The Maltby Brothers' Civil War

Chapter 11. A Bitter Peace

11 A Bitter Peace Before leaving Matamoros, William, along with Benjamin Neal and another friend, Pat Daugherty, were photographed informally, all three disheveled and appearing intoxicated. The tobacco-stained floor indicates that they are in a saloon.1 One can readily imagine the three enjoying a devil-may-care binge, convincing themselves that although the war had been lost and the future was uncertain, life was still worth living. As for Henry, embittered by the South’s defeat and the military rule that followed, he told his brother he would never return to the United States. At Corpus Christi, writing to his sisters Elizabeth and Matilda in Ohio, William admitted being “without a business prospect” and jokingly attributed the increase in his white hairs to “early piety.” It troubled him that his Pat Daugherty, Benjamin Neal, and William Maltby, intoxicated, in a Matamoros bar, ca. 1865. (Brownsville Historical Association) a bitter peace 11 father—the “Poor old Man!”—had ceased all written contact from when William had been a paroled prisoner at Vicksburg. Jasper, on the other hand, remained in contact through regular correspondence.2 The civilian population of Corpus Christi, now reduced to about three hundred inhabitants, found themselves vastly outnumbered by a brigade from General Godfrey Weitzel’s Twenty-fifth Army Corps in Brownsville: three thousand African American soldiers. Other units of Weitzel’s corps had been sent to Brownsville, Indianola, and Galveston due to the government’s concern over French emperor Napoleon III’s army in Mexico in support of Maximilian. To many Southerners, free blacks, especially those armed, represented their greatest fear: retaliation for having been enslaved. William complained to his brother that “[Corpus Christi] is under a veil of Egyptian darkness.” Nevertheless, he intended to stay. Although unemployed, he still owned a sizable amount of land: 4,614 acres (half of it on Padre Island) valued at $575 ($8,400 in 2011 US dollars). His taxes for 1866 totaled $3.22. In July of that year, William joined six other men to form a Presbyterian Society for the purpose of raising money to build a Presbyterian church. Two years later he personally pledged six shares—$12,000 ($196,000 in 2011 US dollars)—to the building fund.3 From Matamoros, Henry somberly reported on the African American soldiers who now occupied Corpus Christi. In Henry’s view, “a greater curse could not have been visited upon our friends in Texas, than that of quartering upon them a brutal nigger soldiery, even though that soldiery was commanded by a saint.” As for the white officers who had volunteered to serve in black units, Henry feigned sympathy. “We are assured that the officers of rank labor under constant dread of their debased and depraved nigger troops that makes one of the loveliest spots of earth a perfect Gehenna to them. No business whatever is doing at the place.” Although violent acts inflicted on white citizens by African American soldiers were rare, numerous cases of intimidation and theft were reported. After the home of one resident was fired into two nights in a row, the Ranchero reported, “The dissatisfaction among these troops is so great as to threaten serious mutiny. The negroes find military service or bad rations and afar removed from their families and old homes entirely incompatible with their preconceived ideas of freedom.” Citizens would sometimes retaliate. When John Dunn, who lived outside the city, was robbed of four hundred dollars by soldiers, Mat Dunn, a relative , pursued the robbers on horseback, overtaking them as they neared the city. He returned fire after being shot at, killing one of them. As reported in the Ranchero, “For this defense of his life and property he was threatened chapter 11 1 with summary treatment. Other houses have been robbed and fired into, regardless of the lives of the inmates.” Somers Kinney felt especially bitter toward Northern women: “Nothing can cool the fiery and bloody ardor of the cold-hearted North. The people are not content to see the whites of the South down—they want the nigger on top. Many northern women are openly advocating such terrible measures, and appear more zealous than the men in carrying their ends.” Agreeing with his junior editor, Henry predicted the likelihood of open warfare between the two races. “We need not despair at the result,” he assured readers, contending that such a war would result in “the wiping...