Hey everyone, welcome to episode number 251 of our Civil War podcast. My name is Rich.

And I'm Tracy. Hello y'all. Thanks for tuning into the podcast. With this episode, we're going to begin our look at what happened in 1863 during the Civil War.

And with this show, we're going to turn our eyes not to Washington or Richmond, not to Virginia or Tennessee, not to Mississippi.

But we're going to look at something that happened down in the Lone Star State of Texas on the very first day of the New Year.

On the morning of January 1st, 1863, through the powder smoke drifting along the Galveston Waterfront, Confederate Major General John B. McGreeter saw the dawn's first light begin to brighten the eastern sky.

But he was much more interested just then in searching the hazy skyline to the northwest, hoping to catch a glimpse of his hurriedly constructed cotton clads, which should have come steaming down Galveston Bay by then to deliver a surprise attack on the Union warships whose guns had been shelling his troops for the last hour or so.

The federal ships had just successfully helped the Massachusetts soldiers, barricaded on the docks in front of McGreeter, repelled the rebels early morning infantry and artillery attack.

Now, with the sky beginning to lighten, the Confederate commander quickly gave orders to his subordinates to place the exposed guns and troops behind nearby buildings and lay siege to the Yankees who were bottled up on the warf.

In that moment, as Prince John McGreeter contemplated how his daring plan to capture Galveston had broken down, he no doubt hoped that this first day of January 1863 would end better than it had started.

The Confederacy, and especially the people of Texas, were counting on him, and he was determined not to let them down.

Well, after that dramatic opening, we actually need to backtrack a bit to understand how McGreeter and the Federals came to be battling for Galveston on New Year's Day, 1863.

In 1860, Galveston was a thriving town of 7,000 and Texas's busiest port. Most of the Lone Star State's cotton was exported through Galveston.

Of the 300,000 bales of cotton in the state's 1860 crop, 200,000 were shipped out through Galveston.

It was also a major processor and exporter of sugar, and an industrial center with two iron foundries and numerous manufacturers of sales and other maritime products.

When War came, Galveston's importance as a major port for the Western Confederacy was obvious.

And if it fell into federal hands, the place would be an excellent blockading base, and could serve as a staging area for an invasion into the interior of Texas to obtain cotton and secure the border with Mexico.

When Texas seceded from the Union in February 1861, it didn't take state and Confederate authorities long to realize that the Lone Star State's 385-mile coastline was extremely vulnerable.

And early in the Civil War, with most of Texas' newly raised troops and off to Virginia, there were precious few soldiers left a guard against a federal attack back home.

To add to the state's anxiety, the first federal blockader appeared off Galveston in July 1861.

But it turned out that making an appearance off the port and having enough warships to enforce the blockade were two very different things.

And so, with most of the federal's attention in the Gulf focused on the major ports of New Orleans and Mobile, and with few Union warships available to guard the approaches to Galveston, the port became a safe haven for southern blockade runners, and the anchor of Texas's still busy coastal shipping activity.

But despite Galveston's importance, almost as soon as he assumed command of the Confederate Department of Texas in 1861, Brigadier General Paul A. Bear took one look at a map and determined the exposed town on the tip of an island couldn't be successfully defended.

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