May 13, 1865---The Battle of Palmito Ranch (Day Two)

MAY 13, 1865:            

The Battle of Palmito Ranch (The Battle of Palmetto) (Day Two):          

The strange Battle of Palmito Ranch continued with the first hint of light in the Texas sky, as reinforced Union troops attempted to burn the Confederate supply dumps along the riverside.

The battlefield around Palmito Ranch was largely flat and featureless Texas-Mexico prairie slashed by the oxbows, curves, and meanders of the Rio Grande. Skirmishes occurred in isolated pockets along a front five or six miles deep and five or six miles wide. In effect, the Battle of Palmito Ranch was a grouping of independent actions occurring at different points along the north bank of the river and at different times during the day.

In one part of the field, disgusted Confederates or Federals might be surrendering at any given moment, while several river swerves away, Federal and Confederate forces might be at each others’ throats. There was virtually no coordination of forces, poor battlefield communications, and relatively little shooting for long stretches.

A minor breach in U.S.-French relations occurred when the Confederates wheeled out a battery of six French cannon, given to them courtesy of Maximilian I, the French-backed Emperor of Mexico. The aftermath of the cannon shots was noisier than the shots themselves. Weeks after the battle, the Johnson Administration penned a furious Diplomatic Note to the French Government, a Note which the French promptly referred to their Foreign Office for handling. Lost in a paperwork shuffle for months, the Note was finally shipped back across the Atlantic to the attention of Maximilian’s Government, who dubiously mislaid it. By the time the Note was answered in 1867, Maximilian I had been overthrown, and the United States had to content itself with a pro forma apology from the democratic Juarez Government, who had been fighting Maximilian all along and could and would assume no responsibility for the French cannons being on the wrong side of the river.  

More troublingly, the Civil War saw its last “official” combat death when a Hoosier of the 34th Regiment Indiana Infantry, Private John J. Williams, was killed during the day.

          

The battle was almost over as night fell, but Colonel Thomas Bennett U.S.A. attempted an overnight attack on the forts guarding the Rio Grande fords, only to be driven back by forces commanded by Colonel John Salmon “Rip” Ford C.S.A., a supporter of black civil rights. 

One prisoner, the last P.O.W. of the war, Sergeant David Clark U.S.C.T. was taken by Ford’s men during this night action. Although he was quickly released --- on the Mexican side of the river --- Colonel Bennett, a staunch abolitionist, did not know this, and ordered that he be sought out in the inky black darkness of borderlands Texas.