Historical Marker
Civil War Raid from Camp Boveda
Riviera, Kleberg County · Texas
Erected 1965
The raid aimed at a trade King had turned into a fortune. With Mifflin Kenedy and James Walworth he took Confederate contracts to supply European buyers with cotton, and in return supplied the Confederates with beef, horses, munitions, medicine, clothing and shoes. By putting their steamboats under Mexican registry and moving their operations to Matamoros, the partners largely slipped the Union blockade. After Rip Ford's Confederates reclaimed South Texas in 1864, King resumed business. At the war's end he went to Mexico, and he came home only after securing a pardon from President Andrew Johnson late in 1865.
What the plaque says
Civil War Raid from Camp Boveda On December 23, 1863, Capt. Jas. Speed of Gen. Napoleon J. T. Dana's Brownsville-based Federal army force raided unguarded King Ranch. Objectives were to capture or kill Capt. Richard King and destroy the Confederate cotton trade. King, forewarned, evaded the enemy. At King Ranch, the raiders killed Francisco Alvarado; captured C.S.A. Captains John Brown, Alvin Dix, W. S. Gregory and Jas. McClearly and Chaplain Hiram Chamberlain; rifled all buildings; dispersed ranch employees; declared the slaves free; confiscated all horses and mules; impounded Confederate government cotton, promising that if it were moved or burned, King's life would be the forfeit; and threatened further raids from Boveda by Col. E. J. Davis, former South Texas attorney turned Federal officer. Mrs. King and children moved to San Antonio for the war's duration; soon Col. J. S. "RIP" Ford's Confederate cavalry came to protect the cotton road and ranch. At Camp (Rancho) Boveda, near a ford on Los Olmos Creek, were seven cypress-walled water wells, possibly used by Gen. Zachary Taylor in 1846. Campsite is 2-1/2 miles east of this point, on lot 2, block 15, Koch subdivision number one, present Poteet Ranch. (1965)
Where it stands
27.29865, -97.81495 · Directions