History.com by Jesse Greenspan Updated: Sep 1, 2018 Original: Mar 1, 2013
Explore nine things you may not know about the Lone Star State.----
3. Texas could have been even larger.
During its period as an independent country, Texas attempted to expand south and west into what was then Mexico. “There was a whole series of expeditions and counter-expeditions and skirmishes and battles,†said Bob Brinkman, coordinator of the historical markers program at the Texas Historical Commission, a state agency. Even after joining the United States, Texas held on to the idea that it would take a large chunk of the Territory of New Mexico. But as part of the Compromise of 1850, which maintained the balance of power between free and slave states, it relinquished claims to roughly 67 million acres in exchange for $10 million to pay off its debt.
4. Texas hosted what was arguably the last battle of the Civil War.
Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House in April 1865. Yet despite being fully aware of this, Northern and Southern forces squared off the following month in the Battle of Palmito Ranch. “It must have been just a giant mob fight,†McCaslin said in describing the battle, which took place on a coastal prairie east of Brownsville, Texas. Ironically, the Confederates won what is considered—in Texas, at least—the last land action of the Civil War. With cavalry and artillery, the Confederates killed or wounded some 30 opponents, captured more than 100 others and forced the remainder back to a base near the mouth of the Rio Grande. It was a short-lived victory, however, as they agreed to lay down their arms a couple of weeks later.
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