10/03/2025
A little Island history
Padre Island gets a new historical marker
The Skirmish on Padre Island December 7, 1862
Editor’s note: The following essay was published originally in the Corpus Christi Geological Society Bulletin in September 2024. It has been modified to include some more recent information.
By Randy Bissell
On a crisp, clear December morning in 1862, Captain Wilkes of the Confederate States of America and his mix of about ten officers, sailors, and foot soldiers painstakingly sounded the opening of the Corpus Christi Pass in their small ship, the Queen of the Bay. This vital coastal inlet connected Corpus Christi Bay with the Gulf of Mexico. Back to that story after some introduction…
Finding the Historic Corpus Christi Pass
According to old maps, the “historic” Corpus Christi Pass extended south-to-north along the back side of Mustang Island, about six miles in length and with an average depth of 10 feet. The Corpus Christi Bar at today’s Whitecap Beach was the mouth of the channel into the Gulf of Mexico. The bar reduced the water depth to three feet, making navigation treacherous. Strong tidal currents within the channel and the Gulf winds, swells, and crashing waves compounded the reliability and safety of this critical supply route to the rebel-held bayside town of Corpus Christi. Regular soundings were required to ensure navigability.
The Corpus Christi Pass tidal channel varied in width from 30 to over100 yards along its length. Padre Island's high dunes rose above the steep south bank of the pass. In contrast, looking north, Mustang Island was a broad, low sand plain owing to the channel's migration southward over time.
Where is the Pass Today?
The historic Corpus Christi Pass has been lost to time as Mustang Island and Padre Island have been reshaped by human engineering in the last 100 years. The original course of the long tidal inlet is obscured by development today.
Harte Research Institute Digital Elevation Model map with US Geodetic Survey map from 1913 overlay and photos along the trace of the original Corpus Christi Pass. The historical trace of the Pass is shown as the red line. Photos: August 2024.
Parts and pieces of the old Pass exist as abbreviated waterways but more often as shallow wetlands and tidal flats. In a desire for transportation efficiency, Packery Channel, the Mustang Island Fish Pass, and the modern Aransas Pass were cut directly across the barrier island complex perpendicular to the shoreline. Similarly, intense hurricanes tend to open and reopen temporary cuts at Newport Pass and other weak points along southern Mustang Island. Recent storm washover lobes have filled portions of the original Corpus Christi Pass.
Tracing the Channel
Whitecap Beach is a popular tourist site on Padre Island today. It is difficult to imagine this strand as the mouth of the original inlet into Corpus Christi Bay. The elevated berm of Whitecap Boulevard cuts across the old channel at Windward Road. The adjacent waterway called “Lake Padre” occupies the old channel to the north. A wetland behind recently formed dunes has filled in the old pass to the south. The trace of the original pass can also be observed north and south of the Highway 361 bridge over Packery Channel. Not following much of the modern Packery Channel, the old pass trends northward, across Zahn Road and towards “Packery Flats” and the Island of the Son Methodist Church on TX 361. From the Church, look north towards Corpus Christi Bay. From above, the remnant of the old pass is also easily spotted on Google Earth images and even better using the published Digital Elevation Model available from the Harte Research Institute.
Surprise at Sunrise
Back to the battle… That early morning, on December 7, 1862, Captain Wilkes was surprised to see Union boats, a three-masted tall ship or barque, the USS Arthur, cruising the open Gulf towards the Pass and their anchored position. The Confederate troops landed and went to the high dunes on Padre Island to observe the Union ship dealing with contrary northerly winds and heavy seas as it navigated the bars at the mouth of the pass in pursuit of the rebels. The Confederates quickly returned to the Queen to pull anchor and make their way towards Corpus Christi. Realizing that twenty-two well-armed Yankee soldiers were approaching rapidly in two small launches from the USS Sachem, the rebel sailors and soldiers ran the Queen aground, landing on Padre Island and taking a defensive position in the high dunes on the south side of the channel. From their elevated and advantageous position, the rebels fired down upon the Union soldiers still in their launches in the middle of the channel.
Thomas J. Noakes painting of the Fight with the Yankees at Corpus Christi Pass, dated April 10, 1863 - from the digital collection of Mr. Jim Moloney. Used with permission
Sitting Ducks
The hail of rebel mini balls found their marks, with two Union soldiers downed in the first volley. The soldiers trapped in their small boats within the pass returned fire without success. Realizing their defenselessness, they landed on the north side of the pass, Mustang Island, running inland and continuing to return fire. The upland position and accuracy of the Confederate rifles held such an advantage that their shot dropped another Union soldier on the beach. The rebel fire forced the remaining Yankees farther north into the low hills several hundred yards away. Adding insult to their losses, the Union boats haphazardly beached on the Mustang side of the pass drifted across the channel to the rebel-held Padre Island, stranding the dead, wounded, and dispirited soldiers on Mustang Island, resulting in their humiliating 20-mile march to Port Aransas, the closest Union stronghold.
Celebrating a Not-so-Small Victory
The David Gambel painting commemorates in picture and taunting poetry the Confederate victory of the Union at the “Affair at Padre Island” on December 7, 1862. The skirmish resulted in the death of at least three Union soldiers and the injury of several others. The rebels seized the two launches, which included three soldiers, two dead and one severely injured, along with many coveted supplies and weapons.
David Gambel painting of the Boat Fight at Corpus Christi Channel, December 7, 1862 – from the digital collection of Mr. Jim Moloney. Used with permission
Remembering The Affair
There is a new Historical Marker in Packery Channel park narrating the event. But there is no memorial to Union soldiers who were injured or lost their lives in the skirmish: recorded were William Nicholson, Benjamin Cowen, and Peter Baxter. There are the two competing paintings of the Affair, one by David R. Gambel, the other by Thomas J. Noakes. Both are from the southern perspective to enshrine the rebel victory. Formal reports were written by both sides at the time of the skirmish – one penned by Master Amos Johnson on behalf of the Union Rear-Admiral D. G. Farragut of the Western Gulf Blocking Brigade, the other by Confederate Major H. Wilke of the C.S.A., the captain of the Queen of the Bay. These accounts were published by the Island Moon several years ago.
The Poem by Adam Phewl
A LETTER TO THE YANKEES
"Ye tars of Columbia, give ear to my story,"
Who've come to annoy us in Aransas Bay,
You can gain nothing here, neither profit nor glory,
So you'd better weigh anchor and sail far away!
Captain Willke left Corpus to sound out the Passes,
With ten men in a boat—but seven of them armed—
You pursued them with twenty-two—stupid Jackasses -
You thought that the "rebs” would be sorely alarmed!
When first they espied you, they made for the Island,
The island called "Padre" you well know the place,
Their boat ran aground, and they took to the dry land,
Then turned on the sand hills, the Yankees to face.
You came within gun-shot—they gave you a blizzard,
Which made you "skedaddle" in double-quick time!
This fact only proves you've no "sand in your gizzard!"
The word should be gizzards - but that spoils the rhyme.
You pulled to "Mustang,” and, away from all danger,
A thousand yards distant, you stood up to fight,
But a ball from a "Minie," in the hands of a ranger,
"Cap-swiveled" another — you then took to flight!
They captured your boats, your revolvers and rifles,
And also three Yankees — one wounded — two dead,
Perhaps I ought not to have mentioned such trifles,
As they scarcely repaid us for powder and lead!
Poor tools of Abe Lincoln, who are invading Texas!
We will never submit to your “*Northerner’s" rule!
You never can conquer; you only can vex us—
But we'll whip you--as sure as my name's-- ADAM PHEWL
*Apologies for 2025-required edits…RB
Closing. A visit to Whitecap Beach is an opportunity to walk over our closest Civil War battlefield and recall the struggles and hardships of that ugly war. Like so much Texas history, the landscape is a character in the story. These dunes, passes, islands, and the sea – the remnants of that date can still be experienced in the field…until man reforms this untamed, original, and natural part of Texas into his sterilized version of beachfront development with history lost.
