Old Velasco, C. S. A.

The cotton that bought guns here was grown by enslaved people, and Brazoria County held a great many. The Handbook of Texas counts 5,110 enslaved residents in 1860 against 2,027 white ones, and the county voted 527 to 2 for secession. Union attacks on Velasco and Quintana in 1862 were beaten off, and a dam across the mouth of the Brazos kept gunboats from moving upriver. The war that the port supplied ended slavery and the planters' wealth with it: county land values fell from over three million dollars in 1860 to under two million by 1866.

What the plaque says

Old Velasco, C. S. A. Historic and key Texas port of entry located near here. During the Civil War was fortified by troops and 8 gun batteries at the mouth of the Brazos River, to provide shelter and landing facilities for blockade runners; to protect rich farmlands; and to prevent Federal invasion. The South exchanged cotton for European guns, ammunition, milled goods and medicines for army and home use. Velasco was one of the busiest ports. Federal vessels attempted to stop vital trade, and constantly fired upon runners as well as the shore defenses and patrols. The runners would approach the port on dark nights when the waters were smooth, and by the use of sounding lines could determine nearness to shore and avoid blockaders. Boilers would be kept well fired with hard coal that burned with a minimum of smoke, in case it became necessary to outrun Federal patrol ships. Union ships had to go to New Orleans for drinking water, food and fuel, because Texas marines on rafts or dredgeboats or Texas cavalry and infantry units kept them off the shores. The raw courage of the Texas coastal defenders made this a most dramatic story in the history of the Confederacy. (1964)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge — 7.5 mi
  Coastal prairie, salt marsh and bays between Freeport and Christmas Bay, where an auto tour along Big Slough passes wintering geese, ducks and wading birds in the tens of thousands.
• Levi Jordan Plantation State Historic Site — 22 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.
• Galveston Island State Park — 26 mi
  A cattle ranch willed to the state that now runs the full width of Galveston Island, from two miles of Gulf beach across dunes and prairie to the marshes of West Galveston Bay.
• Varner-Hogg Plantation State Historic Site — 26 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

• Velasco — steps away
• Sinking Site of the Blockade Runner "Acadia" — steps away
• Gulf Intracoastal Waterway — steps away
• The Lively — 1.0 mi