PALMITO HILL: WHERE FOUR NATIONS MADE FUTILE WAR

By Juan Montoya
For years, Cameron County Pct. 1 commissioner Sofia Benavides has been trying to stir interest in the historical tourist attractions that exist in her southeast corner of the county.
And there are plenty.
Not only is the entire southern boundary abutting Mexico, but the original Ft. Brown with all its links to the U.S.-Mexican War is situated there as is the airport where Charles Lindbergh initiated air mail to Latin America and was seen off by Amelia Earhardt.
William Crawford Gorgas had his first bout with yellow fever, and our buddy Rene Torres swears that the first baseball game was played by soldiers stationed with Abner Doubleday at Ft. Brown.
The infamous Brownsville Raid blamed on black soldiers took place downtown as did the takeover of the city by Juan Nepomuceno Cortina.
Charles Stillman, whose fortune was made running the Union blockade with Richard King and Mifflin Kenedy, went on to establish Citibank with the fortune made in smuggled cotton and real estate.
The home where Stillman lived was later used by Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz when he was trying to overthrow Benito Juarez as Mexico's president with the help of the Stillmans and other industrialists.
Yet, one of the most intriguing historical sites is Palmito Hill which is tagged as the last battle of the Civil War although the war had been over for more than a month. Even though it was militarily insignificant, the fact that there were four forces involved in what a historian called a "meaningless little splatter" makes for an intriguing chapter in local history.
Even though Robert E. Lee had surrendered (some revisionists dispute this and say Lee only surrendered the Army of Viginia)  to Ulysses Grant at Appomattox, Va. on April 9, 1865, and other battles were fought after that. Regardless, on May 13, 1865, more than a month later, Union, Confederate, constitutionalist Mexican and French Imperial forces were involved in the skirmish on the bluff overlooking the Rio Grande
This was after on May 1, 1865, a passenger on a steamer heading up the Rio Grande towards Brownsville tossed a copy of the New Orleans Times to some Confederates at Palmito Ranch. The paper contained the news of Lee's surrender, Lincoln's death, and the surrender negotiations. After the news reached the mouth of the Rio Grande, many Confederate defenders left and went home.
Even though Col. Theodore H. Barrett, the Union commander of the blockade detail, was refused permission to take Brownsville, he nonetheless ordered 250 men of the Sixty-second United States Colored Infantry and fifty men of the Second Texas United States Cavalry (dismounted) to cross to the mainland from Brazos Island at Boca Chica Pass to occupy Brownsville.   The force
was spotted by French soldiers on the Mexican side of the river and they alerted the Confederate forces on the U.S. side. After the main Confederate officer declined to fight, those under Col. John Salmon (Rip) Ford, commander of the southern division of the Western Sub-District of Texas, vowed to defend the city. With him was Col. Santos Benavides' Texas Cavalry Regiment, and a six-gun battery of field artillery borrowed from the French Foreign Legionnaires occupying Mexico. In fact, some of the Union casualties were said to have been killed by the French border guards when they tried to swim across the river.
Benavides, the highest ranking Hispanic in either army, led between 100 and 150 Hispanic soldiers in the Brownsville Campaign in May 1865.
Even the participation of Juan Cortina and his lieutenant Servando Canales, who occupied Matamoros has been documented. Cortina had wanted to assist the Union in the taking of Brownsville and planned to assist them with arms and men as the Imperial troops closed in on him from San Fernando and La Burrita, on the road to Bagdad. Canales violently disagreed and did not follow Cortinas' orders.
At this time, the French controlled the area on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande and the customs house at Puerto Bagdad and by eight or nine in the morning their patrols had spotted the Union troops hiding along the river. This information soon found its way to the Confederate troops north of the river, and French troops suddenly began appearing across the river from Branson and his men.
When the Cortinistas and the Union cavalry detachment clashed with Confederates near Palmito Ranch the French troops at Bagdad reacted angrily and joined with the Confederates in pledging to treat Cortina and his men as renegades rather than soldiers.
Fighting in the battle involved Caucasian, African-American, Hispanic, and Native American troops. Reports of shots from the Mexican side, the sounding of a warning to the Confederates of the Union approach, the crossing of the French Imperial cavalry into Texas, and the participation by several among Ford's troops have been reported by historians.
Not long after the Union was beaten back to Brazos Island, the Confederates negotiated a surrender with the Union forces and peace was established.
There were Unionists and Confederates battling on one side of the river, the French and Mexican imperialists fighting president-in-internal-exile Benito Juarez and Mexican republicans on the other, with Indians and bandits in between.
But the "meaningless little splatter" at Palmito Hill belies the international character of the affair.