Everything about Fort Brown totally explained
Fort Brown was a military post of the
United States Army in
Texas during the latter half of 19th century and the early part of the 20th century.
Early years
In 1845, the U.S. Army began construction of a new fort (then known as "Fort Texas") on the northern side of the
Rio Grande River. The next year, the fort played a role during the opening of the
Mexican-American War. During the
Siege of Fort Texas, two Americans were killed, including Major Jacob Brown. In honor of the fallen major, General
Zachary Taylor renamed the post Fort Brown. In 1849, the city of
Brownsville, Texas, was established not far from the fort's grounds.
Civil War
In 1861
Confederate Col. John "Rip" Ford occupied the fort until 1863 when they were finally driven out by
Union forces under General
Nathaniel P. Banks, who then camped in tents erected at the fort site. This ended in 1864 when Confederate forces under General J. S. Slaughter and Colonel Ford reoccupied the area. They would hold the post until the end of the war.
Postbellum
From 1867–1869, a permanent fort was constructed under the supervision of Capt. William A. Wainwright.
William C. Gorgas
In 1882, Dr.
William Crawford Gorgas was assigned to the hospital at Fort Brown during the height of the
yellow fever outbreak. Using Fort Brown as his base of operations, Gorgas studied the disease for several years until he was sent to
Cuba during the
Spanish-American war.
On
August 13 and
14,
1906, unknown persons "raided" Brownsville, indiscriminately shooting bystanders, wounded one man and killing a townsperson named Frank Natus. The townspeople of Brownsville quickly blamed the black soldiers stationed at nearby Fort Brown and, as such, the Army investigated the matter and concluded that the black soldiers were indeed guilty.
William H. Taft, then President
Theodore Roosevelt's Secretary of War and soon to be President himself, discharged all 168 black soldiers "without honor". Sixty years later, another investigation was held and the black soldiers had their honor restored. However, by then, only 2 of the original 168 men were still alive. Recent theories have come out regarding who shot up Brownsville.
The History Channel's program "
History's Mysteries" attributed it to Brownsvillians shooting up the town with rifles using the same caliber ammunition as the soldiers and then framing the soldiers. (Three books have since been written devoted wholly to or partially to the
Brownsville Raid,
The Brownsville Raid and
The Senator and the Sharecropper's Son by John D. Weaver and
Racial Borders: Black Soldiers along the Rio Grande by James Leiker.)
First airplane to be attacked by hostile fire
On
April 20,
1915, U.S. Signal Corps Officers Byron Q. Jones and Thomas Millings flew a Martin T.O. Curtiss over the fort to spot movements of
Mexican Revolutionary leader
Francisco "Pancho" Villa. The plane reached an altitude of 2,600 ft. and was up for 20 minutes. It didn't cross the border into Mexico, although it was fired upon by machine guns and small arms. These frequent patrols lasted for a period of 6 weeks and were used more effectively in 1916.
124th Cavalry
The troopers stationed at Fort Brown from 1929-45 were from the 124th Cavalry Regiment, Texas
National Guard, which became the one of the last mounted cavalry regiment in the United States Army. On
November 18,
1940, they went into active military training. After the
Japanese attack on
Pearl Harbor the division served with distinction, dismounted, in the
China Burma India Theater, where a member of the unit from Fort Brown earned the theater's only
Medal of Honor (awarded to
Jack Knight, commanding F Troop).
Decommission
In 1945, Fort Brown was decommissioned. It was acquired by the City of Brownsville and
Texas Southmost College in 1948.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Fort Brown'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://fort_brown.totallyexplained.com">Fort Brown Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
