Nueces River Affair, Tex., 1862

The Nueces Massacre, also known as the Massacre on the Nueces and the Battle of Nueces, was a violent confrontation between Confederate soldiers and Unionist Texas Germans on August 10, 1862, in Kinney County, Texas. Many first-generation German immigrants settled in Central Texas in a region known as the Hill Country. They tended to support the United States and were opposed to slavery. Because of these sentiments, the Confederate States of America imposed martial law on Central Texas. A group of German Americans, fleeing from the Hill Country to Mexico and onward to Union-controlled New Orleans, was confronted by a company of Confederate soldiers on the banks of the Nueces River. The ensuing massacre (including of the wounded) represented an end to overt German American resistance to Confederate governance in Texas, but it also fueled outrage among the German-Texan population. According to historian Stanley McGowen, disputes over the confrontation and the actions of the Confederates after the battle continue in the Hill Country among descendants of both groups.