Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded.
It was nearing midnight of New Year’s Eve, 1862, when the men of the Fourth Texas Cavalry began their dash down the final stretch of the 10,000-foot railroad bridge that connected the Texas mainland to their target: the island city of Galveston, currently under the control of Union forces.
There was no obstacle they hadn’t faced in their bid to dislodge the Union invasion force. Though the tracks had been covered with wooden planks for ease and quiet, the stubborn pack mules refused to set foot on the bridge. By hand, troops had to haul 6 pieces of siege artillery, 14 pieces of field artillery and a railroad ram across the bridge under a full moon that illuminated every move of their surprise attack. To top it off, their ships making for the harbor were outnumbered three to one.
The Confederate battle plan about to unfold owed its audacity to one man: Maj. Gen. John Bankhead Magruder, a first-rate soldier and one of the most important and most misunderstood military commanders of the Civil War. The man who actually won the first battle of the entire war, Magruder had just arrived in Texas to replace a generally incompetent commander and face a Union invasion force that had begun to do what President Abraham Lincoln had wanted to so badly accomplish: occupy Texas and cleave it from the Confederacy. Read more…