CORTINA-MCCLERNAND LETTER AND THE POLITICS OF COTTON

By Stephen A. Townsend

Dissertation for Ph.D. North Texas State

The Rio Grande Expedition

"Despite the best efforts of the Union blockade, Lincoln could not stem the flow of cotton being exported from Texas. If one thing could keep the Confederacy alive, it was its ability to export cotton. 

This vital commodity allowed the Confederacy to trade for war materials which they desperately needed. Lincoln believed he had to stop the flow of cotton out of Texas if he expected to hasten the end of the Civil War. The area where active cotton trading took place was in the lower Rio Grande Valley. 

The two principal cities involved in the trade were Brownsville, Texas, and Matamoros, Mexico, directly across the river.

Located at the mouth of the river on the Mexican side was the town of  Bagdad, the port of entry for goods assigned to northern Mexico.

Used as early as 1780 as a port of entry, it never grew large until the Civil War transformed it into a bustling center of commerce. Bagdad offered tolerable anchorage and harbor facilities for the numerous vessels that crowded its waters. Many accounts indicated that a state of lawlessness existed in Bagdad, a common characteristic in many boom towns. 

Once goods were unloaded at Bagdad, they were carted thirty miles west over bad roads to Matamoros. Many of these goods were ferried across the river to Brownsville. The Mexican government levied a duty of 12 1/2 percent on all goods exported before the goods were allowed to be ferried across to Brownsville. 

The primary Confederate export, cotton, would return to Bagdad by the same route, with the Mexican government collecting import duties. The twin cities of Matamoros and Brownsville were the major centers of the trans-Mississippi cotton trade with Europe.

As a result, Matamoros, like Bermuda and Nassau, became a large depot for exchanging European goods for cotton. 

This unique international situation and the commercial opportunities it presented were not lost on a Brownsville business called M. Kenedy and Company. Formed in 1850, this steamboat company had a virtual monopoly on steamboat operations from Brownsville upriver to Rio Grande City by 1861, a distance of about 100 miles.

This company, led by Richard King, Miflin Kenedy, Charles Stillman, James O'Donnell, and Robert Penny, anticipated that the mouth of the Rio Grande would become the back door of the Confederacy through which large quantities of cotton would flow. 

When the war broke out in 1861, the members of the company used their steamboats to aid the Confederate cause. In order for their boats to haul cargo for the Confederacy, the company placed their steamboats under Mexican registry. 

This meant that Union blockaders could not seize their cargoes because of Mexico's neutrality. As a result, Matamoros, like Bermuda and Nassau, became a large depot for exchanging European goods for cotton.

A diplomat at the consulate in Matamoros called that city the "great thoroughfare" to the southern states. Lookouts aboard Union blockaders at times counted hundreds of ships at the mouth of the river. A Union newspaper writer estimated that early in 1863, supplies worth $4 million were going through Matamoros each month.

The last months of the war brought no decrease in the Brownsville/Matamoros cotton trade. Major General Lew Wallace, a Union officer on a mission of peace to Texas, described the commercial activity at the mouth of the Rio Grande. 

In a letter to his wife on 5 March 1865, he described the cotton trade at the mouth of the Rio Grande:
 

"I find on examination that reports of the extent of trade in progress at Matamoros are not exaggerated. From the deck of this steamer I can look towards the mouth of the Rio Grande, scarcely nine miles away, and see more vessels than are to be seen any one day in the harbor of Baltimore, all foreign vessels, loading and unloading cargoes, of which about one-eighth only goes legitimately into Mexico. The rest is consigned to Matamoros for the rebel authorities in Texas. Matamoros is crowded with goods – in fact, skillful judges say there are more in store there than the city of New Orleans. Another evidence of incompetency on our side."

Following the successful Rio Grande Expedition in November, 1863 which saw the fleeing confederates set fire to cotton bales awaiting transfer to the Matamoros side, the city came under Union control. But this did not stop the continued shipping of confederate cotton up river and then to Puerto Bagdad. 

The loss of Brownsville meant that cotton would have to be crossed further upriver at Eagle Pass and Laredo."

On April 4, 1864 Major General John A. McClernand, new commander of the Thirteenth Army Corps, stopped in Brownsville and wrote Tamaulipas Military Governor Juan N. Cortina asking him to stop the confederate commerce in cotton coming from Laredo and Eagle Pass and to stop the anti-Union work of confederate agents in Matamoros.

Cortina, who showed pro-Union sentiments, – could not stop the trade since the Benito Juarez government in internal exile in northern Mexico depended on the customs duties at Bagdad for its very survival – responded April 7 (letter above) that he would convey his request to the Supreme Government for their decision. That decision never arrived.

Eventually, the confederacy, under Col John "Rip" Ford took over the city early August after Union forces left it and established camp at Brazos Santiago where they remained until the end of the war less than one year later.

To read entire dissertation, click on link: https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc2744/m2/1/high_res_d/dissertation.pdf