DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker tells it this way, and I'm just the voice that carries it down the road. Now here's a thing that ought to stop you cold. The Civil War was over.
Robert E. Lee had surrendered at Appomattox, and the ink on that had been dry for thirty-four days. Thirty-four days.
Most men were already thinking about the long walk home, about what was left of their farms, about whether the people they loved were still where they'd left them. And yet. On May 13th, 1865, right here at Palmito Hill, Confederate troops under Colonel John S.
Ford — they called him Rip Ford — met Union forces in a full-on battle. The Last Battle of the Civil War. Not a skirmish, not a misunderstanding at a crossroads.
A battle, down in Cameron County, on the southernmost edge of Texas, more than a month after the war everyone thought was finished had already finished. Rip Ford. Even the name sounds like a man who wasn't quite ready to put it down.
History sometimes has this habit of not knowin' it's done. The news traveled slow, or maybe something else was at work — but whatever the reason, the guns spoke at Palmito Hill on May 13th, 1865, making this ground the very last place the Civil War was fought. Thirty-four days after Appomattox.
The State of Texas thought that was worth remembering, and so they put it in stone in 1936. Hard to argue with them. Some endings, it turns out, take a little longer than the surrender.
What the marker says
At This Site the Last Battle of the Civil War, Known as Palmito Hill, was Fought by Confederate Troops Under Colonel John S. (Rip) Ford and Union Forces on May 13, 1865, 34 Days After Lee's Surrender at Appomattox. Erected by the State of Texas - 1936