What Happened in Texas After the Confederate Surrender?

The Civil War in Texas dragged on weeks after Appomattox (April 9, 1865) due to distance, slow communication, and lingering resistance:

1. April–May 1865: News traveled slowly; Confederate forces in Texas (under Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith, Trans-Mississippi Dept.) remained active.
2. May 12–13, 1865: Battle of Palmito Ranch (near Brownsville) – last land battle of the war; Confederate victory, but strategically meaningless.
3. June 2, 1865: Gen. Kirby Smith formally surrendered the Trans-Mississippi Department at Galveston.
4. June 19, 1865 (Juneteenth): Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston with 2,000 U.S. troops; issued General Order No. 3, enforcing the Emancipation Proclamation—freeing 250,000 enslaved people in Texas.
5. June 23, 1865: Final Confederate surrender in Texas (Gen. Stand Watie in Indian Territory was last overall, June 23).

Texas saw no major fighting during the war itself; its experience was defined by this delayed, chaotic end and the birth of Juneteenth.