Matagorda, C.S.A.
Bay City, Matagorda County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Near the mouth of the Colorado River, 20 miles to the south, is the town of Matagorda, the second most important Port of entry in early Texas. In the Civil War, center for rich farmlands and one of 8 Texas ports that blockade runners used for taking out tons of cotton while delivering to the confederacy guns, munitions, clothing and other vital goods. By reason of the declared blackade, the federals claims to hold Matagorda, yet their own ships had to refuel (even to supplies of drinking water) in New Orleans. When a blockader's crew went ashore near Matagorda, on November 20, 1862, confederates captured every man. By hit-and-run tactics, federals destroyed salt works and other propert, but found Matagorda Peninsula impossible to occupy. On December 30, 1863, C.S.A. cottonclads (ships bulwarked with cotton bales in which guns were set) moved men out of Matagorda to expel a federal unit from a beach below confederate works at Caney Creek. When troops were trying to land, a sudden norther lashed the bay and swamped their skiffs. Before the ships could pick them up, 22 men died by drowning or freezing. In the tragedy, the troop commander, Capt. E.S. Rugeley lost his own 17-year-old brother.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Near the mouth of the Colorado River stood Matagorda, one of early Texas's busiest ports and, during the Civil War, one of eight Texas harbors that blockade runners used to ship out cotton and bring in guns and supplies for the Confederacy. Federal ships claimed a blockade but could never truly occupy the peninsula, resorting to hit-and-run raids on salt works. In a failed December 1863 landing near Caney Creek, a sudden norther swamped Confederate skiffs and drowned twenty-two men, including the young brother of their commander.
Why it matters
It reveals how Texas's Gulf ports sustained the Confederate war effort and the human cost paid along a contested coastline.
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Related people
- · E. S. Rugeley
Related events
- · Union blockade of Texas ports
- · Caney Creek landing, 1863
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
The Matagorda Incident
Matagorda, TX
In late 1863 Union forces pressed along the Texas coast to choke off the ports supplying the Confederacy, and in December they landed on the Matagorda Peninsula backed by gunboats. Confederate naval officer Capt. James R. Marmion answered with his own gunboats and cavalry, and on December 30 the two sides exchanged fire across the narrow strip of land. When Marmion called Capt. Edward S. Rugeley's Company D of Brown's Regiment to stage a night amphibious assault, a brutal norther swamped the small boats within sight of safety, drowning 22 men and touching nearly every family in Matagorda. The Union force eventually withdrew, leaving the Confederates in control of the peninsula.
The Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1862
Matagorda, TX
A leading Gulf port, Matagorda thrived on cotton shipped down the Colorado River, and during the Civil War it became a busy channel for Confederate blockade runners slipping past Union ships. That same wartime traffic likely carried the Aedes aegypti mosquito into the wetland port, and in the fall of 1862 the yellow fever it spread ravaged the town. From late September to late November, the epidemic is estimated to have killed as much as a third of the population, filling Matagorda Cemetery and claiming enslaved residents and soldiers whose names largely went unrecorded.
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