Nueces massacre

The Nueces massacre occurred on August 10, 1862, when Confederate soldiers in Central Texas attacked a group of German immigrants who were loyal to the Union. The attack left about thirty-five immigrants dead. The Germans had recently moved to the United States to escape conflicts in Europe. They were opposed to slavery and did not support the secession of the southern states. When the Confederate government ordered all able-bodied men over age sixteen to sign up for a military draft, the immigrants resisted the edict. A group of about sixty-five attempted to flee to Mexico, with the hope of making it to Union territory. Instead, they were set upon and attacked by Confederate soldiers at the Nueces River. About nineteen were killed in the battle, The injured were executed, and some survivors were tracked down and killed. Several survivors managed to escape back home or to Mexico. A year after the Civil War ended, members of the German community in Central Texas erected a monument to those killed.

Background

Prior to 1871, Germany did not exist as a unified nation. For centuries, the German-speaking peoples were divided into numerous kingdoms, as well as smaller duchies and dukedoms. The medieval feudal system still held sway in the region, leaving ordinary people with limited rights and few chances at improving their lives. The people were also caught up in the squabbles between rival kingdoms and the conflict between the Catholic and Protestant religions. This unstable pollical climate led to several early waves of German immigration to the United States.

The first German immigrants were Quakers who left home in 1683 and founded the settlement of Germantown near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They were followed by a group of peasant farmers who moved to upstate New York in 1709. A century later, German immigration to the United States began to ramp up. Sparked by a series of violent revolutions in the German states about 1848, large numbers of German immigrants began flooding into the United States. Between 1845 and 1855, about one million Germans immigrated to America, with the wave peaking in 1854 when more than 215,000 made the journey.

Overview

In 1854, a German named Ernst Altgelt led a group of immigrants to the Hill Country of Central Texas, where they founded the town of Comfort, just north of San Antonio. Altgelt’s group was inspired by the European Enlightenment and its ideas of liberty and equality. They made peace with the Native American people of the region and, although they had moved to a slave state, they were adamantly against slavery.

In 1861, Texas joined ten other Southern states in seceding from the United States to form the Confederate States of America. Fighting between the two sides broke out in April 1861, marking the start of the US Civil War (1861–1865). The German immigrants in Comfort had moved to the United States; they had no interest in being part of the Confederacy or supporting its causes. They rejected secession and considered themselves loyal to the Union.

In May 1862, worried Confederate leaders in Texas placed the Hill Country region under martial law. They also ordered all men older than sixteen to sign an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy and submit their names for a military draft. Anyone refusing the order would be considered a traitor and would be hanged.

In August 1862, a group of about sixty-five men and boys led by Fritz Tegener decided to leave the area and escape to Mexico. While some in the group wanted to join the Union Army, others just wanted to avoid the repercussions of their refusal to support the Confederacy. Some accounts of the story say that Tegener was aware that the Confederates considered the Hill Country region to be in open revolt and feared miliary action.

The men were armed as a precaution but did not think the Confederates would pursue them. They journeyed south at a relatively slow pace, stopping to hunt and make camp along the way. However, Confederate Captain James Duff received word of the men’s intentions and ordered a contingent of solders to pursue the group. The Confederates caught up with Tegener’s group on August 9, 1862, near the Nueces River. Their plan was to wait until dawn on August 10 to attack the group; however, when Confederate soldiers unwittingly alerted the Germans to their presence about 3 a.m., the Confederates opened fire.

In the ensuing battle, as estimated nineteen Germans were killed and nine wounded. Two Confederate soldiers were killed and about eighteen wounded. The remaining men scattered, some fleeing south toward Mexico and others back home to the Hill Country. Hours after the battle, the nine wounded Germans were executed. Two months later, eight Germans were killed as they tried to cross the border into Mexico. An accurate accounting of the casualties is difficult to achieve. Some estimates place the dead at about thirty-five—both those killed in the battle and those executed later—while others say as many as seventeen Germans were hunted down and killed, pushing the death toll near forty-five. According to his descendants, Tegener was able to escape the battle and made his way to Mexico where he lived out his life as a gold miner.

To the Confederates, the incident was considered a lawful suppression of a rebellion. The Hill Country immigrant communities thought of it as a massacre. Out of fear of future violence, the German community dampened their opposition to the war.

By most accounts, the remains of the dead Germans were left unburied on the battlefield. In 1866, a year after the war ended with the South’s defeat, some from the German communities ventured south to the battle site and reclaimed the remains. They were brought back to Comfort and interred beneath a limestone monument inscribed with thirty-four names and the words Treue der Union, or “True to the Union.” The monument is the only one built to honor the Union in the former Confederate states.

Bibliography

Burrier, William Paul. Nueces Battle Massacre Myths and Facts. Watercress Press, 2014.

Hessong, Athena. “The Nueces Massacre: A Civil War Conflict in the Texas Hill Country.” Texas Hill Country, 27 June 2017, texashillcountry.com/nueces-massacre-civil-war-texas-hill-country/. Accessed 9 Dec. 2022.

Lüber, Klaus. “History Part 1: America’s German Roots.” Deutschland.de, 10 Feb. 2018, www.deutschland.de/en/usa/us-immigration-americas-german-roots. Accessed 9 Dec. 2022.

Morgan, Jack. “Treue Der Union Monument Represents An Incredible Cost For Comfort.” Texas Public Radio, 24 May 2018, www.tpr.org/arts-culture/2018-05-24/treue-der-union-monument-represents-an-incredible-cost-for-comfort. Accessed 9 Dec. 2022.

“Nueces, Battle of the.” Texas State Historical Association, 2022, www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/nueces-battle-of-the. Accessed 9 Dec. 2022.

“The Nueces Massacre.” Discover Texas, 15 June 2018, www.discovertexasonline.com/2018/06/the-nueces-massacre/. Accessed 9 Dec. 2022.

Parker, Richard, and Emily Boyd. “Massacre on the Nueces.” The New York Times, 11 Aug. 2012, archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/11/massacre-on-the-nueces/. Accessed 9 Dec. 2022.

“Treue der Union — GLO Records of the German Texans in the Nueces Massacre.” Medium, 10 Aug. 2020, medium.com/save-texas-history/treue-der-union-glo-records-of-the-german-texans-in-the-nueces-massacre-2e64562d31ba. Accessed 9 Dec. 2022.