150 Years Ago- "Undefeated" Rebel General Sinks His Battle Flag, Goes to Mexico

150 Years Ago - “Undefeated” Rebel General Sinks His Battle Flag, Goes to Mexico

Rather than surrender his command let alone give up his battle flag, 150 years ago General Joseph Orville Shelby sank his banner in the Rio Grande and took his men to Mexico, where he hoped to lead them as mercenaries serving the French-installed Emperor Maximilian.

Shelby made his career commanding cavalry, first in “Bleeding Kansas” and then at Wilson's Creek and Pea Ridge. The scourge of the Trans-Mississippi, in 1863 Shelby took his “Iron Brigade” of horsemen on a 1,500-mile rampage through Union territory, a feat for which he earned his promotion to brigadier general. He is also one of the few cavalrymen in history to be able to boast of having captured a warship – the Union tinclad river gunboat USS Queen City. Shelby raided and battled his way through Arkansas and Missouri which such distinction that in May 1865 his commanding officer General Kirby Smith, promoted him to major general. Unfortunately for Shelby, as Lee, Richmond and Davis by then had all surrendered, the war was over and the promotion was never confirmed. That did not stop Shelby, however, who convinced most of his brigade to march to Mexico rather than surrender – or go home.

Shelby's column paused as it reached the Rio Grande at Eagle Pass, Texas in July. There with great ceremony the general took the signature plume from his hat and the Confederate battle flag under which he had marched and ordered them sunk and buried “in the river's rushing tide,” or so one of his followers the military poet Brevet Colonel Alonzo W. Slayback immortalized in a poem dated July 4, 1865. The poem concludes with the farewell line: “The glorious flag of the vanquished brave, No more to rise from its watery grave.”

The poem is entitled “The Burial of Shelby's Flag” and the spot where the flag was sunk is known locally as “The Grave of the Confederacy.”

Shelby and his men crossed into Mexico – but Maximilian, though embattled, thought better of taking the ex-Confederates into his service as it might worsen his already strained relations with Washington. After all, Mexico had been a haven for blockade runners for four years. The French, however, did agree to allow Shelby and his men to settle around Vera Cruz, provided they would defend the land from the Mexican rebels. When Maximilian fell, however, Shelby and most of his men finally went home, with the general settling in Missouri in 1867. Twenty-six years later he was appointed as the U.S. Marshal for the Western District.

Not all of Shelby's men made it home. One group of Missouri cavaliers led by Brigadier General Monroe Parsons did join up with the Imperial forces and fought the Juaristas on the Chino River, where Parsons was killed 150 years ago - on August 15, 1865.

John Wayne drew inspiration from Shelby's Mexican expedition for the 1969 movie The Undefeated, where Rock Hudson played the Shelby-esque Colonel James Langdon.

The role played by Mexico and its French-installed emperor in the Civil War is represented in GMT's strategic naval game, Rebel Raiders on the High Seas by the Mexican port of Vera Cruz – where blockade runners can load cargo to smuggle into the Confederacy and by Confederate Card 61 – Maximilian.

150 Years Ago: A Rebel Blockade Runner's Last Run

150 Years Ago: A Rebel Blockade Runner's Last Run

Few Confederate ships ran the blockade more often than the Advance.  The fast, Scottish-built 900-ton sidewheeler made more than 20 voyages - paying back her owners many times over as she brought in not only badly needed war supplies but also highly sought after luxuries.  Named in honor of North Carolina Governor Zebulon Vance, the sleek double-stack vessel originally designer as a fast passenger liner eluded capture over 40 times as she zipped in and out of Wilmington and other ports in the Tar Heel State.  Unfortunately, the 41st Union warship she encountered was one of the fastest ships in the Union navy: the USS Santiago de Cuba - which ended the blockade runner's storied 15-month career on the night of September 10, 1864.

The Advance, however, was not sunk by the USS Santiago de Cuba when the Yankee vessel caught up with her in Cape Fear Inlet; she was instead taken as a prize to New York  and then selected for service by the Navy.  Even with a 20-pounder rifled gun and four 24-pound howitzers aboard the now rechristened USS Advance could still make 12 knots, which made her suitable for service in tightening the blockade around the very ports she had been running in and out of under the Rebel flag.   Her capture, however, was a severe blow to Confederate captains, fewer and fewer of whom risked going out where even the Advance had been unable to escape.  

Although she never chased down any of her fellow blockade runners, as USS Advance the vessel did see action in the battle for Fort Fisher at the mouth of the Cape Fear River that Christmas.  Under the command of  Lt. Cmdr. John Upshur  she exchanged fire with the fort's Half-Moon Battery, reportedly silencing its 8-inch gun, then came closer inshore to help rescue and tow away the gunboat USS Osceola,   Upshur's vessel finished out the war as a dispatch and supply ship, and after war's end was renamed USS Frolic and, with Upshur still in command, was sent to the European Squadron.  The vessel was finally decomissioned in 1877 and sold to a private owner in Virginia in 1883.

As CSN Card 67, CSS Advance is one of the many blockade runners that appear in the strategic Civil War naval game, Rebel Raiders on the High Seas.  Successfully running the blockade is vital for Confederate victory in the game, as it was in the war.  Stopping such ships is equally vital for the North, which in attempting to do so makes use of such ships as the gunboat USS Osceola, which also appears in the game as USN Card 9 and which, ironically, as noted above, was saved by Advance when that former blockade runner was in Union service.

150 Years Ago: Rebel Raiders Off New York!

150 Years Ago: Rebel Raiders Off New York!

150 Years Ago this week New York merchants were in a panic, as a Confederate raider was sinking their ships almost within sight of the city!   Between August 11 and August 20, the CSS Tallahassee sunk, burned, scuttled or bonded over 30 Union merchant ships - most of them off the coasts of New Jersey, New York and New England.

In late July, Commander John Taylor Wood and 120 volunteers, most drawn from the Confederate James River Squadron, arrived in Wilmington, N.C. and took charge of a the blockade runner Atlanta.  They strengthened her hull and decks and fitted her with three massive guns: a 100-pound rifle, a 32-pound rifle and a Parrot gun.  Wood not only had a ship that could fight most Union gunboat; he also had what he boasted was "the fastest warship afloat" - one that could run down or out run any vessel flying Yankee colors.

Wood, who had been on the CSS Virginia in its epic battle with the USS Monitor, had no illusions about battling his way through the blockade.  He steamed out quietly and stealthily under cover of night (and the guns of Fort Fisher) and ran for the open sea.  Eleven Union warships chased him for 50 miles, even firing shells that flew between the raider's twin stacks, but CSS Tallahassee sped on, eventually outdistancing his pursuers.  Instead of heading for the broad Atlantic, Wood set a course for the Yankee coast: his goal, to bring the war to the North.

On August 11 off the coast of Sandy Hook, New Jersey, Wood did just that, capturing seven ships in a single day.  On the 12th, Wood captured another six..  On August 13 he took a pair of vessels - the bark Glenavon and the schooner L. Du Pont.  He scuttled the first and burned the second - the smoke from which reportedly was seen from Long Island.   The New York Board of Underwriters shot up their insurance rates and telegraphed Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, demanding he send all available ships to hunt down the raider.  Welles complied, but while his fleet gathered, Wood went on up the coast to New England, capturing another 17 vessels before reaching Halifax to take on coal on August 18.   The CSS Tallahassee left the harbor only hours before a mighty Union warship (USS Pontoosuc) arrived.  Knowing that Welles had sent dozens of ships out to look for him, Wood made a beeline for Wilmington, taking one last prize before dashing through the blockading squadrons, guns blazing, at 14 knots, to triumphantly return to port on August 26.

The strategic Civil War naval game Rebel Raiders on the High Seas captures the drama of such daring captains as John Taylor Wood.  Confederate blockade runners and raiders must elude the net the Union player casts for them, hoping their efforts will keep the Southern economy going long enough to frustrate the march of Yankee armies south.  

April 4, 1864 – Congress Says “No” to Rebel-Friendly Maximilian

This day 150 years ago in Rebel Raiders’ History

-Dedicated to Civil War episodes, battles, people and ships that also appear in my game, GMT’s Rebel Raiders on the High Seas.

April 4, 1864 – Congress Says “No” to Rebel-Friendly Maximilian

Historical Event:  Alarmed by Napoleon III’s declared intent to crown Maximilian as Emperor of Mexico, on April 4, 1864 Congress passed a joint resolution deploring the French intervention in that country and added that the United States would not “acknowledge any monarchical government” which would be installed “under the auspices of any European power.”   The French and notably Maximilian himself were sympathetic to the Confederacy, and French ports in Europe, her colonies and Mexico were havens for Rebel blockade runners.   Mexican President Benito Juarez, who led the fight against the French interventionist forces, was an admirer and ally of President Lincoln.  Both men believed France harbored imperial ambitions that would extend beyond Mexico, and that Napoleon III and Maximilian might ally with the Confederacy.

Game Connection:   France and Maximilian are both represented in Rebel Raiders on the High Seas.  Confederate Blockade Runners may be built in and load cargo in France and Mexico, and while in play the Maximilian Card (CSN Card 61) provides additional benefits including a modifier to the Confederate Supply attrition die roll and a free Blockade Runner every turn.