Battle of Palmito Ranch

The Battle of Palmito Ranch, also known as the Battle of Palmito Hill, is considered by some criteria the final battle of the American Civil War. It was fought May 12 and 13, 1865, on the banks of the Rio Grande east of Brownsville, Texas, and a few miles from the seaport of Los Brazos de Santiago, at the southern tip of Texas. The battle took place more than a month after the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia under Robert E. Lee to Union forces at Appomattox Court House, which had since been communicated to both commanders at Palmito. However, in early May Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith had rejected a proposal from Union Major-General John Pope to surrender Confederate forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department on the same terms that General Ulysses S. Grant had given to Robert E. Lee. As such Kirby Smith only officially surrendered all Confederate forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department on June 2, 1865.

Union and Confederate forces in southern Texas had been observing an unofficial truce since the beginning of 1865, but Union Colonel Theodore H. Barrett, newly assigned to command an all-black unit and never having been involved in combat, ordered an attack on a Confederate camp near Fort Brown for unknown reasons. The Union attackers captured a few prisoners, but the following day the attack was repulsed near Palmito Ranch by Colonel John Salmon Ford, and the battle resulted in a Confederate victory. Union forces were surprised by artillery said to have been supplied by the French Army garrison occupying the up-river Mexican town of Matamoros.

Casualty estimates are not dependable, but Union Private John J. Williams of the 34th Indiana Infantry Regiment is believed to have been the last man killed during the engagement. He could then arguably be considered the last man killed in the American Civil War.

Battle Map Sketch

John J. Williams, the presumed last soldier to die in the American Civil War

Panorama of the battlefield