Battle of Palmito Ranch 1865: The Last Fight a Month After Appomattox

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On May 12 and 13, 1865, more than a month after Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Union and Confederate troops fought at Palmito Ranch near Brownsville, Texas. Commanders in South Texas knew of Lee's surrender, but Edmund Kirby Smith's Trans-Mississippi Department had rejected John Pope's surrender terms. The two sides had kept an unofficial truce, with Union troops at Brazos Santiago and Confederates holding Brownsville, where cotton crossed the Rio Grande to neutral Matamoros, out of reach of the Union blockade.

Union Colonel Theodore H. Barrett, 30, had never seen combat, and his brigade included about 300 dismounted cavalrymen without horses. He sent Lieutenant Colonel David Branson with men of the 62nd U.S. Colored Troops inland, but Captain William N. Robinson's small force stalled them. On May 13, Colonel John Rip Ford arrived with artillery and drove the Union troops into a bend of the Rio Grande, capturing dozens. Ford, who had called the force a mongrel army, paroled the Black prisoners, and later testified in defense of the Union officer Barrett had court-martialed.

• The 2nd Texas Cavalry, a Union unit largely of Hispanic Texans, fought there, and Colonel Santos Benavides was the highest-ranking Hispanic officer in either army.
• Soldiers reported shots fired from the Mexican side of the river and claims of French involvement, which remain unverified.
• Barrett reported one Union death, but historians estimate about 30, many likely drowned in the Rio Grande.
• Private John J. Williams of the 34th Indiana is recorded as the last combat fatality of the battle and arguably of the war.
• Stand Watie, a Cherokee leader, did not surrender until June 23, 1865, and the insurrection was not declared over until August 1866.