The Civil War on the Rio Grande, 1846–1876 ed. by Roseann Bacha-Garza, Christopher L. Miller, and Russell K. Skowronek

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Civil War on the Rio Grande, 1846–1876 ed. by Roseann Bacha-Garza, Christopher L. Miller, and Russell K. Skowronek Robert Wooster The Civil War on the Rio Grande, 1846–1876. Edited by Roseann Bacha-Garza, Christopher L. Miller, and Russell K. Skowronek. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2019. Pp. 326. Photographs, notes, index.) In 2014, the Contributors Committee of the Community Historical Archeology Projects with Schools agreed to endorse the creation of the Rio Grande Valley Civil War Trail, incorporating sites in Cameron, Hidalgo, Kleberg, Starr, Webb, and Zapata Counties. Combining written descriptions, a website, audio tours, podcasts (in Spanish and English), road signs, a short film, and a tour guide called Blue and Gray on the Rio Grande: The Rio Grande Civil War Trail (Texas A&M University Press, 2018), the project aims to publicize key Civil War sites and museums, promote cultural awareness, and increase heritage tourism. In so doing, it serves as a model for regional public history ventures. Featuring eleven essays by academic and public historians, museum and National Park Service officials, archeologists, and anthropologists, The Civil War on the Rio Grande, as explained on the dust jacket, provides "the scholarly backbone to [the] larger public history project." Several key themes emerge. First, modern residents of the lower Rio Grande Valley are justifiably proud of the region's importance in the Civil War and rightly determined to see that a broader audience recognizes their story. Second, the region's volatile politics—factional disputes between Reds (generally pro-Confederate) and Blues (generally pro-Union); conflicts between regional caudillos; imperial rivalries between the United States, France, and Mexico; and struggles for Mexican supremacy between Imperialists and Republicans—produced complex outcomes unique to the Valley. Third, the Civil War provided temporary economic opportunities, adroitly exploited by largely European and Anglo entrepreneurs but of little benefit to average laborers. Fourth, soldiers and the force of arms eventually determined the fate of the Rio Grande Valley. Finally, racial, ethnic, and national identity remained crucial throughout the Civil War era. Anyone who has had experience in any aspect of producing a book of essays understands the inherent problems involved. The present book thus seems something less than the sum of its individual parts. The book's somewhat quirky organization leads to considerable redundancies. Three essays, for instance, devote attention to the Union blockade, all of which could have benefitted from Robert M. Browning's Lincoln's Trident: The West Gulf Blockading Squadron During the Civil War (University of Alabama Press, 2015). Further, by including separate chapters on mercantile interests, the regional economy, and general overviews, on at least three occasions (77, 115, and 165), readers are reminded of a single contemporary newspaper's estimate that 320,000 bales of cotton had been exported [End Page 366] through Bagdad, Mexico, during the war years. Distinct essays on African American soldiers from Kentucky and the more general black military experience result in the same quotation from Sgt. Maj. Thomas Boswell, 116th United States Colored Infantry, appearing twice (204, 256). Finally, this reader could divine no apparent links between themes suggested in the opening essay regarding frontiers, borderlands, and borders, and the closing essay's championing of a "cubist" or a "conjunctive approach" (271) to history. Several essays are, however, quite valuable, most notably those by Mary Margaret McAllen on the era's key business life; Roseann Bacha-Garza on the complicated racial and ethnic relations of the region's mixed communities; Irving W. Levinson on the tangled diplomacy between Mexico and the United States; Jerry Thompson's discussion of Col. José los Santos Benavides and Gen. Juan Nepomuceno Cortina; and W. Stephen McBride's work on the Kentucky United States Colored Troops along the border. Featuring excellent research in the appropriate public, manuscript, and government primary documents, all can be read with profit by generalists and specialists alike, and the entire effort clearly demonstrates that Civil War South Texas offers opportunities for study far beyond the Battle of Palmito Ranch. Robert Wooster Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi Copyright © 2020 The Texas State Historical Association