Secession & Civil War

1861

Feb. 1 – The Secession Convention approves an ordinance withdrawing Texas from Union; the action is ratified by the voters on Feb. 23 in a referendum vote. Secession is official on March 2.

Feb. 13 – Robert E. Lee is ordered to return to Washington from regimental headquarters at Fort Mason to assume command of the Union Army. Instead, Lee resigns his commission; he assumes command of the Confederate Army by June 1862.

March 1 – Texas is accepted as a state by the provisional government of the Confederate States of America, even before its secession from the Union is official.

Texas History Timelines

The following timelines of major events in the history of Texas have been expanded from the ones that were originally published in the 1996-97 Texas Almanac:

• Ancient History

• European Exploration & Settlement

• Revolution & the Republic of Texas

• Annexation and Statehood

• Secession and Civil War

• Reconstruction to the 20th Century

• The 20th Century

March 5 – The Secession Convention approves an ordinance accepting Confederate statehood.

March 16 – Sam Houston resigns as governor in protest against secession.

1862

Aug. 10 – About 68 Union loyalists, mostly German immigrants from the area of Comfort, in Central Texas, start for Mexico in an attempt to reach U.S. troops; 19 are killed by Confederates on the Nueces River. Eight others are killed on Oct. 18 at the Rio Grande. Others drown attempting to swim the river. Their deaths are commemorated in Comfort by the Treue der Union (True to the Union) monument.

October – Forty-two men thought to be Union sympathizers are hanged at various times during October in Gainesville.

1865

May 13 – The Battle of Palmito Ranch is fought near Brownsville, after the official end of the Civil War, because word of the war's end at Appomattox on April 9 has not yet reached troops in Texas.