As many of you know I attended the Rio Grande City High School and My class was one of the last classes to attend the old High School which is situated in the grounds of Historic Fort Ringgold. Every morning the bus used to drive us past an old small house in much disrepair on top of a small round hill and some other small tall hills further back towards the river.
It was a great shame that in history class they never mentioned Fort Ringgold or even that small house. It was years latter while in college that I learned that that small house was used by General Robert E. Lee during some part of the Civil War and the small hills where used to place cannons to try and sink any Union Steam ships.
I recently came across a PDF document titled “The Story of Union Forces in South Texas During the Civil War” it was Compiled and Edited by Norman Rozeff from the Harlingen Historical Preservation Society. It is an 82 page document detailing the history of the Union Army in South Texas.
I know that some of the readers of We Are Cousins are very interested in the Civil War Specially the Confederate Army of South Texas therefore I thought it would be great to share this document with you.
Old Look of Port Isabel Texas, Then Called Point Isabel
If you have any type of interest in South Texas weather it be Genealogical or Historical I highly recommend that you read this document. When reading please note the sources that are mentioned since latter you can try and look up your ancestors on those same sources.
Let me know if any of your ancestors where either Union or Confederate soldiers.
Thank you for posting this article! My GGG grandfather (Silvario Villegas) was in the Civil War (Union side) and I’m always trying to learn more!
You are welcome, one of my new goals is to point out local history and the role that South Texas has played in history.