Battle of Galveston

The land attack stalled on a detail the plaque skips: the ladders issued to Colonel Cook's men were too short to climb onto the wharf. The Handbook of Texas also counts the cost. Magruder lost twenty-six killed and 117 wounded. The Union lost the Harriet Lane and the Westfield, about 150 casualties on its ships, and the 264 men of the Forty-second Massachusetts Infantry, who had landed only on Christmas Day. The remaining ships sailed out to sea ignoring Confederate surrender demands, which could be enforced only on the infantry left in town.

What the plaque says

Battle of Galveston As part of the Union blockade of the Texas coast, Commander W. B. Renshaw led his small fleet into Galveston harbor to demand the surrender of this most important Texas port on October 4, 1862. Largely unguarded, as it was considered indefensible, the city surrendered after an exchange of gunfire. Major General J. B. Magruder was placed in charge of the Confederate forces in Texas after the loss of Galveston. He quickly organized a plan for the island's recapture. Improvising a navy, he refitted two steamers as gunboats by lining their hulls with cotton and manning them with cavalry. Foot soldiers were sent into Galveston in the darkness of early morning on January 1, 1863. Though the ground forces failed to seize the wharf, they engaged some of the Union ships as the makeshift Confederate fleet surprised the Union navy from behind. The rebel ship "Neptune" was sunk in shallow water. The Federal "Harriet Lane" was boarded by the steamer "Bayou City." Renshaw's flagship, the "Westfield," was destroyed in an explosion that killed the commander and several crewmen. Remaining Union ships fled Galveston Bay despite demands for surrender. Galveston remained under Confederate control for the duration of the war. (1998)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas Seaport Museum and the Elissa — steps away
  An iron barque launched in Aberdeen in 1877 that called at Galveston twice, ended up smuggling in the Adriatic, and was bought back from a Greek scrapyard to sail again from Pier 22.
• The Strand — steps away
  Five blocks of iron-front brick buildings near the harbor that were once called the Wall Street of the Southwest, emptied after 1900 and brought back by preservationists from the 1960s.
• 1859 Ashton Villa — 0.6 mi
  A brick Italianate house on Broadway, built with enslaved labor in 1859, whose lawn has held Galveston's Juneteenth commemoration of General Orders, No. 3 every year since 1979.
• Moody Mansion — 0.7 mi
  A four-story, 28,000-square-foot house on Broadway, finished in 1895, that W. L. Moody Jr. bought just after the 1900 storm and his family kept until Hurricane Alicia in 1983.

More markers nearby

• First Navy of the Republic of Texas — steps away
• Juneteenth — steps away
• The Stewart Building — steps away
• Old Galveston Market House and City Hall — 0.2 mi