Decisions of the Galveston Campaigns: The Twenty-One Critical Decisions That Defined the Operations

＂The Galveston Campaign was a series of naval and overland battles that pitted Confederate general John B. Magruder and Texas Marine commander Leon Smith against the armies of Isaac S. Burrell and naval forces under the command of William B. Renshaw. A Federal fleet of six ships assaulted the city on October 4, 1862, and the city surrendered after a four-day truce was agreed upon. However, by New Year’s Day of 1863, Confederate artillery reinforcements had arrived, and Magruder coordinated a bold new attack and naval ruse with two Confederate gunboats to retake Galveston. The city would remain in the South’s hands until the end of the war and was one of the few open Confederate ports＂--

EDWARD T. COTHAM JR., now retired, was the chief investment officer at the Terry Foundation in Houston. He is the author of Battle on the Bay: The Civil War Struggle for Galveston; Sabine Pass: The Confederacy’s Thermopylae; The Southern Journey of a Civil War Marine; Juneteenth: The Story Behind the Celebration; and A Busy Week in Texas: Ulysses S. Grant’s 1880 Visit to the Lone Star State.