Memories of Galveston Under Fire

"I hear de cannon say, 'Boom, boom,' from Galveston to Louisiana."

- John Price, a formerly enslaved man who lived in Liberty County, TX during his enslavement and after emancipation.¹  

Though there were not many enslaved people living in Galveston during the Civil War, many people were held in bondage on nearby plantations in Brazoria, Matagorda, and Fort Bend counties, for example. 

Some of our most valuable insight into the history of slavery comes from interviews with formerly enslaved people that were conducted by the Federal Writers Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in the 1930s. 

Jacob Branch was born into bondage in Louisiana, then sold to Elisha Stevenson in Double Bayou, TX, located in present day Chambers County approximately 30 miles northeast of Galveston. Branch relayed the following to a WPA interviewer: 

"One mornin' Eleck and me git up at crack of dawn to milk. All at once come a shock what shake de earth. De big fish jump clean out de bay and turtles and alligators run out dere ponds. Dey plump ruint Galveston! Us runned in de houe and all de dishes and things done jump out de shelf. Dat de first bombardment of Galveston. De sojers put powder under people's houses and blowin' up Galveston."

Jacob also remembered how Tucker Stevenson, likely one of Elisha's sons, refused conscription. Instead, Tucker offered corn rations to Confederate soldiers in Galveston as an informal exchange for his conscientious objection: 

"Young massa Tucker Stevenson, he ain't 'lieve in war and he say he never gwine fight. He hide in de woods so de conscrip' men can't find him. Old man LaCour come 'round and say he have orders for find Tucker and bring him in dead or 'live. But 'cause he old massa's friend, he say, 'Why don't you buy de boy's services off?' So old massa take de boat, 'Cat-rig' us calls it, and loads it with corn and such and us pole it down to Galveston. De people  need dat food so much, dat load supplies done buy off Massa Tucker from fightin'."² 

Mintie Maria Miller was a formerly enslaved woman who lived at 1404 39th St. Galveston, TX at the time of her interview with the WPA. By the time the Civil War began, Tom Johnson of Lynchburg, TX claimed Mintie as his property. Mintie recalled the building of "cotton-clads," Confederate steamships that were lined with cotton on all sides to protect it from enemy fire: 

"Then the war comes and jes' 'fore war come to Galveston they took all the steamships in Buffalo Bayou and took the cabins off and made ships. They put cotton bales 'round them and builded 'em up high with the cotton, to cotch the cannonballs. Two of 'em was the Island City, and the Neptune."³ 

It's possible that the cotton-clad Neptune which Mintie recalls was the same Neptune utilized by Gen. John Magruder during the Confederate recapture of Galveston on January 1, 1863. The Neptune was sunk when it tried to ram the Union ship Harriet Lane from behind, however the crew of another cotton-clad known as Bayou City managed to board and seize the Harriet Lane, turning the battle in the Confederacy's favor.⁴  

One of the reasons enslaved people were so heavily relied on was that they were considered more expendable and less valuable than white soldiers by military authorities. Philles Thomas, a formerly enslaved woman interviewed by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s, was too young during the Civil War to remember its events. However, Philles's mother told her later that her father was killed while assisting with Galveston's fortifications: 

"I can't 'member my daddy, but mammy told me him am sent to de 'Federate Army and am kilt in Galveston. She say dey puttin' up breastworks and de Yanks am shootin' from de ships. Well, daddy am watchin' de balls comin' from dem guns, fallin' round dere, and a car come down de track loaded with rocks and hit him. Dat car kilt him."⁵ 

Editorial Note: All excerpts from the WPA Slave Narratives are reproduced exactly as originally published. For a note on the language and spelling utilized by WPA interviewers to represent their interviewees, please see this administrative note from the Library of Congress.