Even before the war, the city had established itself as the busiest anchorage on the Texas coast. With most of the Federal attention focused on the major harbors of Charleston, Mobile, and New Orleans, and with few vessels available to guard the approaches to Galveston, the port became a haven for Southern blockade runners whose profits were high and risks were low. ![]() ![]() Proclaiming a blockade was one thing-having enough warships to enforce it was another thing altogether. To add to the state’s anxiety, the Lincoln government in April 1861 declared a blockade of the entire southern coastline from Virginia to the Rio Grande. With most of Texas’s newly raised troops shipped off to Virginia, where the first battles of the war would be fought, there were precious few soldiers left to guard against a Federal attack back home. ![]() When Texas seceded from the Union on February 1, 1861, it did not take long for the new Confederate government to realize that the state’s 385-mile coastline was extremely vulnerable to enemy assaults.
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