A Deep Dive Into the History of the Texas Navy With Andy Hall

I sit down with Andy Hall to discuss the FIRST and SECOND Texas Navy that played a vital role during the Texas Revolution and during the years of the republic of Texas!

Andy Hall has volunteered with the office of the State Marine Archaeologist at the Texas Historical Commission since 1990, helping to document historic shipwrecks in Texas waters. From 1997 to 2002, Hall served as Co-Principal Investigator for the Denbigh Project, the most extensive archaeological investigation of a Civil War blockade runner to date in the Gulf of Mexico.

Hall has written two books on Texas maritime history, The Galveston-Houston Packet: Steamboats on Buffalo Bayou and Civil War Blockade Running on the Texas Coast, both published by the History Press of Charleston, South Carolina. Hall writes and speaks frequently on the subjects of Texas' maritime history and its military conflicts in the 19th century. Hall is a Texas Navy Admiral, and recently completed two consecutive terms as a member of the Board of Directors of the Texas Navy Association. He currently serves as Commander of the Texas Navy's Charles E. Hawkins Squadron in Galveston.

The Texas Navy Association: https://texasnavy.org/

Andy Hall's Books:
Civil War Blockade Running on the Texas Coast : https://www.amazon.com/Civil-Blockade-Running-Texas-Coast/dp/1626195005
The Galveston-Houston Packet: Steamboats on Buffalo Bayou: https://www.amazon.com/Galveston-Houston-Packet-Steamboats-Buffalo-Bayou/dp/1609495918

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

Governments in those days liked privateers because they didn't have to invest in anything. They planted the flag and claimed the island of Cozumel for the Republic of Texas. That is a commission from the governor of the state of Texas, from Greg Abbott, commissioning you as an admiral in the Texas Navy.

Speaker 2: 0:19

Hello and welcome to Galveston Unscripted. I have got a fun one for you today. I sit down with Andy Hall and discuss the Texas Navy. That's right, the Texas Navy. The Texas Navy played a critical role during the Texas Revolution. If you like history, especially Texas history, you are going to love this episode. Andy knows what he's talking about. Andy has volunteered with the office of the state marine archaeologist at the Texas Historical Commission since 1990, helping to document historic shipwrecks in Texas waters. He even served as the co-principal investigator for the DIMB project. To this day, it has been the most extensive archaeological investigation of a Civil War Blockade Runner in the Gulf of Mexico. Andy has written two books on Texas maritime history Civil War Blockade Running on the Texas coast and the Galveston Houston packet Steamboats on Buffalo Bayou. Andy writes and speaks on matters of Texas history frequently, especially Texas maritime history and military conflicts, which is why we have him in the new studio today discussing the Texas Navy.

Speaker 2: 1:24

Andy Hall is a Texas Navy admiral and I am extremely excited to share with you what Andy Hall, my first guest in the Galveston Unscripted Podcast Studio, brought me today. Andy has served on the board of directors for the Texas Navy Association, whose focus is on education and the preservation of Texas history, especially its maritime history. Andy currently serves as the commander of the Texas Navy's Charles E Hawkins Squadron here in Galveston. I am very excited to share this episode with you. Wherever you are watching or listening, please make sure to like, subscribe and share. The focus of this podcast is to preserve and promote history, and I could not do any of this without you. Without further ado, let's hop right into this episode with Andy Hall discussing the Texas Navy and the Texas Navy Association. As an added bonus, we also discuss other aspects of Texas's maritime history. Welcome to Galveston, unscripted Andy Hall. Thank you so much for joining me on the Galveston Unscripted Podcast.

Speaker 1: 2:30

Jared, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Speaker 2: 2:32

Yeah, I really appreciate you coming up here. You were the first official podcast guest in the studio, so thanks for helping me work out the kinks with the mic check and everything like that.

Speaker 1: 2:41

I don't know if being first is great or not being great, I don't know. We'll see.

Speaker 2: 2:45

I don't know. We're going to figure that out. Yeah, so could you tell us a little bit about yourself and a little bit about your background?

Speaker 1: 2:52

Sure, I'd be happy to. My name is Andy Hall. I'm originally from Galveston. I was born here, I grew up here, spent most of my life, I've lived here most of my life. My interest is in maritime and military history, particularly of this geographic area, and so I've done a lot of research and writing on those subjects. Something I've been involved with for the last several years is the Texas Navy Association, which is a 501C3 nonprofit educational organization that is tasked with preserving and presenting the history of the Texas Navy the Navy that actually existed during the time of the Texas Republic to a wider audience. We have a whole range of activities that we do to help do that, to help promote that, to promote that local history. A lot of folks don't realize that there actually was a Texas Navy during the Texas Revolution, and we hope to correct that.

Speaker 2: 3:56

Yeah, I mean when I moved back down here in 2018, I had heard of the Texas Navy, but I didn't know too much about it. And then down at Pier 21,. I stumbled upon a little historical marker down there and really started to dive into it.

Speaker 1: 4:09

Right, that's a historical marker that not a lot of folks know where it is. It's at Pier 21. It's right at J Little Park, right adjacent to Harbor House. It's where we hope there will be a major, major new naval history attraction soon. But yeah, that's a marker. I think that dates from the Texas Centennial in 1936. And it records it commemorates the original. The quote unquote first Texas Navy we may get into that a little bit later about the first and second Texas Navy.

Speaker 2: 4:45

Yeah, that's something too I didn't know either. Even just reading online, it's kind of hard to distinguish between the two. But yeah, of course, Andy, I wanted you to come in today and talk a little bit about the Texas Navy, or the both Texas Navy's right.

Speaker 1: 4:58

The first and second Sure.

Speaker 2: 5:00

But yeah, so could you tell us a little bit about the Texas Navy, why it was significant, maybe even start with the revolution, Texas Revolution and kind of roll into that?

Speaker 1: 5:08

Well, sure I'd be happy to. The first thing that folks need to understand, just as background and as context I know you certainly don't need, I know you certainly have an appreciation of this is the importance of maritime trade and commerce to the development of early Texas. Most of the settlers, most of the goods, most of the things that came to Texas, starting with Austin's colony and of course Texas had been part of part of the Spanish Empire and later, after the revolution, part of Mexico. But the settlers that came in, beginning with Austin's colony not just Austin's colonists but all the folks who were not authorized who came into Texas, most of them came by sea. They didn't come by land because transportation by sea, then as now, is generally especially for large, for bulk cargoes, and it was in those days it was faster and it was more comfortable than traveling overland. And so the early settlers in the 1820s and 30s leading up to the Texas Revolution had a huge appreciation for maritime trade and the importance of keeping that connection open. That connection to most of them came from the United, southern United States, so they wanted to maintain those connections to ports like New Orleans and Mobile particularly, and further along the Gulf and up around the East Coast. They saw those as really important. And so when there was, when in the mid-1830s there began to be this tension between the Texas colonists and the Mexican government, one of the first things they did was try to find a way to protect that connection. One of the things that the Mexican government did very early on was they started harassing ships that were trading with Texas, with the Texas colonists. There was an early incident off the mouth of the Brazos in the fall of 1835, called the San Felipe Incident. That involved this is before the Texas Navy existed that involved a civilian schooner bringing supplies into the port of Velasco and altercation with a Mexican naval gunboat. And that was one of the early sort of indicators that made it clear to the settlers in Texas that we have to find a way to protect ourselves and our interests in the maritime sphere. And so there was a lot of. There was a big push in the fall of 1835 to establish both a naval force and a force of privateers Now privateers there's a lot of confusion about what those are.

Speaker 1: 8:17

Privateers are private ventures, they're commercial ventures, they're privately owned ships that receive a license. It's called a letter of mark from the government that allows them to prey on, to seize to capture vessels of a specific foreign government that its own government, the privateer's own government, is in conflict with. That's. There's a lot of gray area in when it comes to privateering, partly because it is a it is very much a for-profit business. The governments in those days liked privateers because they didn't have to invest in anything. They didn't have to buy the ships, they didn't have to hire the crews. On the other hand, they didn't necessarily have as tight a control over what privateers did in their name as as they would with a regular naval vessel. Privateering was in fact by the 1830s privateering was sort of on the way out internationally, and some years later there was actually an international convention that flat out outlawed privateering. But that didn't come for some for some time later.

Speaker 1: 9:31

Privateering is a mechanism that is typically used by revolutionary movements, movements, revolutionary governments that don't have a lot of resources to establish a regular navy, and they do it because it's inexpensive and it's convenient. It's also kind of hard to control. So there were, there was a move both to establish privateers on behalf of the provisional government of Texas and a regular navy and finally, in late November of 1835, the Texas provisional government actually established past legislation that established the formal Texas Navy and over the next several weeks into early 1836, texas provisional government acquired four small schooners the Liberty former privateer William Robbins was, I think, the first. There was a, there was a schooner built in Baltimore called the Invincible. There was another schooner called the Brutus and last there was a former US Coast Guard revenue cutter that they purchased that was originally called the Ingham. That was renamed Independence and so those four schooners became the core four ships of the Texas Navy.

Speaker 1: 10:56

Those are sometimes called the first Texas Navy because they were, you know, first Right and then, as we'll get into this a little bit further, all of those four schooners by the fall of 1837, all of them were lost to one cause or another and the Republic of Texas spent the next 18 months or two years actually without any formal Navy at all. And so when they reestablished the, when they, when they, under the Lamar administration, when they passed legislation to contract, to purchase ships, to have ships built to, to equip the Texas Navy, that happened in beginning and at the end of 1838 and into 39. That became what is known as the second Texas Navy. And there it's. It's an easy conceptual thing, to, to, to and a break. There's an easy, it's an easy conceptual thing to discuss it in that way and to use those terms, because there's a clean break in in terms of vessels that the Republic had between the first four and then the ones that came later. So that's, that's what the first and second Texas Navy are.

Speaker 2: 12:09

Okay, gotcha, gotcha. So yeah, that's a very clear line of where.

Speaker 1: 12:14

Yeah, it makes sense Now. First and second Navy, first and second Texas Navy. Those are modern terms. I think they were first used in the around 1908, 1909 by historian writing about the Texas Navy by the name of Alexander Deinst I think he was. He was the one who coined that term. They weren't called that at the time, but it's actually very useful conceptually for us to talk about that now and to make that distinction.

Speaker 2: 12:41

So where, or initially where, did they get all these ships? Did they actually sail to these other ports or send someone up to these other ports like Baltimore, or they sent agents?

Speaker 1: 12:51

on behalf of the Texas government to purchase ships that were available During the first four. They were all. They were all already existing ships. The invincible was purchased in Baltimore. It's generally acknowledged to have been a Baltimore clipper Very common, very common ship. In those days. They tended to be very distinctive very fast. Baltimore clippers were is a type that was originally sort of evolved from the late 1700s on. It probably reached its peak in the 1810s or 1820s. They were very popular for use as warships. They're very popular for use as they're popular for use as privateers and they were popular, frankly, they were popular for use as slaving vessels. But the invincible was built in Baltimore. We don't think it ever sailed under that name before it was purchased by the Texas Navy, by the Republic of Texas. It served until August of 1837 when it was wrecked off the end of Galveston. That's a little bit. That's another story.

Speaker 2: 14:10

Has it ever been? Have they found that one?

Speaker 1: 14:13

Has it been found? No, it has not.

Speaker 1: 14:14

Oh wow, it's the one. There are two known Texas Navy wrecks that are here in Galveston. One is a steamship that came later. That was part of the second Texas Navy, the Zavala, which is located within the boundaries of the port of Galveston on the harbor that ship was basically. That ship basically died of neglect because there wasn't any money and it was left to rot at its moorings and eventually a lot of that material was sold at auction and the halt was just left there. And when the port came along in the late 1800s and expanded, that area where that ship was in the water was subsequently filled in and it is now, I think, west of the second cruise terminal.

Speaker 2: 15:11

Oh, wow, okay yeah. So, it's not very far from where we are right now.

Speaker 1: 15:17

And then the Invincible was wrecked in a battle with two Mexican warships. In August of 1837. The Invincible and the Brutus, which at that point were the last surviving vessels of the First Texas Navy, had been on an extended cruise around Cozumel, all along the Yucatecan coast, and they planned the flag and claimed the island of Cozumel for the Republic of Texas, which, unfortunately, we didn't follow up on that.

Speaker 2: 15:48

Yeah right, beautiful island right, beautiful place.

Speaker 1: 15:53

So they claimed the island of Cozumel. They did a lot of raiding all along the Yucatecan coast and the idea was well, we're in conflict with Mexico and we want to keep them away from the Texas coast, and the best way to do that is to stir up things down here, because Yucatán had its own revolutionaries, it had its own independence movement at the time, and Mexico was not just dealing with a bunch of ornery settlers in Texas who wanted independence, they were dealing with an insurrection in the Yucatán Peninsula as well. And so taking the Texas Navy down there and stirring up trouble was, strategically, it was a very good, it was strategically sound or perceived to be strategically sound.

Speaker 2: 16:50

Right. You want to score your enemy thin, that's right.

Speaker 1: 16:53

And of course and as you probably remember, that was what Commodore Moore was doing a few years later with the Second Texas Navy. He was taking the fight to them there, so we didn't have to fight them here. At any rate, they conducted this raid. It was a couple of months long, stirred up all sorts of hornet's nests. The Brutus and Invincible were followed back to Galveston by two Mexican warships and on August 27th of 1837, they arrived back at Galveston at the end of their cruise. The Brutus was the smaller of the two ships. And the Brutus entered the harbor. It was a falling tide. The Invincible was quite a bit larger and drew more water, and so they waited offshore because it was not perceived to be terribly safe to attack, to enter the harbor and try and get across the bar. And these two Mexican warships showed up and they ended up in a long running battle. Two or three hours they tried to get the Brutus back out to help and assist the Invincible, but the Brutus ran aground and unshipped a rudder and that didn't work. Finally, Captain Thompson of Invincible decided this is not going to end well and, even though they were still on a falling tide, tried to make a run for the harbor and, unfortunately, grounded and the ship was lost. By most accounts the ship was within 24 or 48 hours, was battered to pieces by the surf so that nothing was visible above the water and the wreck has been lost really ever since.

Speaker 1: 18:54

There was a little bit of salvage work done, that recovered some things, but for the most part the wreck is still out there. Various groups, including the Texas Navy Association, have been looking for it, wanting to find it, for a long time, and we haven't found it yet. But it's out there. It's out there at what was then the entrance to Galveston Bay and unfortunately we don't have an exact position from the historical records. So we've got to go out and find it and it's probably.

Speaker 1: 19:33

We don't know whether it's in the water, we don't know if it's in the marsh or if it's under the beach, and it is now somewhere in the vicinity of East Beach. Again, it could be out in the channel, but it's in that general area, Could be in the vicinity of a big reef. A lot of your listeners will be familiar with big reef. It's somewhere out there. The challenge there are a lot of challenges to finding it. One challenge is if it's still there, it intact. Well, it was probable the wreck was probably broken up further a few weeks later, in October of 37, when Racer Storm came through.

Speaker 2: 20:13

Oh yes.

Speaker 1: 20:14

Which was a tremendous hurricane, wrecked almost everything on the island, in fact, but the wreck was probably broken up further and scattered then. The other challenge is that. Another challenge is that lots of ships and lots of vessels have been lost trying to get in and out of Galveston. So even if you're able to find a wreck and identify it and be sure okay, this is for sure this is an historic shipwreck. There are a lot of wrecks out there.

Speaker 1: 20:48

And so it's going to be an even bigger challenge to be sure that this is the right one, right, yeah, so.

Speaker 2: 20:56

I was doing a ton of research on the Jetys and the Jety project Building the Galveston and Bolivar Jetys essentially, and why they needed to build those because of the silting, the sandbars and things like that and why it was so important. And then you realize how many vessels have been stuck on those sandbars or lost completely.

Speaker 1: 21:12

That's right.

Speaker 2: 21:13

Coming in and out of the ship channel prior to building of Jetys and you'd have to wait so the highest tide and then, even then you might get stuck on a sandbar.

Speaker 1: 21:20

That's right, and they built the South Jetty right through the area where the invincible probably is. So I personally think that was extremely unhelpful, but they went ahead and did it anyway.

Speaker 2: 21:31

Yeah, and the economics of Texas kind of trumped that one.

Speaker 1: 21:34

I think right, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2: 21:36

Exactly. Well, I think this entire story of fighting right during the Texas Revolution, fighting right off the coast of Galveston, it's relatively unknown, because when I think of the Texas Revolution I think of, of course, san Jacinto, the Alamo and things like that Right A lot of people from just who I've spoken to over the past couple of years they don't really think of a Navy, they don't really think of these maritime operations.

Speaker 1: 22:00

That's right.

Speaker 2: 22:01

And for revolutionary battles to happen really close to where we're sitting right now, you know.

Speaker 1: 22:07

Right, that's right. And the Texas Navy, the first Texas Navy, played an important, very critical role in the Texas Revolution itself. You had the invincible, which captured a brig called the pocket, down near the mouth of the Brazos River excuse me, the mouth of the Rio Grande, and that carried supplies that made it back up to Galveston and up, we believe, to Sam Houston's army. Prior to the battle, the Schooner Liberty captured a vessel called the Pelikano, off of the town of Sisal, which is a little, tiny, tiny, tiny, little town on the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. They captured it. It had several hundred barrels, so they thought, of flour and apples and basically foodstuffs. They brought it back to, they took it as a prize, brought it back to Texas.

Speaker 1: 23:13

They were returning to Matagorda, and to get into Matagorda you have to go through Pascavallo, which is, if anything, a more difficult entry to the bay than here at Galveston. And sure enough, the Pelikano was wrecked, trying to get in across the bar. And while they were in the process of salvaging the cargo which, again, as far as they were aware, was flour and apples and potatoes or whatever they happened to stove in a barrel, no-transcript, and inside the barrel they found a keg of gunpowder, oh, and so they started opening the other barrels and they ended up with their varying accounts, but between 250 and 300 kegs of gunpowder.

Speaker 2: 24:00

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1: 24:02

Now, this is this. This that would have been. That was in late March of 36. This is at a time when the Texian army is completely in retreat. The Alamo has fallen, the, the and its garrison massacre killed. Very soon after you had, very soon after that, you had the, you had Fanon's surrender and then the execution of Fanon's army at, at Presidio Labaia in.

Speaker 1: 24:35

Goliad. This is the period in Texas history called the runaway scrape, where all the settlers are packing up everything they can and they're heading east trying to get keep ahead of the of the advancing Mexican army. The Mexican army was was moving across Texas in two or three major columns, and so the Texas aren't, and the and Sam Houston was trying to balance his army. The army he had under his direct control at the time was very small. They were getting new supplies, they were getting new recruits, they were getting new volunteers all the time, but he wasn't ready to fight. He wasn't sufficiently strong enough to fight the Mex, to stand and fight the Mexican army. So he is having to balance. So he he's, his army is retreating ahead of the advancing Mexican army. He's trying to balance how far can I retreat and still keep the army together versus at what point will I have enough supplies and enough troops that we can actually hit them back? And so the supplies from the pocket managed to get to Sam Houston at the time.

Speaker 1: 25:57

Both armies were pretty desperate by the middle of April of 36. Much of Santa Ana's army was detached. Many of his troops were detached from the main body of the army, just going out and foraging and trying to bring in supplies just to keep the army fed. He had way outrun his supply train. Sam Houston was also. His army was also in bad shape, and so they very desperately needed those materials brought by the captured and seized by the Texas Navy.

Speaker 1: 26:30

In fact, sam Houston wrote in, he wrote a famous proclamation addressed to all the people of Texas and the world from his camp on the Brazos. I think it was on the last day of March 1836. And he's trying to explain his strategy and how they have. Yes, we're retreating, but we have not lost hope. We're going to manage this, you know, and we call on all Liberty loving people around the world to, you know, and he actually mentions Captain Brown and the and the and the Liberty that had captured all these supplies and the gunpowder. And so we like to say that's the last, that was the last nice thing he had to say about the Texas.

Speaker 2: 27:19

Navy.

Speaker 1: 27:19

Yeah so, but but yeah so, the Texas Navy did play an important critical role. It's not a glamorous role, but it's an important and critical role in the revolution itself and contributing to the victory at San Jacinto. There is a and it was the Texas Navy that managed to announce to the citizens of Galveston that the victory at San Jacinto had been had been won. Oh yes, there's a painting, a recent painting by an absolutely fantastic artist by the name of Peter Rindlisbacher, that shows that moment, because the, after the victory at San Jacinto, the Army sent down a couple of guys in a boat from San Jacinto to come to Galveston, which is where the Texas government had finally reached the end of the line, right, the Texas provisional government. They don't know where they're going next Because, you know, galveston is an island, galveston is the end of the line you know, yes, literally.

Speaker 1: 28:23

And and and lots of evacuees from all over Texas were congregating here. And these guys. It took them several days actually to make it down the length of Galveston Bay from San Jacinto through through the, the entrance to to Buffalo Bay, which of course is rather intricate and difficult around Morgan's Point up there. But it took them several days to get to Galveston. And the first vessel they encountered when they got to Galveston was a Texas Navy schooner. And they shared the information, the victory, and the Texas Navy ship began firing its cannons in celebration. And that was not taken well by some of the folks on the island who were expecting the arrival of the Mexican army at any moment. And so there was, there was a lot of, there was a lot of displeasure with the Texas Navy for scaring everybody. But yeah, so the so, the so the Texas Navy, in a, in a dramatic and somewhat and initially misunderstood way, actually provided the note, the notice to the folks at Galveston that the, the battle of San Jacinto had been one Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: 29:36

So that's fascinating. Yeah, that is fascinating, oh my gosh. So okay, that pretty much most of what we've been discussing so far was the first Texas Navy right through the actual Texas Revolution until the Revolution ends, right, right, so then we go for a period without a Navy.

Speaker 1: 29:56

That's right, and it was a very difficult period because the thing to remember is that the government of Mexico, santa Ana, was president and he wasn't president, and he was president again. Santa Ana was in and out of being president of Mexico about 11, 7, 11, 7 times. Right, but Regardless, and it's easy to focus on on him solely. But even when he was out of power, the government in Mexico City never really recognized the independence, the Republic of Texas, and so during the entire period of the Republic, ten years to the mid 1840s, mexico never recognized the independence of Texas.

Speaker 1: 30:41

Texas was at a, texas and Mexico were in conflict and Sometimes there were actual battles and military, because sometimes not. But there was always this tension in this hot, real hostility there and the reput and and Texans Texians Really were expecting another invasion from Mexico. There was, there was a case that happened here in Galveston, where there was an alarm that went up that that there was, that there was and that a Mexican invasion force had landed down the island and was marching on Galveston and someone reported they could see the Mexican troops marching with their flags Right and it and it, you know, and then the alarm went out and people were rushing around and panning and it turned out it was it was. It was not that it was Somebody's laundry on the line or something.

Speaker 2: 31:37

Oh my god it was it was.

Speaker 1: 31:39

It was something else, completely innocuous, but that speaks to the. It was false alarm, yeah, but that speaks to the way. People were genuinely, sincerely, really, constantly worried about that. There were several efforts to organize militia groups to patrol the coast. There was a group called the Galveston Coast Guards that they didn't accomplish much, but they had absolutely fantastic uniforms because they had khaki trousers and bright scarlet hunting shirts and they were armed with shotguns and rifles and enormous Um Tomahawk boarding acts type things. Wow. So so I don't know how, I'm not sure they were terribly effective as a military force, but man, they looked good. But there was, but it was. But kidding aside, it was. It was a serious concern.

Speaker 1: 32:36

Now, sam Houston was the first president of the Republic of Texas under the new Constitution. He was president until 1838. Until late 1838 His focus was always to. His focus was always to keep things calm, keep things stable, because he was always focused and prioritizing Bringing Texas into the United States. That was always sort of his thing. He was replaced in late 1838 by Mirabeau, lamar and Lamar, or 39 or 38, and Lamar was. He was entirely the opposite. He was a we might call him a nationalist. He saw Texas as, in a maximalist way, he saw Texas as it's not not just, not just independent, remaining independent, but expanding, mm-hmm. He saw Texas potentially reaching all the way to the Pacific. Oh, wow, wow. And if you'll remember Texas, if you'll remember your, your Texas history books, the Republic of Texas actually claimed a huge swath of the American Central, long, narrow swath, yes, of the Texas or, excuse me, of the US, of the what is now the, the continental US, going all the way up to Colorado or Wyoming or something.

Speaker 1: 34:08

Mm-hmm and so. Cheyenne, I believe yeah so, so, so Lamar Was very expansionist. He organized an expedition to the Santa Fe, expedition to, to ostensibly organize a trading mission to, to Santa Fe, which was the. The trading mission had one wagon full of Goods to trade and 300 soldiers in a cannon. Right, yeah, okay. So what are their priorities?

Speaker 1: 34:39

Yeah, yeah so Lamar convinced the Texas Congress and they appropriated a ton of money to re-equip the Navy. The first Navy, the first ship they bought, was a civilian steamship called the Charleston passenger steamship. And they rechrist, they outfitted that as a warship and christened at the Zavala Mm-hmm. And that's. That's the second shipwreck that's here in Galveston, that's that's the one under the port right and they they outfitted the Zavala as as a warship.

Speaker 1: 35:13

now, the Zavala was a Was commissioned as a warship, she was part of the Texas Navy. She was not ever really Intended to be to serve in a fighting role and she actually, the Zavala, by virtue of being a steamship, actually served in some ways a more important mission, because the Texas Navy used Zavala as a ship carrying dispatches and personnel and supplies to support the sailing Texas Navy warships when they were operating off the coast of Yucatan down in the southern.

Speaker 1: 35:47

Gulf of Mexico. The credit. The important thing about a steamship is not necessarily that they're faster than sailing ships, because in the right, in the right weather conditions, the sailing ship will will outpace a steamship. The important thing about a steamship in that day is that they weren't dependent on the wind and they could operate on a regular and reliable schedule. Yep, okay, you don't have to be fast if people know, if you know when you're gonna get there, if you and everybody else knows when You're gonna get there and when you're gonna leave.

Speaker 2: 36:17

Mm-hmm right, so instead he wins the race.

Speaker 1: 36:20

So well, yeah, sort of sort of kind of. And so the Zavala was used primarily as a dispatch vessel. But the Texas Republic of Texas also contracted with a shipbuilder in Baltimore by the name of Frederick Dawson To build six sailing warships, and the largest of these was the Austin. It was a 20 gun, what was then called a sloop of war. It was ship rigged, it had three masts with square sails on all three. In another Navy, in the probably in the French Navy would be called a corvette. It's smaller than a frigate but it's still a full rig ship. So there was one of those. There was the Austin. That became the flagship of the Texas Navy. There were two Briggs, the, the archer and Wharton, and, and there were three schooners, san Bernard, san Antonio and San Jacinto, and those six ships Comprise the actual fighting force of what we call the second Texas Navy.

Speaker 2: 37:24

During the Republic of Texas. Yes, this is during the Republic this is.

Speaker 1: 37:28

This is beginning in 1839. Mm-hmm, this is during yes, this is all still during the Republic Yep the To they began trying to recruit officers from from other other sources. One officer that was interested was a man by the name of Edwin Moore Mm-hmm. He was a lieutenant in the US Navy. He was in his late 20s at the time. He's a lieutenant in the US Navy. He had served in the Gulf of Mexico, he had encountered Texas warships and he and he and he was. He was very familiar with sort of the strategic political Situation in the Gulf involving the Republic of Texas and he also was probably a little bit fed up with the lack of Opportunities for advancement in the US Navy, because promotion then for officers was really based on whether or not positions opened up above you, mm-hmm, which works great in a wartime.

Speaker 2: 38:33

Yeah right.

Speaker 1: 38:35

Works great in wartime, not so great in peacetime. And so he saw the text. He saw the Republic of Texas as an opportunity for professional advancement. So he moves from the US Navy directly to being a what was called a post captain in the Republic of Texas Navy, post captain being the Highest rank, official rank in the Texas Navy. That's a title that carried over, was adopted from the British Navy Mm-hmm, which simply means you are a full captain of a ship of a certain size or above. So his official rank was post captain because he was the senior officer of the Texas Navy. He is generally referred to as Commodore Ah. So that's why we know him as con. That's why we know him, and he was addressed at the time as Commodore Moore Mm-hmm. He was Very energetic guy. He was extremely professional.

Speaker 1: 39:35

He didn't like to Let the grass grow under his feet, which is kind of a bad metaphor for an able officer, but he was very, he wanted to be very aggressive with the Navy and he was a very good fit with President Lamar and Lamar administration, because Lamar administration said you go, do it, man, and so more.

Speaker 1: 40:02

Again, he adopted that, that Approach that we're going to take the Navy away from the Texas shore and we're going to operate Off of Yucatan, we're gonna operate in the southern Gulf. He made alliances with the rebels in Yucatan, rebels in also the rebels down in Tabasco. Mm-hmm, at one point he actually, he actually had the Zavala's tow, the Austin and another Texas Navy warship up the Tabasco River, about a hundred miles, oh wow, to to a, to a city, a regional capital that at the time was known as San Juan Bautista. It now, today, it's known as via Hermosa, and and helped the rebels capture that Because he threatened to bombard the city, yeah, with his, with his naval force, which is something that it, that's a, that is a very isolated, that's a very isolated place down in, down in Mexico, and and the, the, the Mexican government's centralist troops, as soon as the Texas Navy showed up, they just they capitulated. And then the rebels who had promised Commodore Moore payment for doing this, they didn't pay him, and so he threatened to bombard the rebels.

Speaker 1: 41:32

Yeah and, and sure enough they paid him. But. But he found what, what more found? And this? This really changed, especially after after Houston became president in, after Houston succeeded Lamar, because the Republic of Texas, the president, couldn't serve consecutive terms. When Houston came back in Again, he wanted stability. He especially wanted fiscal responsibility, which wasn't Existing in the Texas Republic. The Texas Republic did practically everything on credit, and so even when the Texas Congress appropriated funds for to be used by the Navy, houston would not release them. So Moore was left with these ships, which are expensive to maintain, with crews that are expensive to pay and and supplies that are expensive to buy, without actual, with minimal funding from the Republic of Texas government. And so he ended up Essentially the sounds crass, but he didn't have a lot of choice. He ended up hiring out the Texas Navy to the rebels in Yucatan For, like, I think, eight thousand dollars a month or something.

Speaker 1: 43:02

Oh, wow, to keep to keep the Navy operating, to give him funds that he needed To maintain the ships, to, to, to pay them, to pay the crews and to provide supplies. Navy's, navy's are really, really expensive. In those days, if you had an army, a land army, you could disband the regiment and send people home, and then you could send them to the Navy. Send people home and put the stuff in a warehouse and you no longer have you. No longer it's no longer a major expense to the government. Navy's don't work that way, and anyone who's ever owned a boat knows this Right. So so you know, if, if you, if, if you've ever tried to worried about maintaining a 30-foot sailboat, yeah, you're in and you're out Now. Now imagine that with on a ship with a full-time crew of 200, 200 people. Okay, and it's not fiberglass, it's wood.

Speaker 1: 44:00

Yeah, right yeah, a lot of maintenance, a lot of maintenance so, so, so more, did what he could to keep the Navy operating and he really, it really concerned Houston because Houston first of all saw what more was doing as not being helpful to his agenda of keeping things stable, maintaining good, at least passable, relations. He again, he was focused on getting Texas brought into the United States and he knew that was probably not going to happen if Texas was seen as as as stabilizing, that would make Texas very unattractive to the United States, absolutely. And he didn't like the fact that Moore was down running at 600 miles away from the Texas coast where Houston really didn't have a lot of control. And things came to a head in the fall of 1841 when Houston appointed commissioners, official representatives of the US government, to go to New Orleans and order Commodore Moore and the fleet back to Texas where the fleet would be disbanded and officers and crews dismissed. They arrived in early 1843. Excuse me, I said 41. It was late 42.

Speaker 1: 45:37

They arrived in New Orleans in early 1843. Moore said, well, okay, I'll bring the fleet back to Galveston. At this point the fleet the quote unquote fleet consists of the Austin and the Brig Wharton. And he says, well, bring the fleet back to Galveston, but the Mexicans now. They recently acquired two steam powered warships, guadalupe and Montezuma. These are an immediate and direct threat to the Republic of Texas. We need to go down and do something about that.

Speaker 1: 46:13

He convinced the commissioners to go along with it, to go with him to return, to quote unquote, return to Galveston by way of Campeche oh my gosh, to go deal with that. And so they did. And they sailed in April of 1843 for Campeche. They arrived at the end of April. They had one running gun battle with the Mexican steam ships on April 30th. That was inconclusive, with the Texas fleet chasing the Mexican steamers. That kept withdrawing. That was inconclusive. Finally, the two fleets, the two squadrons met, actually in action in on May 16th 1843.

Speaker 1: 47:03

There were no ships were captured, but it was a tremendous gun battle bombardment. The Mexican steam ships not only were, not only were steam powered, and so they had an independence of movement that the Texas sailing ships didn't have, they were also firing, they also had work with shell firing guns that fired exploding shells, not just solid iron cannonballs, but exploding shells up to 68 pounds, oh my gosh. And in the battle I think the Austin was hit 12 times by these, by these exploding shells, and they had significant casualties. There were significant casualties on the Mexican side as well. Eventually, the Mexican fleet broke off the Texian fleet. The Austin and the Wharton were pretty badly shot up and they were not really in a position to follow, but they retained the field, so to speak, and so it was a solid tactical victory for the Texian fleet, and that is said to be the only time that sailing ships have defeated steam ships in open battle ever.

Speaker 2: 48:18

Ever, oh, my God, wow, I'm going to have to go scour the history, yeah.

Speaker 1: 48:25

So you know fact checkers.

Speaker 2: 48:27

Here you go. Yeah right, yeah, send us an email if you find another example, right.

Speaker 1: 48:33

So, but and so it was. It was considered a tremendous victory. It's sort of the apex of the Republic of Texas Navy story that Commodore Moore's fleet defeated this Mexican squadron. They returned to Galveston. As you might expect, they returned to Galveston to a hero's welcome. Galveston always loved the Texas Navy because they saw the Texas Navy as being their first line of defense at literally, literally, yeah.

Speaker 2: 49:03

Galveston's easy to capture and easy to roll up onto. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 49:06

So as soon as, as soon as they arrived, moore and his officers were dismissed. Yeah, the crews were discharged.

Speaker 1: 49:15

The ships were ordered to be put in ordinary or what we would now call, put them in mothballs and were ordered to be sold at auction. And there is a story that when the when the day for the auction came, they were, the ships were going to be auctioned in all the supplies, here here in Galveston, and no one would bid. Oh, is it because they didn't want to be? They didn't want to be part of disbanding the Navy? Yeah, I'm not entirely certain how accurate that is.

Speaker 2: 49:49

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 49:50

But it's certain it reflects. It reflects how it reflects how the Navy was perceived here in Galveston Now. Moore was arrested, he was put up on, he was ordered court-martialed on charges of disobeying orders and misappropriating funds and murder.

Speaker 2: 50:12

The charges came from Texas. Charges came from the Republic of Texas. The Republic of Texas, okay.

Speaker 1: 50:16

From the Texas government, from the Secretary of War and the Navy, and he was charged with murder because he had hanged for mutineers who had mutinied. The year before, in February of 42, aboard the Texas Schooner San Antonio at New Orleans, he was charged with murder. He was acquitted. He was charged with misappropriation and misuse of government funds. He was acquitted. He was charged with disobedience to orders, which they sort of found him guilty, and the judgment of the court was don't ever do that again. They issued him a very sternly worded letter right, and so he didn't face any. The court-martial was held in segments and the court-martial itself went on for months and months. In the end he was essentially exonerated, but it was the end of his career in the Texas Navy. The remaining ships of the Texas Navy and whatever supplies were left were eventually transferred to the United States Navy. When Texas was annexed at the end of 1845, early 1846, they became part of the US Navy. That actually includes the wrecks of Texas Navy ships.

Speaker 2: 51:40

Oh, really Okay. Yeah, that's another topic.

Speaker 1: 51:45

That's a whole other show. But so and the Austin and Wharton were eventually taken to Pensacola. The US Navy never used them and eventually they were sold and broken up and that was the end of the historic Texas Navy. It's kind of a sad ending.

Speaker 2: 52:08

So yeah, you mentioned Sam Houston gets a kind of a bad rap for because I've heard he hated the Texas Navy, he didn't like it. But from what you kind of explained he really didn't have too much choice.

Speaker 1: 52:23

Yeah, he does get a bad rap. People make jokes about Sam Houston hating the Texas Navy. I think I made one a little while ago myself.

Speaker 1: 52:33

And so I'm certainly guilty of that, but I don't think it was. It sometimes is presented almost as a caricature, sort of a jokey kind of thing. But he had some sincere issues with the Texas Navy. I don't. For his part, I don't blame Commodore Moore or Fault Commodore Moore for his approach, because he was the commanding officer of the Texas Navy and by George, if there's anybody who's going to be an advocate for the Texas Navy going out and doing Navy stuff, it should be the Commodore of the Texas Navy, right? Yeah, exactly, he was and should have been, was properly the one who was always pushing for the text for the Navy to be more active, to be more proactive, to be more aggressive. Houston had a very different perspective, necessarily, so we hope that's a topic we hope to explore in the future.

Speaker 2: 53:47

Yes, yes okay.

Speaker 1: 53:49

Because it's again the relationship between Sam Houston and the Texas Navy sometimes gets kind of written off as being sort of two dimensional, and it wasn't. There's actually a lot more there that is sometimes not appreciated.

Speaker 2: 54:06

Well, yeah, that's most aspects of history, right? All these little details that you hear whispers of, almost like hearing Galveston. You hear whispers of the Texas Navy, but don't really understand that they were operating in Mexico, doing all these other things, working and basically becoming privateers for Mexico.

Speaker 1: 54:27

That's right. But Galveston has a strong connection with the Texas Navy, was not originally, didn't originally operate out of Galveston, because during the time of the Revolution 1835, 36, there was not a lot, there wasn't a lot of Galveston to be had. It operated mostly out of, out of Matagorda and Velasco, along the coast, because those are the ports that were used by Austin's colony, by the Texian settlers. By the late 1830s. Galveston had been officially designated as the port, home Port of the Texas Navy and they established a Navy yard here. That was located on the harbor, again not far from where we are today, was located on the harbor west of 25th Street and that's where the Navy yard was.

Speaker 1: 55:27

There's lots of, there are lots of. There are a number of Texas Navy people who are have connections to Galveston. There are several Texas Navy personnel who were buried in the cemeteries out on Broadway. We have, as you've mentioned, we have the. There's the monument down at Pier 20, next to Harbor House. There is another monument to the Texas Navy which you, which you profiled the other day, I think, at Menard Park.

Speaker 2: 55:55

Yes, yes, I went to the World War I monument Right.

Speaker 1: 56:00

You were at the World War I monument but right next to it is the is the Texas Navy monument that also dates from the Texas Centennial in 1936. So there are. There are hints and echoes and whispers of the Texas Navy. It's our hope, with the at the Texas Navy Association, that we can do more to educate people and inform people and give a little bit better appreciation for that.

Speaker 2: 56:27

So I know you've done tons of work in writing and in Galveston history just in general, right. So you're obviously very passionate about maritime history, texas early maritime history. But one thing we haven't discussed today are some of the books you've written. Could you tell us a little bit about some of these, these books? That you've written here, the Galveston, houston packet Steamboats on Buffalo Bayou and let's see Civil War Blockade running on the Texas coast.

Speaker 1: 56:55

I actually fell into both of those books somewhat inadvertently. Oops, you have to leave that in the show.

Speaker 2: 57:06

Yeah, I'll leave it in I'll leave it in. I make mistakes.

Speaker 1: 57:11

I fell into both of those actually kind of accidentally. Years ago I was on the staff of the Texas Maritime Museum down in Rockport and we did an exhibit on Texas river boats. Now that's another thing that people don't associate with. Texas is river boats. Yes, I mean river boats like on the Mississippi, not necessarily very big river boats, not the huge grand floating palaces, because Texas rivers are not big enough to accommodate those, so scale them down a bit, but otherwise they're very similar. Okay, never mind.

Speaker 1: 57:48

During the first half, up until the first half of the 19th century, up till about 1875 or 1880, there was a huge amount of river traffic and it was far more important in the development, commercial development, transportation of goods and people than railroads.

Speaker 1: 58:09

Railroads began expanding really big in the 1870s in Texas, but prior to that it was mostly on the rivers, and so the first book I wrote in 2012 is the Galveston Houston packet, which is a very narrow, focused, narrowly focused book on the development of steamboat traffic between Galveston and Houston and both of those ports actually developed as a result of that, because in Galveston in the 19th century became the leading port in Texas. Galveston would not have been a leading port anywhere if it did not have those connections to the interior and in the 1840s, 50s, 60s connection by water, particularly to Buffalo Bayou and the Trinity River going up into East Texas. Those were the primary routes into the interior of Texas. The blockade running book came about as a result of my work with the Institute of Nautical Archaeology some years ago on a blockade runner rec here in Galveston. It's actually across the ship channel, it's very close to the North Jetty and it's a vessel called the Denby. It was originally built in at Birkenhead, which is the sort of industrial town across the Mersey River from Liverpool Stan.

Speaker 1: 59:38

Mallow Okay yeah, marshall Spicer, she was launched as an excursion steamer, as a passenger steamer, in 1860. And in 1863, she was purchased and put into blockade running between originally between Mobile and Havana, and they were running cotton out. At that point cotton was the primary commodity coming out of the South, at least out of the deep South, and they were bringing in supplies and a surprising amount of civilian goods.

Speaker 1: 1:00:12

We tend to think of blockade runners as carrying military stuff, weapons and uniforms and ammunition. And they did carry that stuff. But they carried a surprising amount of just plain old fashioned civilian goods, because those were high dollar. Stan Mallow, yeah, marshall Spicer. Even during the war, in the summer of 1864, the port of Mobile was closed. When the US Navy which was blockading the entrance to Mobile Bay, they forced their way into Mobile Bay. That was the battle of Mobile Bay in August of 64. That was where Admiral Farragut lashed himself into the rigging and his famous line. They were leading the ships into the harbor in the first monitor armored warship leading the line struck a mine, or as they call them then, torpedoes, and the mine detonated and the thing rolled over and sank in about 60 seconds.

Speaker 2: 1:01:15

Stan Mallow. Oh, my goodness Marshall.

Speaker 1: 1:01:16

Spicer, this is some. Just almost instantly. And one of the ships lashed alongside Farragut's flagship said did you see that? And supposedly Admiral Farragut said damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead, Stan.

Speaker 2: 1:01:33

Mallow.

Speaker 1: 1:01:33

Oh, so that's where that comes from Marshall Spicer. That's where that comes from.

Speaker 2: 1:01:35

Stan Mallow. Oh, I did not know that, marshall.

Speaker 1: 1:01:37

Spicer. So that was the battle that closed off Mobile as a blockade running port for bringing supplies and people in and out of the Confederacy. At that point Mobile hadn't been a much, much bigger blockade running port than Galveston ever was, because Galveston was really far away from the center of the conflict. It was not bringing material in and out. Of. Galveston was geographically sort of isolated from the rest of the Confederacy, especially after the United States took control of the entire Mississippi, the entire length of the Mississippi River. Texas and western Louisiana were sort of cut off from that, from the rest of the Confederacy to a large extent. But after Mobile was closed, galveston suddenly had this huge surge of blockade running and we had like a hundred blockade runners come in and out steam blockade runners Come in and out of Galveston between then and the end of May 65. And this wreck, the Denby, was lost May 23, the night of May 23, 1865. Stan Mallow oh, wow, marshall Spicer, this is six weeks after Lee surrendered at Appomattox. Stan Mallow.

Speaker 2: 1:02:55

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:02:55

Marshall Spicer, which is generally taught as oh, that's when the Civil War ended. Stan Mallow, yeah, marshall Spicer. Well, no, stan Mallow, yeah, marshall Spicer. It wasn't because Lee's army surrendered, but the Confederate government never formally surrendered and folks and Confederate military commands and civil authorities around the south were basically left to. You guys figured out for yourselves. And Galveston was still blockade runners were still coming in and out of Galveston from Havana in May of 65.

Speaker 1: 1:03:28

Stan Mallow, yeah, and Denby was Denby and another blockade runner, denby, was lost coming in, another blockade runner did make it in I think that was the Wren and was tied up at Central Wharf right here, which is which was about where, again, about where Harbor House is, about where Pier 20 is, and it was swarmed by a mob.

Speaker 2: 1:03:55

Of citizens, yeah, because they?

Speaker 1: 1:03:57

because by this point everybody was desperate, yeah, and they eventually Left, and that was the last blockade runner to leave Galveston. Mm-hmm. Okay, us Navy has been blockading Galveston since the beginning of the war. Mm-hmm. In 18 and in excuse me in June. I Think it was June 2nd. Need to check the book.

Speaker 2: 1:04:21

Yeah, right, yeah, maybe I'll.

Speaker 1: 1:04:24

In June of 65, june 2nd I think, senior officers of the Confederate Trans Mississippi Department, including Kirby Smith, mm-hmm. Went out to the fleet offshore off Galveston and Signed the instrument that surrendered the Trans Mississippi Department to the United States and that was done right off. That was that was done. That was done about four miles right over that way.

Speaker 1: 1:04:53

Wow and in the, in the, in the captain's cabin of the USS Fort Jackson, off of get off of Galveston. That was the last major command, major component of Confederacy to surrender. Now there were other units here and there. There was the famous case of the Shenandoah, which Turned up a year later in the UK saying, oh, the war's been over, we, you know, there's, there's a group of Indian militia under a standwadi in what is now Oklahoma that surrendered after that, but in term. But the Trans Mississippi actually Was was a major command that included all of Texas and Louisiana and Arkansas. Yeah, and the surrender of that happened right off Galveston, I had no idea, on June 2nd. That's why I like to say the American Civil War didn't end at Appomattox, it ended here, mm-hmm, and it ended at the courthouse over on 20th Street, mm-hmm. Because they waited three days for word to be passed among the Confederate units here mm-hmm which, for the most part, had been abandoned anyway.

Speaker 1: 1:06:08

Soldiers, they just went home, yeah, and US fleet comes into the harbor Fort Jackson is too big to make it into the harbor, so they come in on on a, on a ship USS Cornubia which was which had itself been a blockade runner before it was captured, and the commander of the blockading squadron here, a man named Benjamin Franklin Sands, comes ashore with his detachment, and this was very important. He didn't bring a, an armed guard with him, mmm, he didn't bring a bodyguard. He and his officers came ashore. There are half a dozen of them. They came ashore in Galveston With their, with their sidearms, with swords, mm-hmm. And, as he explained later, he said I carry a sidearm as a sign of respect for you, not because we can, not because we can actually do anything.

Speaker 1: 1:07:07

Yeah, yeah, with this and and he came ashore and he met the mayor at the city hall. He came ashore again right down there on the on the waterfront, met the mayor at city hall, which then was located in the Esplanade on 20th Street, between market and mechanic.

Speaker 2: 1:07:24

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1: 1:07:25

It's where the, where the the parking garage crossover.

Speaker 1: 1:07:28

Yeah, the Korean War Memorial is yeah so he comes to, he Comes, meets with the mayor and they say you know all the right things. And then they all go together to the courthouse on on 20th Street, mm-hmm. Now that was, I Am told fact-checkers make a note. That was, I am told, the first Federal government building in Texas. That was not a military structure. It is the oldest federal government building built in Texas, mmm, and it was finished in early 1861, just prior to Texas's secession. And it was. It was rushed to completion Because the contractor was concerned that if it waited until after Texas seceded he would never get his money Right.

Speaker 1: 1:08:25

Yep, they even scaled down the design to get even it was originally a three-story building and they scaled down the design and the contract.

Speaker 2: 1:08:33

The general contractor who was supervising construction that building was you told me this and now I cannot remember who it is. I forget. I'm sorry, it was Edwin, that's right, yes, yes, who?

Speaker 1: 1:08:47

who had been, who 15 years before had been Commodore of the Texas Navy. So, so, so they, so they go. So it all comes back to the Texas Navy, right? So they go, all they go in a group down to the, the customs house.

Speaker 1: 1:09:02

Yeah it had a flagpole, then mm-hmm. On the roof and they, they formally raised the United States flag and and Commodore sands says this is now we. I formally now take possession of Texas on behalf of the United States government. And Then he said the closing chapter in this great conflict is now resolved. That's a, that's a, that's a paraphrase, but it's very clear. It's the closing act. The closing act of the rebellion Mmm is resolved. That's powerful.

Speaker 1: 1:09:36

It's powerful, that's and that's where the Civil War ended. Mm-hmm. At the at the customs house, the. The document was signed offshore on the on June 2nd. Flagraising took place on on June 5th.

Speaker 1: 1:09:52

Wow, and you could and then, and then, of course, a few weeks later, you have Union occupation troops arrive. They arrive on June 17th, set up command for General Granger in the Osterman building on the Strand, and that's where he begins, on the 19th, issuing his general orders for the administration of Texas, including, of course, the famous general order number three, which is now known as the Juneteenth order.

Speaker 2: 1:10:22

It's. It's fascinating, there's so much within a few blocks of where we're sitting and it and it's all and it's all right here.

Speaker 1: 1:10:27

Yeah, it's all right here. You could literally half the things I've mentioned During our talk today. Yes, half the things I've mentioned you could. You could walk to within four blocks. You can walk to within ten minutes. Yes from where we're sitting. It's, it's just astonishing the amount of, the amount of history we are Fortunate to have here in Galveston it is.

Speaker 2: 1:10:49

It is fascinating and I enjoy sharing that yeah, no, and I want to thank you so much for coming on and sharing with that all of this with us, and I've talked for a long, long time. No, it's fine. That's always welcome. The long the more, the better. Okay, but I do. Is there anything else you wanted to talk about with the Texas Navy before we close out? Is there anything that stands out to you that you may have not discussed yet, because I want to make sure we have a chance to cover it?

Speaker 1: 1:11:14

not a, not anything that stands out. But I don't think I've covered a lot of ground. Yes for sure, but but I would encourage our Galveston folks To follow us on, to follow our local chapter here in Galveston is the Charles Hawkins squadron. Charles Hawkins was the original first Commodore of the Texas Navy. He again is an is a whole another podcast issue, and boy does he have issues. But the, the Charles Hawkins squadron is the local chapter of the Texas Navy Association here in Galveston. We meet every other month in odd numbered months, mm-hmm. We're currently meeting on the campus at Texas A&M University. Follow us on Facebook, if you would look, just search for Charles Hawkins squadron, galveston, texas Navy. And we have, we have lots of. We have lots of stuff going on, lots of programs, and we're we're very excited about that.

Speaker 2: 1:12:12

That's exciting, and I'm going to put a link in the description to both of these books right here. So we have Civil War blockade running on the Texas coast by Andrew W Hall, and then we have the Galveston Houston packet steamboats on Buffalo Bayou. So I'm really excited to sit down and read these. I'll be reading these very soon. And I did want to say you brought me a fabulous gift today, a fabulous gift that I was not expecting. I just wanted to kind of show it off here Now. Can you tell us what this is, can you?

Speaker 1: 1:12:46

because I think you do a better job describing it than I would well, um, one of the, that is a commission from the governor of the state of Texas, from greg abbott, commissioning you as an admiral in the Texas Navy, and that is, that is one of the highest awards that for a civilian Uh that can be, that can be granted by the state of Texas and that is based on your commitment to preserving and promoting Texas history, community service, and there are very few people I've encountered who Are more deserving of that recognition than you are. Thank you, and so we're, we're very pleased to to share that commission with you. We'll have a formal, we'll have a more formal presentation at some point in the future.

Speaker 2: 1:13:34

Yeah, for sure, for sure.

Speaker 1: 1:13:35

But it's uh, it is a, it is a rare Uh. It is a rare designation Uh, but in your case I think it's absolutely Uh justified well, I cannot thank you enough.

Speaker 2: 1:13:44

It means so more than you would ever know what that means to me. Um, you know, starting this whole thing was a journey and it's, uh, still a journey, and it you've only just gotten started. Yeah, I know, it's, uh, it's been two years since I started the podcast and it's, it's crazy. It's crazy how, how, you know, now we're in a new studio and, um, I have the ability to Continue preserving history and speak to amazing people like you, you know, who are doing your own work in preserving history and making it engaging and fun and interesting.

Speaker 2: 1:14:16

So thank you so much. Thank you, I appreciate it. Thank you so much for tuning in to galveston unscripted. If you enjoyed this episode, please make sure to like, subscribe, share, follow us on all social media. We are everywhere. Be sure to check the link in the description to the texas navy association and andy hall's books Civil war blockade running on the texas coast and the galveston houston packet steamboats on buffalo bayou.

Speaker 2: 1:14:42

I am unbelievably honored to have been commissioned as a texas navy admiral before andy showed up to the studio. I was not expecting Anything like that. It is a true honor to have been recognized for all that I've been working on over the past couple of years and I look forward to continuing my work in the preservation and promotion of history, especially texas history and even more especially Galveston history. And I could not do any of this without you for watching, listening, following us on social media and telling your friends about the galveston unscripted podcast and our deep dives into history in video form. Thank you so much for watching and we'll see you next time on galveston unscripted.