PROLOGUE
May 1865
A MONTH HAD passed since Confederate general Robert E. Lee surrendered, officially bringing an end to the bloody war between North and South. As word of the Union Army’s victory spread, the disappointment that initially swept through the ranks of the Confederacy was gradually turning to thoughts of going home, families, and peacetime.
The war and its cruelties were over; young men on both sides could lay down their arms and cease being soldiers.
In some cases, however, military units remained on active duty despite the surrender and declarations of a truce. An example could be found deep in South Texas, where three hundred Confederate troops remained camped near the banks of the Rio Grande. Their responsibility, as it had been in wartime, was to protect the transportation of cotton to the seaport of Los Brazos de Santiago, near Brownsville.
Just to the north, most of the sixty-five hundred Union troops had been withdrawn, but Colonel Theodore Barrett remained in charge of five hundred soldiers who were also assigned to observe activities at the port.
For the ambitious Colonel Barrett, it was a tortuous, frustrating assignment. At age thirty, he had been an officer for three years but had yet to see combat. The attack on the Confederate encampment would be his last chance to achieve battlefield glory that might pave the way to a postwar promotion and a place in military history.
His planning left much to be desired. An attack that originated on the coastline and moved inland was initially successful, as a few prisoners and some supplies were captured. But by the end of the day, a hundred Confederate cavalrymen had driven the Union soldiers back.
Both sides summoned reinforcements in preparation for another day of battle.
In the Confederates’ camp, disgruntled soldiers sat in their tents, some drinking coffee, some from bottles of tequila purchased from Mexican soldiers across the river in Matamoros. Among them were brothers from Aberdene, a small community in East Texas. They had joined when a recruiter had visited the family farm.
The two young men, quickly assigned to the Texas Cavalry Battalion, were as different as family members could be.
Clay, the elder by two years, was a man of quiet inner strength and self-reliance. As a soldier, he followed orders without hesitation or question.
Cal, on the other hand, was headstrong, often reckless, and outspoken. He was among the soldiers drinking tequila.
“I’m of a mind to saddle my horse and take leave of this godforsaken place,” he said. “We’re told the war’s over, that we’ve done lost and surrendered. Yet here we are in another battle. My question is, why? And what for?”
He took another drink. “What is likely to happen tomorrow when we resume our shooting is that I’ll be killing some of those Yankee no-goods—or one of them will manage to aim well enough to see me shot dead. It’s my observation that neither option carries much logic. The . . . war . . . is . . . over!”
Clay sat cross-legged, drawing circles in the dirt as his brother spoke. He knew what Cal had in mind and that trying to convince him otherwise was futile. Before daylight, his brother would be miles away from what remained of the fighting.
By dawn, as preparations were underway for the second day of battle, the younger Breckenridge had saddled his horse, crossed the Rio Grande into Mexico, and was traveling east. As he’d written in the note he’d left for his brother, he had no particular destination in mind.
He wrote:
All I’m of a mind to do now is to put me a good amount of distance from soldiering. I’ve took all the orders I can stand. I hope you will stay safe and return home soon. Pa will welcome you and the help you can be to him on the farm. Give him my love though I doubt he’ll much care.
Your brother,
Cal
P.S. I’d have wrote this better if I’d had more time and wasn’t so drunk.
NOTHING THE UNION soldiers attempted during the second day worked. An attack from the right flank failed. So did a frontal assault. The Confederates had borrowed artillery from the French and Mexican armies in Matamoros and prepared to make their stand on the edge of a place called Palmito Ranch.
By late in the afternoon, Colonel Barrett’s troops were caught in a trap laid by the Confederate cavalry near the Rio Grande. Barrett ordered his forces to retreat after setting up a skirmish line of men to slow the approach of the mounted Confederates.
For those ordered to form a line and aim their rifles on the fast-approaching enemy, it was a suicide mission. And one quickly abandoned. As the Confederate horsemen came closer, the Union soldiers left their assigned position and ran before a single shot was fired.
As Clay Breckenridge approached, however, his attention was drawn to a single Union soldier who stood his ground. Their eyes met for an instant, and Clay thought he saw a faint look of resignation on the enemy soldier’s face as he lifted his rifle and prepared to shoot. It was as if he had accepted the fact of his own death even before Breckenridge aimed his pistol.
The shot struck the Union soldier high in the chest. His rifle dropped to his side as he slumped to his knees, then pitched forward into the sand. Death came quickly.
It was not the first life Breckenridge had taken during battle, but it was the last—and the one that would remain with him. It would define his entire war experience, with all of its dark questions, haunting regrets, and troubling memories.
Referring to the two days of fighting as the Battle of Palmito Ranch, the Galveston News reported that it was probably the final confrontation of the Civil War. The reason for the post-surrender Union attack remained a mystery. Several soldiers on both sides had been wounded, but there was only one casualty reported.
“One Union soldier, Private John Jefferson Williams of the 34th Indiana Infantry, was killed,” the story read. “He is likely to be the last battle fatality of the Civil War.”
The article made no mention that it was Clay Breckenridge who had fired the shot that killed Private Williams, which suited him fine. It was not a moment in history he was proud to have been a part of.