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Civil War

Surrender of Federal Forces by General David E. Twiggs

San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas

Marker Inscription

Brought about a Texas moved to expel 2600 federal troops- a step necessary after secession. Frontier fighter Ben McCulloch with 400 volunteers forced surrender negotiated at headquarters of Gen. Twiggs a block and a half from here, by 4 representatives of the Texas Committee on public safety. Talks began Feb. 8, 1861; were stalled by Feb. 15. That night 90 of Mcculloch's men stole in, fixed guns on Federal Sentries and Garrison in Alamo Plaza. 300 more Texas troops entered the city. The 160 men of Twiggs' force were disarmed and held in Quarters. On Feb. 16, Gen. Twiggs agreed to evacuate his troops with arms and personal gear. Further pressure was used and one Feb. 18 he surrendered over $3,000,000 worth of Federal Property: Ordnance, wagons, mules horses, supplies, money and a chain of forts. Gen. Twigs, native of Georgia, career soldier, veteran of war of 1812 and Mexican war, was 70 and in poor health. He held sacred his oath as an officer. Since Dec. 27, 1860, he had written 4 times to his superior in Washington, general of the army Winfield Scott, for orders to use in event Texas seceded. He had no reply. Nevertheless, surrender brought him dismissal for treachery-and personal heartbreak.

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

After Texas seceded in early 1861, the state moved to expel some 2,600 federal troops. Frontier fighter Ben McCulloch led 400 volunteers into San Antonio, and on the night of February 15 slipped men into Alamo Plaza to train guns on the federal garrison while hundreds more entered the city. Under mounting pressure, aging Gen. David E. Twiggs surrendered on February 18, handing over more than $3 million in ordnance, wagons, supplies, and a chain of frontier forts—an act that brought him dismissal for treachery, even as he had repeatedly and vainly begged Washington for orders.

Why it matters

The bloodless surrender handed the Confederacy a vast arsenal of federal property and marked one of the first dramatic ruptures of the Union as the Civil War began.

The story behind this marker

AI context

The era

In the winter of 1860–61, the United States was coming apart. One Southern state after another voted to leave the Union, and Texas joined them in early February 1861, before Abraham Lincoln had even taken office. The country was not yet at war—Fort Sumter was still months away—but the machinery of separation was already grinding forward, state by state, arsenal by arsenal.

Texas was a special problem. It was vast, thinly settled, and ringed by a chain of federal frontier forts built to guard settlers and the roads west. Those forts held soldiers, weapons, wagons, livestock, and supplies—an enormous concentration of United States government property, spread across a young state that had just declared it no longer belonged to the Union.

San Antonio sat at the heart of it. The city was the headquarters of the U.S. Army's Department of Texas, the nerve center from which the frontier garrisons were commanded and supplied. Whoever controlled San Antonio controlled the key to all of it. In February 1861, that question came to a head just a block and a half from where this marker now stands.

People & events

The federal commander in Texas was General David E. Twiggs—a Georgia native, a career soldier of some seventy years, in failing health, and a veteran of the War of 1812 and the war with Mexico. He was caught in an impossible bind. His home state was leaving the Union, Texas was leaving too, and he had roughly 2,600 troops scattered across the department. Beginning in late December 1860, he wrote again and again to his superior in Washington, the aging general-in-chief Winfield Scott, asking for orders should Texas secede. No clear answer came.

Into that silence rode Ben McCulloch, a famed frontier fighter, leading several hundred Texas volunteers on behalf of the state's Committee of Public Safety. What followed was less a battle than a squeeze. Negotiations opened in early February at Twiggs's headquarters but stalled within days. Then, one night, McCulloch's men slipped into the city, trained their guns on the federal sentries and garrison around Alamo Plaza, and hundreds more Texas troops poured in behind them. Twiggs's men found themselves surrounded and disarmed almost before they understood what was happening.

Under mounting pressure over the following days, Twiggs gave way. He agreed to evacuate his troops, then surrendered a staggering haul of federal property—ordnance, wagons, mules and horses, supplies, money, and the whole chain of frontier forts—valued at more than three million dollars. For a man who, as the marker records, held his officer's oath sacred, it was a bitter end: the U.S. Army dismissed him for treachery, and the episode broke his heart. He had begged for orders and been left to decide alone.

Its place in the American story

The surrender in San Antonio was one of the first great transfers of federal power and property to the seceding South—and it happened without a shot fired in anger. Weeks before the guns opened at Fort Sumter, the Confederacy effectively inherited an entire military department: its weapons, its supply trains, and a network of forts guarding a continental frontier.

That mattered enormously to a new Confederate government scrambling to arm itself. Equipment and installations that the United States had spent years and fortunes building were handed over intact, giving the South a running start in the coming war. It also stripped the frontier of federal protection at a stroke, with consequences that rippled across Texas for years.

Twiggs's story is a window into the agonizing choices the secession crisis forced on individual Americans, especially professional soldiers with Southern roots. Loyalty to the Union, loyalty to home, and a lifetime's oath collided, and there was no clean way through. His dismissal for treachery, set against his repeated unanswered pleas for guidance, shows how the breakup of the country was not only a matter of armies and states but of men left to choose, and to be judged, alone.

If you visit

Stand here and look toward Alamo Plaza, and let the scale of what happened settle in. The dramatic moment—armed men slipping into the city in the dark, guns fixed on the federal garrison—unfolded within easy walking distance, at a headquarters just a block and a half away. This is downtown San Antonio, so the ground has changed almost beyond recognition, but the geography is still legible if you picture the old plaza as the stage.

Make this marker part of a larger San Antonio history walk. The Alamo itself is right here, and the city layers Spanish colonial missions, Texas independence, and the Civil War within a few compact blocks. Reading this marker beside the Alamo is a reminder that the same plaza saw more than one famous reckoning.

As you read, notice how carefully the marker treats General Twiggs—naming his age, his failing health, his long service, and the letters that went unanswered. It refuses the easy label. That's the takeaway worth carrying down the street: the surrender of Texas was not a single villain's doing but a national tragedy playing out on one ordinary corner, where an old soldier ran out of good choices.

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

  • · David E. Twiggs
  • · Ben McCulloch
  • · Winfield Scott

Related events

  • · Texas secession
  • · Surrender of federal forces in Texas

Themes & tags

Civil WarLandmark

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