Texas Before The Civil War Essay

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THE PRIDE OF TEXAS
Before the Civil War, most Texans felt a strong attachment to the union they had joined in 1845. Concern arose because of attacks on southern lifestyles by Northern politicians would be detrimental to their prosperity. Although only five percent of Texans owned slaves, Texas citizens opposed interference with slavery because the success of Texas was dependent on it. Cotton production was the main source of the economy, and Texans would do anything to protect it and their way of life. Texas voted to secede from the union in February 1861 and joined the Confederate States of America. Governor Sam Houston declined to take an oath of allegiance to the new government; President Lincoln wanted to send troops to help support Houston …show more content…

They demanded the surrender of all us Army installations and supplies to Texas forces. This action could have been the first battle of the war except that Major General Twiggs in San Antonio was commander of all US military posts in Texas and was a southerner supporter as well. He quietly turned command over to the Texans without any equivocation. With this acquisition, Texas and the South controlled ten percent of the military forces and equipment of the United States without an act of aggression by either party.
Jefferson Davis’s request for volunteer troops provided 25,000 soldiers by the end of 1861, and over the course of the war, approximately 90,000 Texans served in the southern army. Men signed up and served in units such as Terry’s Texas Rangers; this regiment fought in every major battle east of the Mississippi River. Texas military forces like John Bell Hood’s Brigade fought as part of Robert E Lee’s Army of Virginia. General Lee is quoted stating that "Texas soldiers were among his finest and most fierce …show more content…

The cotton made its way onto ships just south of Brownsville headed to the European markets. Since the ships were sailing under the Mexican flag, the Union gunboats were not allowed to stop these ships. This trade helped the Confederates support the war effort for a while longer but eventually comes to an end with a Union mounted a campaign to stop the traffic of cotton into Mexico and close down the entire Texas coast. Texans maintained the thought that states should be able to make their own political, economic and social decisions with minimal federal government interference especially when it came to slavery. Texans thought that slavery was vital to the economy as it was an imperative need that the farmers believed that they could not make money without slaves harvesting

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