Civil War Lecture Series: Battle of Galveston

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Time & Place

  • Civil War Lecture Series: Battle of Galveston
    • The Mariners' Museum and Park

      October 23, 2020, 12 - 1 p.m.

      100 Museum Drive
      Newport News, VA 23606
    • Phone: 757-596-2222
      Highway Exit: 258A from I-64
      Website: Click here to visit us online

Description

VIRTUAL LECTURE

Presented by John V. Quarstein, director emeritus of USS Monitor Center

Join us for a virtual lecture with author and historian John V. Quarstein! Quarstein will give a 30-minute presentation live from his home in Hampton, Virginia, on how the fight for the biggest port in Texas was an important naval and land battle for the Confederacy during the Civil War.

About this presentation:

When Major General John Bankhead Magruder assumed command of the District of Texas, he immediately sought to regain the glory he had attained on the Virginia Peninsula through the recapture of Galveston, Texas. Magruder planned to use two cottonclads against six federal gunboats while his troops pressed the Union soldiers back onto Kurtz’s Wharf. Somehow, CSS Bayou City was able to capture USS Harriet Lane and USS Westfield was destroyed by its own crew. The rest of the Union forces either escaped or surrendered. Galveston was liberated on January 1, 1863, and Magruder became once again “the hero of our time.” The port city would remain under Confederate control for the rest of the war.