MOVE UNDER WAY TO MAKE FT. BROWN NATIONAL PARK

By Juan Montoya
If you go out tho the old gold course of Texas Southmost College you will see an overgrown, desolate wasteland separated from Mexico by a thin strand of the Rio Grande that curves around, leaving the site like a river peninsula.
This was the site that Zachary Taylor ordered his men in May 1846 to construct an earthen fortification from which to keep Matamoros under vigilance and from which to bomb the town with his artillery.
It was, in effect, a fort built upon disputed territory, and, until the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in February 1848, recognized as Mexican territory.
But it was here that Major Jacob Brown was killed during a bombardment by Mexican cannon fire from across the river when he wandered out and a cannonball bounced off a wall and broke his leg. Gangrene set in and he died a few days later.
When Taylor had his engineers build the fort, some of his officers were critical of the site and the location where he had ordered it built.
In "1846 Year of Decision," historian Bernard De Voto wrote that: "Taylor had crudely fortified Point Isabel, at the mouth of the river, but the bulk of his force was in the vicinity of Ft. Brown, a set of textbook field works which he had built opposite Matamoros, on a site no textbook would have approved. (Ethan Allen) Hitchcock (the commander of the 3rd Infantry and considered Taylor's most capable senior officer) called it a cul-de-sac, it commanded nothing but a stretch of river, it was open to enfilade from three sides, and any competent enemy would have pinched it off from the rear. All that prevented its capture was now and hereafter was a Mexican incompetence as splendid as Taylor's own."
https://archive.org/stream/yearofdecision18000231mbp#page/n153/mode/2up
After the war, the fort was built to military specifications and was used on and off until the U.S. Government removed the troops and left the buildings that now comprise Texas Southmost College. The earthen bulwarks were soon eroded and the original fortifications forgotten. Today, a cannon turned upside down in the dirt signals its approximate location.
Even the national cemetery that used to occupy the island in the middle of the oxbow lake (resaca) was removed and the soldiers' remains were reburied in Louisiana.
Now a group headed by Brownsville Historical Association associate Craig Stone has started a petition to have the site declared a National Park and has asked Congressman Filemon Vela to assist the petitioners to make this become a reality.
Stone started this petition with a single signature, and now has 244 supporters.
Jose Borjon, a spokesman for Vela, said that initial meetings to determine the support and feasibility of declaring the site as a national park have started and that the congressman's staff is exploring the roles that the International Boundary and Water Commission, the City of Brownsville, Texas Southmost College and other stakeholders might play in making this possible.
"We're at the initial stages of the process and we've held a couple of meetings with Mr. Stone," Borjon said in a telephone interview.
The process is complicated by the number of "stakeholders" that have to come on board to make it possible, he said, but the initial response has been positive.
Stone has been vocal locally about opposing the removal of the stone monument at Washington Park honoring Confederate States of America president Jefferson Davis, even to the point of attending ceremonies at his birthday wearing a Confederate uniform. However, the petition for the national park is separate and distinct from this controversy, Borjon said.
The invasion of Mexico in 1846 through Matamoros does have a link to the Civil War 15 years later in 1861.
Stationed at Ft. Texas (renamed Ft. Brown after the major's death), were officers who would later become generals on both sides of the Civil War.

Fifteen future generals (six Union, nine Confederate) were present during the siege of Ft. Brown across from Matamoros.

It can be safely said that the seeds of the Civil War were planted at Palo Alto and at Resaca de la Guerra the next day, although those battlefields were watered with U.S. and Mexican blood and not exclusively American as it was during the Civil War.

To sign on to the petition to make Ft. Brown a national park, click on the link below.

https://www.change.org/p/filemon-vela-we-are-a-group-of-concerned-citizens-who-want-to-see-ft-brown-become-a-national-park