Matagorda, C.S.A.

The plaque counts the drowned of December 30, 1863 as 22 and names one, a 17-year-old volunteer, Captain Edward Rugeley's brother. The record names the rest. Among them were Sergeants Jesse Mathews and John H. Jones Jr., Corporal Daniel McKinley, the bugler Alfred Hines, Thomas Wadsworth, Fielding and Jacob Secrest, Edwin Lake, and Julius Shaw, carpenter of the gunboat John F. Carr. About 57 men set out in three boats for a night attack on a Federal landing. A norther swamped the largest launch, and many who reached the beach froze.

What the plaque says

Matagorda, C.S.A. 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. (1964)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Levi Jordan Plantation State Historic Site — 19 mi
  A sugar and cotton plantation on the San Bernard River whose enslaved builders and their descendants left one of the best-preserved African American archeological sites in Texas.
• Varner-Hogg Plantation State Historic Site — 24 mi
  A Brazos sugar plantation built by enslaved people for the Patton family, later leased convict labor and Hogg family oil, now told through Rachel Patton and Sarah Ford.

More markers nearby

• Ira Ingram, First Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives — steps away
• Bay City Post Office — steps away
• Matagorda County — steps away
• St. Mark's Episcopal Church — steps away