DUANE
Duane's take
Here's the story as the official marker at Virginia Point tells it — and it's one worth tellin' right. You're standing at a place where a single bridge decided the fate of a city, and where one of the more audacious moves of the entire Civil War played out in the dark hours between the last night of one year and the first dawn of another. Let me set the scene.
Right here, where Texas meets the water before Galveston Island, there was a railroad bridge — the only connection between the Texas mainland and Galveston Island in the mid-19th century. One bridge. One crossing.
And in wartime, that makes it just about the most important piece of real estate on the whole Texas coast. It all started moving fast in the summer of 1861. A convoy of Union ships began a blockade off Galveston Island on July 2nd of that year.
The Confederacy couldn't just let that stand — Galveston was too valuable, too exposed. So Confederate Brigadier General Paul O. Hebert, commander of the Military Department of Texas, established the Military District of Galveston in October of that same year.
Under the command of Colonel John C. Moore, that district stretched to cover Galveston Island, Virginia Point, the adjacent coast, and Bolivar Peninsula. Moore didn't waste time.
He ordered fortifications built right here at Virginia Point — at the head of that railroad bridge. Guard the bridge, guard the island. It was as straightforward as war ever gets.
Then the Federal troops captured Galveston Island. By that point, General John B. Magruder had succeeded Hebert, and Magruder was not the kind of man who accepted a loss and filed the paperwork.
He ordered Confederate land forces to this strategic point — Virginia Point — and what happened next is the kind of thing that sounds like fiction but the marker swears it's history. On the night of December 31st, Confederate forces moved over that railroad bridge to the island. Under cover of darkness.
New Year's Eve. And just before dawn on New Year's Day, 1863 — when the Federal troops were on the other end of one year and the beginning of another — the southern forces attacked. They recaptured Galveston Island.
Think about what it took to hold on to all of this. When the war finally ended in 1865, Galveston was the larger of only two southern ports still remaining in Confederate hands. Two ports.
Out of everything the Confederacy had stretched across the South, this island, this bridge, this point right here — it held. That railroad bridge wasn't just a crossing. For the better part of the Civil War, it was a lifeline, a strategic pivot, and on one very cold and very dark New Year's Eve, the road back.
What the marker says
The site of an important railroad bridge which provided the only connection between the Texas mainland and Galveston Island in the mid-19th century, played an integral role in the Confederate defense of Galveston during the Civil War. A convoy of Union ships began a blockade off Galveston Island on July 2, 1861. Confederate Brig. Gen. Paul O. Hebert, commander of the Military Department of Texas, established the Military District of Galveston in October that year. Under the command of Col. John C. Moore, the district included Galveston Island, Virginia Point, the adjacent coast, and Bolivar Peninsula. Moore ordered fortifications built at Virginia Point at the head of the railroad bridge. When Federal troops captured Galveston Island, Gen. John B. Magruder, who had succeeded Hebert, ordered Confederate land forces to this strategic point. Moving over the railroad bridge to the island under cover of darkness on December 31, southern forces attacked the Federals just before dawn on New Year's Day 1863 and recaptured Galveston Island. At the end of the war in 1865, Galveston was the larger of only two southern ports remaining in Confederate hands. Incise on reverse: Researched by Ft. Virginia Point Chapter, United Daughters of the Confederacy.