lea's choice speaks to something larger, too — the agonizing decisions of loyalty that the war forced on families in the border states, where the line between the two sides ran straight through the household. His refusal of his father's plea, and his death within his father's reach, embody a grief that was multiplied across the country tens of thousands of times.
If you visit
This is a memorial to sit with rather than to hurry past. Come knowing the story, because the power of the place is in what happened here rather than in anything grand to look at. Stand near the water and imagine the harbor on New Year's morning in 1863, and a father and son caught on opposite sides of the same battle.
Let the reported last words settle in your mind — "My father is here." Few sentences carry so much of the Civil War's private sorrow. A quiet moment of reflection is the truest thing you can offer this spot.
Galveston's harbor setting makes this a natural stop on a tour of the island's Civil War and maritime history. It fits well alongside the city's other landmarks of the period, offering the intimate, human counterpoint to the larger military story — a reminder that behind every battle's name were families divided against themselves.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Edward Lea
- · Albert Lea
- · John B. Magruder
Related events
- · Battle of Galveston
Themes & tags
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