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the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, public opinion in the cotton states of the Deep South swung in favor of secession
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January 21, 1861, the legislature met in Austin and was addressed by Houston
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The state of Texas declared its secession from the United States
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In the late winter of 1861, Texas counties sent delegates to a special convention to debate the merits of secession. The convention adopted an Ordinance of Secession by a vote of 166 to 8, which was ratified by a popular referendum on February 23
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Texas voters approved this Ordinance on February 23, 1861. Texas joined the Confederate States of America
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and joined the Confederate States of America on March 2, 1861
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August 1862, Texans massacred a band of Germans along the Nueces River
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In October, 150 Unionists belonging to the Cooke County Union League were arrested at Gainesville by the 11th Texas Cavalry
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Confederate troops under Gen. John B. Magruder recaptured the Galveston on January 1, 1863 and it remained in Confederate hands until the end of the war.
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Texas was mainly a "supply state" for the Confederate forces
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The most notable military battle in Texas during the war happened the battle of Sabine Pass
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Robert E. Lee's surrender on April 9, 1865, at the Appomattox Court House, Virginia.
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In the kaleidoscope of events following the surrender of Robert E. Lee's army on April 9, Palmito Ranch was nearly ignored.
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In the spring of 1865, Texas contained over 60,000 soldiers of the Army of the Trans-Mississippi under Gen.Kirby Smith. News of the surrender of Lee and other Confederate generals east of the Mississippi finally reached Texas around April 20
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The last battle of the Civil War, the Battle of Palmito Ranch, was fought in Texas
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The battle was fought on the banks of the Rio Grande about twelve miles east of Brownsville, Texas
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May 14, troops in Galveston briefly mutinied, but were persuaded to remain under arms.
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May 23, residents in Houston sacked the ordnance building and the clothing bureau
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Riots continued in the city until May 26. Both government and private stores were raided extensively in Tyler, Marshall, Huntsville, Gonzales, Hempstead, La Grange, and Brownsville. In Navasota, a powder explosion cost eight lives and flattened twenty buildings.
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May 27, half of the original Confederate forces in Texas had deserted or been disbanded, and formal order had disappeared into lawlessness in many areas of Texas.
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Kirby Smith addressed his few remaining soldiers and condemned those that had fled for not struggling to the last and leaving him "a commander without an army– a General without troops." On June 2, he formally surrendered what was left of the Army of the Trans-Mississippi.
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President Andrew Johnson appointed Union General Andrew J. Hamilton, a prominent politician before the war, as the provisional governor on June 17. He granted amnesty to ex-Confederates if they promised to support the Union in the future, appointing some to office.
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Federal troops did not arrive in Texas to restore order until when Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger and 2,000 Union soldiers arrived on Galveston Island to take possession of the state and enforce slaves’ new freedoms. The Stars and Stripes was not raised over Austin until June 25.
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In Jame's Barrett's Official report of August 10, 1865 he reported 115 Union casualties[9], one killed, nine wounded, and 105 captured; Confederate casualties were five or six wounded, with none killed
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it was not until March 30, 1870, that the United States Congress readmitted Texas into the Union, although Texas did not meet all the formal requirements for readmission.
