Port Lavaca: Born from a Raid

Port Lavaca on Matagorda Bay exists largely because a neighboring town was burned. In August eighteen forty, a massive Comanche raiding party swept through the Texas coast in what is called the Great Raid, burning the port town of Linnville just to the northeast and driving its residents into the water to escape. Many of Linnville's survivors relocated to the sheltered site now called Port Lavaca, and the town was laid out by eighteen forty-two and became the seat of Calhoun County when the county was created in eighteen forty-six.

Two decades later, Port Lavaca found itself in the middle of the Civil War: on October thirty-first, eighteen sixty-two, Union gunboats demanded the town's surrender. Confederate Major Daniel Shea refused, and after a brief evacuation, Union ships shelled Port Lavaca for two days before withdrawing. The town held, remaining in Confederate hands until eighteen sixty-three.