The Biggest Textile Mill in the South The effort was enormous, but even running at full capacity, the mill was not able to supply the Confederacy’s insatiable demand. But with the surrender of the Confederate army in 1865, civil authority in Texas collapsed.

Following the defeat of the Confederate States in the American Civil War, Texas was mandated to rejoin the United States of America. Texas fully rejoined the Union on March 30, 1870, when President Grant signed the act to readmit Texas to Congressional Representation.

During the Civil War More than 25,000 men joined the Confederate army by the end of 1861, and almost 90,000 soldiers from Texas joined to help the Confederate cause during the entire war. Some of the notable leaders in the war hailed from Texas, including John Bell Hood and Ben McCulloch.

At the beginning of the war, soldiers routinely constructed latrines close to streams contaminating the water for others downstream. Diarrhea and dysentery were the number one killers. (Dysentery is considered diarrhea with blood in the stool.) 57,000 deaths were directly recorded to these most disabling maladies.

Why did two-thirds of Civil War soldiers die from disease or infection? Army camps were extremely dirty and food supplies were inadequate. What controversial action by the Confederate States of America addressed the ongoing need for soldiers? Why did African Americans in Texas support the Union cause?

President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious states “are, and henceforward shall be free.”