Dead Confederates, A Civil War Era Blog

In the winter of 1843-44, an Englishwoman by the name of Matilda Charlotte Houstoun (pronounced “Haweston”) visited Galveston twice with her husband, a British cavalry officer. The Houstouns were making a tour of the Gulf of Mexico, with Captain Houstoun trying to drum up interest in an invention of his for preserving beef. During their second visit, the Houstouns made a trip to Houston and back the 111-ton steamer Dayton, Captain D. S. Kelsey. On the trip back, the little steamer was delayed for two nights at Morgan’s Point, at the head of Galveston Bay, because a “norther” had blown so much water from the bay that it was impossible for the boat to get over nearby Clopper’s Bar, until the water rose again. The passengers went ashore and occupied their time in various ways; Captain Houstoun managed to shoot a possum, which was a novel creature to him. It was an object of brief curiosity until other passengers, more familiar with the fauna of Texas, appropriated it for the cook with the assurance that the animal was “first rate eating.”

“Northers” were new phenomena to the Houstouns, too, and in her travelogue Matilda Charlotte Houstoun gave a fine description of one:

They most frequently occur after a few days of damp dull weather, and generally about once a fortnight. Their approach is known by a dark bank rising on the horizon, and gradually overspreading the heavens. The storm bursts forth with wonderful suddenness and tremendous violence and generally lasts forty-­eight hours; the wind after that period veers round to the east and southward, and the storm gradually abates. During the continuance of a norther, the cold is intense, and the wind so penetrating, it is almost impossible to keep oneself warm.

We had a norther here last week, a weather front that blasted through the area on the night of Wednesday/Thursday, part of the same front that caused hideous and deadly dust storms on the South Plains in Lubbock earlier. Down here, over 500 miles away, it left an orange dusting on cars and houses. Driving down to Angleton in Brazoria County along the Gulf on Thursday afternoon, my vehicle was continually buffeted by 25- to 30 mph winds, and an occasional higher gust, at a right angle to the road, pushing the car to the left, toward oncoming lanes of traffic. Not real fun.

But the most interesting aspect of this is one experienced by the Houstouns and others aboard Dayton almost 170 years ago, the effect of this strong, steady wind on local water levels. Historical accounts of bad weather will often include phrases like “blew the water out of the bay,” or something similar, and that’s not much of an exaggeration. Late Thursday evening, almost 24 hours after the front went through, I collected some graphics of meteorological and hydrologic data from Houston/Galveston Bay PORTS, a reporting system built and maintained by NOAA to provide real-time updates of conditions for those in the maritime industry. The graphics are small and a little difficult to read, but they provide direct, measured documentation of the sort of event described by so many mariners and travelers over the years. The data presented here are drawn from three different locations: Morgan’s Point, where Mrs. Houstoun and Dayton were stranded for two days; Pier 21 at Galveston, at the site of what was then known as Central Wharf, the steamboat’s destination; and Galveston Bay Entrance, a buoy along the channel through which marine traffic enters and leaves all the ports in the region — Galveston, Texas City, Houston, Baytown, and so on:

Let’s look at the data in some detail:

This chart shows the water levels at Morgan’s Point, from about 4:30 a.m. Thursday until late that evening. The narrow blue line represents the predicted height of the water at the tide gauge; it wavers a little bit based on the natural flow of the tide, which has a small normal range at that point. The red X marks are the actual, observed height of the water, which drops steadily with the wind over a period of about twelve hours, before leveling off and holding steady at more than two-and-a-half feet below the point known as “mean lower low water” (MLLW), the low-water standard that is used for navigational purposes. Note that the wind also wiped out almost any of the normal rise in the water level expected due to tidal action.

What about at the south end of Galveston Bay? Here’s the project vs. actual recorded water levels at Pier 21, along the Galveston wharf front:

This chart, plotting data from a buoy at the entrance to the bay, reveals an almost identical profile to that from Pier 21. Here, again, eighteen hours after the passage of the front, the water remains more than two feet below its predicted level based on tides alone.

How much water got “blown out of the bay” on this occasion? Some (very) rough estimates are possible. (Check my math, y’all.) If we take the difference between the predicted and observed water levels at the head of the bay (Morgan’s Point, -2.57 feet) and entrance to the bay (Galveston Bay Entrance, -2.08 feet), we can average between them a value of -2.33 feet. If we take that figure as representative of the water level of the bay as a whole (and that’s a big “if,” admittedly), then we can convert that vertical dimension into the volume of water it represents.

Galveston Bay encompasses about 600 square statute miles. One square mile is 27.88 million square feet; 600 square miles is 16.73 billion square feet. Multiply that by a depth of 2.33 feet, and you get a total volume of water of 38.98 billion cubic feet (1.1 billion cubic meters) of water.

That’s a lot of water; it would fill a cube-shaped aquarium 3,390 feet (1,033 meters), over a half-mile long, on each side. The water would weigh something on the order of 1.24 billion short tons, or 1.13 billion metric tonnes.

So much for the numbers. What does this mean in practical terms for navigation on Galveston Bay? Today, weather conditions like these still pose a problem, particularly the wind, which poses significant challenges for large vessels transiting the Houston Ship Channel. I suspect the problem is worse for down-bound vessels than up-bound, as the former are running with the wind and current, and are thus much more difficult to maneuver.

In the mid-19th century, the challenges of foul weather on the bay were substantially worse. The riverboats that ran between Galveston and Buffalo Bayou, Cedar Bayou, or the mouth of the Trinity River were very vulnerable, with their high superstructures and chimneys to catch the wind from any angle. (The little sternwheeler C. K. Hall, carrying a load of bricks out of Cedar Bayou, was sunk in just such a situation in 1871.) But the bigger problem then, before major dredging operations had established a deep and stable channel, was the depth of water over obstacles like Clopper’s Bar and Red Fish Bar, a nine-­mile-­long oyster reef curving in a gentle, east-­west arc stretching completely across Galveston Bay, almost exactly halfway between Clopper’s Bar and Galveston Island. Red Fish Bar could, on occasion, cause significant damage to vessels, and at least one steamboat, Ellen P. Frankland, would be wrecked on the obstruction in the 1840s. Both Clopper’s Bar and Red Fish Bar could be crossed regularly by vessels drawing less than four feet, but this depth of water varied with the tide and weather.

I doubt that most of us in this area paid too much attention to the weather Thursday, apart from the inconvenience of the sudden drop in temperature and the wind. But it’s good to keep in mind how dramatically similar events sometimes affected the day-to-day lives of people in the past, and how fortunate we are to be sometimes that much more removed from them.

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Tuesday’s Houston Chronicle has a story about Navasota, a small town northwest of Houston, being listed in Union Pacific’s Train Town USA Registry. From the railroad:

Navasota will receive an official Train Town USA resolution signed by Union Pacific Chairman Jim Young, and Navasota’s historical connection with Union Pacific will be featured at www.up150.com.

 

“We are proud to recognize Navasota as we commemorate our railroad’s sesquicentennial celebration and growing up together,” said Joe Adams, Union Pacific vice president – Public Affairs. “The bond between our railroad and early settlements continues to strengthen and grow. Today, Union Pacific serves nearly 7,300 communities where we live, our children grow up together and in which we recruit employees.

 

“Our shared heritage with Navasota is a source of pride as we remember our past while serving and connecting our nation for years to come.”

 

The railroad was essential to the birth of Navasota, which brought in major trade and market centers for cotton and livestock. Union Pacific laid 44 miles of track in 1902 to connect Navasota and Madisonville, Texas, and the town declared it a holiday when the first train departed to Madisonville. The line runs through historic downtown on Railroad Street and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

 

Today, Union Pacific works with the City of Navasota to create and maintain a landscaped area along Railroad Street, which brings heavy tourism, economic development and future infrastructure projects to the area.

 

Navasota absolutely is a railroad town, and I’m happy they were awarded this distinction. I hope Navasota Mayor Bert Miller, the city administration and the local chamber of commerce play this for all it’s worth, and can bring in a few extra tourist dollars as a result. That’s all to the good.

But contrary to the narrative suggested by the UP press release, that railroad had precious little to do with either Navasota’s creation or its establishment as a railroad town. Navasota was founded as a settlement in 1854, and in September 1859 was reached by the Houston & Texas Central, which extended just a few miles farther to Millican by the outbreak of the Civil War. The H&TC expanded rapidly after the war, north to the edge of Indian Territory and west to Austin. In 1876-77 the Morgan Line bought controlling interest in the H&TC, only to be itself absorbed into the Southern Pacific in the 1880s. The H&TC continued to operate under its own name until 1927, though — almost seventy years after it first put down rails in Navasota, and a full quarter-century after the UP completed its spur line to Navasota from Madisonville. The UP didn’t take over the Southern Pacific until 1998, fourteen years ago — less than one-tenth the time that Navasota has been a railroad town.

Houston & Texas Central locomotive W. R. Baker, c. 1868. Lawrence T. Jones III Collection of Texas Photographs, Southern Methodist University.

To be sure, I’m not a disinterested observer in this. My grandparents lived in Navasota for 40 years, and my father grew up there. When I was little, we lived nearby, and I spent a lot of time in Navasota. Even though I’ve never lived there myself, it’s a town I feel like I know, and feel a certain ownership in it. And on the other side of my family, I have a relative — a Confederate veteran, in fact — whose home was at Navasota during the war, and who took a job in 1865 as a brakeman on the H&TC. He eventually rose to be Superintendent of one of the railroad’s divisions, and finally, was General Agent for Transportation for the H&TC.

So it’s not for no reason that I find this award, ostensibly celebrating the rail history of Navasota, that doesn’t actually acknowledge the rail history of Navasota, just a little irksome.

Navasota mayor Bert Miller holds a sign announcing the city’s recent membership into Union Pacific’s Train Town USA Registry. Photo By Michael Paulsen/Houston Chronicle.

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Good news on the nautical archaeology front, in that the wreck of C.S.S. Georgia, and ironclad battery deployed to protect the city of Savannah, will be excavated and preserved as part of the $653M harbor improvement program. The cost of the excavation and conservation is estimated to be around $14M, or just over 2% of the total project cost.

Georgia was originally intended as an ironclad warship, but a lack of suitable powerplant — the bane of Confederate casemate ironclads from Virginia on — resulted in her being moored as a floating battery instead. In twenty months of service she never fired a shot in anger, but would have been a formidable opponent had the Union navy tried to force the port as they did at Charleston, Mobile, and elsewhere. The battery was scuttled by her crew just before Christmas 1864 just as Sherman was poised to seize the city at the end of his “March to the Sea.” You can read more about C.S.S. Georgia here.

Location of the wreck of C.S.S. Georgia (gold ring), opposite Old Fort Jackson.

Photo by Mike Stroud (via To the Sound of the Guns) of a 32-pound banded rifle recovered from the wreck of C.S.S. Georgia, displayed on a reproduction carriage at Fort Jackson.

I saw a comment about this story in which someone snarked, “the Confederate Navy still continues to hinder the US Navy.” Funny, but inaccurate, as the U.S. Navy (through the Naval Historical Center) generally provides a lot of encouragement and guidance when it comes to wrecks like this. (All former Confederate government property transferred to the United States at the end of the war, so former Confederate vessels like Georgia and the famous C.S.S. Alabama are now considered U.S. Navy property, and under their stewardship.) The problem is, the Navy doesn’t have the resources to undertake expensive work like this, and has to rely on other agencies that do have budgets for them, to get the actual work done.

It’s also worth noting that the reason this work is being undertaken at all is because of federal laws that require investigation, assessment, and (in some cases) archaeological recovery of significant historical/cultural material that lies on public land, that would be disturbed or destroyed by development or construction. Most states have similar laws. What will be done in this case is very much like the U.S.S. Westfield Project in Texas, although (I gather) with a bigger budget and the prospect of recovering significant parts of the ship’s structure intact. Without those preservation laws, wrecks like C.S.S. Georgia would’ve been reduced to soggy toothpicks by dredging many years since.

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Image: (top) Naval Historical Center; (bottom) 32-pounder image by Mike Stroud, via To the Sound of the Guns