Guest Post: February 1, 1861 - Mexico-Comanche-Texas War Breaks Out

This post first appeared on Today in Alternate History.

For over a decade Sam Houston had dreamt of a Mexican invasion serving as a common cause to unite the quarrelling States. Instead of becoming once again the hero of the hour, the aging governor had forgotten to price in the cost of a simultaneous uprising from the Comanche. Soon to be forced out of office because of his vocal opposition to secession, he was staring into the abyss, the destruction of everything he fought for in the name of Texas.

Many of his fellow citizens were agitated by the murmurs of secession clamoring across the South. Events then headed in an unexpected direction when president-elect Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in December 1860 and a negotiated version of the Crittenden Compromise passed mapping the way for eventual, if delayed, manumission. Following these unexpected turns, the flames of secession seemed to die down, only Texas and the Cotton South pursued independence.

Unlike the Cotton states who had joined the Union shortly after the American Revolution, Texas had a viable legal mechanism for secession, achieved simply by revoking the annexation treaty of 1844. Using this means, the state legislature narrowly passed the act of secession. This action was taken over Houston's veto and half-shouted stark warning, "After the sacrifice of countless millions of treasure and hundreds of thousands of lives, you may win Texan independence if God be not against you, but I doubt it."

After less than two decades in the Union, the Lone Star State seceded. A special convention then illegally and ultra vires remained in session and acted like a government with former Lieutenant Governor Edward Clark as Acting President. Contrary to Houston's predictions, US President Hannibal Hamlin did not order armed intervention , but he did recall Union forces from federal outposts. Despite being a radical Republican from the anti-slavery state of Maine, he had been propelled into the presidency and seemed to believe like Houston that Americans should avoid "rash actions." Consequently, this de facto continuation of President Buchanan's inaction was simply a necessary sacrifice to avoid provoking Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana into siding with the secessionists a broader War of the States. Or, so it seemed in Austin.

In fact, Hamlin also saw Mexican invasion as an opportunity: sacrificing Texas to distract secessionists throughout the Cotton South. His gambit was that the Texan borderlands had been secured by Union troops, and, when they were withdrawn, the Mexicans and Comanche would seize this moment of vulnerability with both hands. Hamlin had cleverly anticipated this move, but Houston had gambled wrong, being over-confident of winning a second war. What had changed the equation from his military calculations was the better-armed Comanche and operators like Juan Cortina in the Rio Grande Valley. Worse still, the Mexican Army was largely still mobilized as a result of the ruling Liberal party recently winning the three-year Reform War.

Subsequent events surprised both Houston and Hamlin. Miraculously for the politicians in Austin, willing volunteers arrived from the Cotton states under the command of P.G.T. Beauregard, and the reborn Texan Republic narrowly survived intact when Mexican forces retreated. Arguably, Texas had been saved not so much by Beauregard's volunteers than by other predators in the arrival of the European Great Powers off the coast of Veracruz. Now it was Mexico's turn to fight for her sovereignty.

Meanwhile, Texas became the first formerly American territory to make slavery illegal. This was due to advances by the Industrial Revolution, growing labor movements, and international pressure. With so many slaves escaping to Mexico, Texas had little choice in declaring slavery illegal - but kudos to the Lone Star Republic anyway. Their historic announcement in Galveston is marked across America every year on Juneteenth National Independence Day.

Jeff Provine's Note:

In reality, Houston was largely neutral, claiming that if Texas were to secede, it should at most revert to its independent status as a republic.

Author's Note:

Lincoln avoided assassination, and the Crittenden Compromise failed. Hamlin was removed from the ticket for re-election in 1864, being replaced by Andrew Johnson.

Provine's Addendum:

The uneasy peace between the six-state Confederacy and the United States finally broke after years of agitation. The issue of federal forts had nearly sparked the war as early as 1861, but negotiations over what to do with the property stalled conflict. Instead, it was squabbles inland, primarily at the Tennessee and North Carolina borders over personal property into 1863. A Union army under Virginian Robert E. Lee marched on Atlanta to "split the South" while naval action at New Orleans and met Union western forces under General Ulysses S. Grant up the Mississippi. Split into three, the Confederacy collapsed, but the war dragged on with bitter guerilla warfare. Hamlin's plan to punish instigators of the war included dividing up plantation property, requiring loyalty oaths for U.S. citizenship, and an Emancipation Proclamation throughout the states in rebellion. It was only the division of the Democratic party between the Copperheads calling for peace and the War Democrats that allowed Hamlin's Republicans to win reelection in 1864.

The Southern population landscape changed significantly over the 1860s with "white flight" as many wealthy people fled to Texas, Cuba, or South Africa. Resettlement of repeat offenders on the harsh Reconstruction laws also moved many thousands from the South to the Nebraska Territory. Meanwhile, Freedmen enjoyed not only liberation but also land grants and public education. Abolitionists pushed for similar freedom in the North, prompting faster action on the manumission outlined in earlier compromise, including federal payments to slave owners for the liberation of their "property."

War-weariness settled in, ironically electing Robert E. Lee to the presidency in 1868 with a platform to heal the nation. Lee died in 1870, leaving the office to Schuyler Colfax, who encouraged development westward and in the devastated South, especially railroad and telegraph expansions, industries where he owned a great deal of stock. Through the nineteenth century, social commentators such as Mark Twain described the closeness between government and booming business as a "military-industrial complex."

The question of what to make of the Republic of Texas crossed many Americans' minds as the war settled. Ultimately, the Texans and Americans both decided perhaps statehood was a mistake. Texas continued as an ongoing independent republic of Texas, though usually closely allied with the U.S. Trade agreements such as passage of cattle herds up trails through Indian Territory (later, Sequoyah) proved popular to all parties.