Dead Confederates, A Civil War Era Blog

At the height of the yellow fever outbreak in Galveston in September 1864, General Walker issued orders regarding travel by rail, as an adjunct to the quarantine he’d ordered six days previously.

Head Quarters, District of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona
Houston, Sept. 22, 1864

Brig. Genl J. M. Hawes,
Galveston

Trains will leave Galveston hereafter on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Neither courier nor expressman will be permitted to go up by the trains, the mails will be delivered to the Conductor, who will also hand the mail from Houston.

When trains are about leaving Galveston, have a guard at the depot to prevent unauthorized persons from getting on board. Trains will also be overhauled at the bridge [connecting Galveston Island to the mainland] and persons without passes taken off.

Captain Smith of the Zephine is permitted to come to Houston upon the condition of changing his clothes at Virginia Point.

J. G. Walker
Maj Genl Cmdg

Zephine was a blockade runner from Havana that had arrived on about September 10. She was a large, iron-hulled sidewheel steamer built by Holland and Hollingsworth of Wilmington, Delaware earlier that year. According to Stephen Wise’ Lifeline of the Confederacy, Zephine carried out over a thousand bales of cotton on her return to Havana, turning a profit of more than $300,000 in gold — enough to pay for the ship, crews’ wages and the inbound cargo in one round voyage.

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Images: Cotton train in Texas in the 1870s; Walker order via Footnote.com.