View complete coverage of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War
BROWNSVILLE, Texas — It’s common knowledge that the four bloody, thunderous years of the American Civil War came to a solemn end when Southern Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox — but it’s not true.
The final land battle of the war wasn’t fought until more than a month later, 150 years ago Tuesday and Wednesday, on a barren, wind-swept coastal plain at the southern tip of Texas.
And the Confederates won.
How the battle of Palmito Ranch came about involves a tale of one officer’s ego and another’s stubborn refusal to yield.
It was fought on land where little has changed in more than a century, marked by patches of prickly pear cactus, void of the namesake palm trees and buffeted periodically over the decades by storm surges and hurricanes from the nearby Gulf of Mexico.