Galveston's mayor surrenders the city after a truce the Confederates used to haul away its cannons
On October 4, 1862, five Union warships under Commander William B. Renshaw moved on Galveston, Texas, hoping to open a port the blockade alone had failed to shut down. A Confederate cannon at Fort Point fired a warning shot, Union ships answered and knocked it out, and a verbal four-day truce followed. Confederate Colonel Joseph J. Cook used the pause to empty the city of its remaining artillery and supplies. When the truce lapsed, Renshaw fired three signal shots, and Galveston's mayor and council rowed out to the gunboat Westfield to surrender. A detachment from the Harriet Lane raised the United States flag over the city; the National Park Service reports no casualties, though at least one other account lists casualties as unknown.
Galveston's fall led to Union control of most of the Texas coast within weeks, as part of a wider effort to choke Confederate trade from the Gulf. But Washington's failure to send infantry to hold the city, a problem tied to delays from Major General Benjamin Butler, who did not send the troops Renshaw requested, left the port exposed. Confederate forces retook it on January 1, 1863, and Renshaw was killed in the fighting.
QWho commanded the Harriet Lane when it carried the flag ashore at Galveston?
Lieutenant Commander Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright led the Harriet Lane and personally led the 150-man detachment that raised the United States flag over Galveston. His ship had been the one sent in under a flag of truce to open talks before the shooting started, and it was his sailors, not soldiers, who occupied the city in October 1862. Wainwright's grandson and namesake later became the general who commanded U.S. forces in the Philippines in World War II. In 1862, though, this Wainwright's job was simpler: hold the flag and the dock until infantry arrived, which took months.
QHow many small Confederate detachments did Union forces capture in the weeks after Galveston fell?
Two separate incidents in November 1862 cost the Confederates small detachments, remembered by the names of the vessels involved, Henry Janes and Owasco. Neither action rose to the scale of a battle, but both reflected how thin Confederate naval and military presence had become along the Texas coast once Galveston's garrison evaporated. These captures came during the gap between the October surrender and the eventual arrival of a real infantry garrison on Christmas Day. For two months, Union control of the Texas coast rested on scattered naval patrols picking off whatever Confederate assets remained within reach, rather than any organized occupation force.
QHow many Confederate troops were actually in the region when Galveston fell?
Despite Galveston's thin defenses, Confederate strength in the broader area was not small. Roughly 5,000 troops were stationed in and around Houston and along the rail line connecting Houston to Galveston. They simply were not positioned to defend the port itself, which had been written off as indefensible and stripped of most of its cannons before the Union squadron ever appeared. The city's fall was a failure of positioning, not of Confederate manpower.
