Brazos Santiago, C.S.A.

Before the Civil War the port was only wharves on the lagoon side of Brazos Island. Ocean ships could not cross the shallow bars at the Rio Grande's mouth, so cargo bound for Matamoros was unloaded here and hauled overland by oxcart. After 1848 Richard King's shallow-draft steamboats could cross the bars and go up the river. By 1867 the north end held three wharves, four barracks, a hospital, gun emplacements, warehouses, a lighthouse and a railroad south toward Boca Chica. Then the troops left, the storm of 1867 destroyed most of the buildings, and the town faded.

What the plaque says

Brazos Santiago, C.S.A. Brazos Santiago Pass, to south of this spot, was important Confederate harbor-entry during the Civil War. On island across the pass were fort and town of Brazos Santiago, where on Feb. 21, 1861, Texas troops under Col. John S. Ford captured the U.S. depot with mortars, siege guns and ordnance. A Confederate battery was then set up. In March 1861, off the bar, on U.S.S. "Daniel Webster", E.B. Nichols and Maj. Fitzjohn Porter, acting for Texas and the U.S., arranged Federal evacuation of the Rio Grande. Blockade ships arrived Dec. 1861. Col. Ford shifted forces to Brownsville. Gen. J.B. Magruder, C.S.A., ordered blasting of lighthouse north of pass, 1862. Trade vital to Confederacy plied from Cuba, Europe, Asia to Bagdad, Mexico, often actually slipping into Brazos Santiago Pass. Harbor sheltered blockade runners 1861-64. On May 10, 1863, U.S.S. "Brooklyn" destroyed schooners in the harbor. Late 1863, French warships banned war material in Bagdad, and Mexican steam lighters ran guns from sea vessels into Brazos Santiago. Nov. 2, 1863, Gen. N.P. Banks landed U.S. Army here, took line of Rio Grande forts. Refortified Brazos Island and made it terminus for Army railroad to Rancho Blanco on Rio Grande. When C.S.A. retook Rio Grande Line in 1864, Federals in Brownsville were thrown back to Brazos Island. Col. Theodore H. Barrett, with troops from here, marching on Brownsville in May 1865, was confronted by Col. Ford's Confederates at Palmito Hill and fought last engagement of the Civil War. (1963)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Port Isabel Lighthouse State Historic Site — 3.1 mi
  A 72-foot brick tower finished in 1852 for the Brazos Santiago shipping lane, dark from 1905 until a reproduction lens was lit in 2022, and the only Texas lighthouse open to the public.
• Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge — 16 mi
  A coastal refuge set up in 1946 for wintering redhead ducks, with 417 bird species recorded and, by the Fish and Wildlife Service's account, the largest ocelot population in the United States.
• Palo Alto Battlefield National Historical Park — 21 mi
  A flat coastal prairie north of Brownsville where Taylor's army and Arista's Army of the North fought the first major battle of the Mexican War on May 8, 1846, now interpreted from both sides.
• Stillman House Museum — 24 mi
  The 1850 Greek Revival house of Charles Stillman, who laid out Brownsville in 1848 beside the army's Fort Brown, and for a century the home of the Treviño family.

More markers nearby

• 1923 Point Isabel Coast Guard Building — 0.5 mi
• Queen Isabel Inn — 3.0 mi
• Port Isabel (Old Point Isabel) — 3.0 mi
• Port of Matamoros — 3.1 mi