The City of Port Lavaca and the Calhoun County Historical Commission will be hosting the Lavaca Artillery Battery Silhouette Ceremony on November 22, 2014 at 11:00 a.m. at the Bayfront Peninsula Park in Port Lavaca. The public is invited to attend.

The metal silhouette represents the Home Guard firing on two Union gunboats that fired on this small town on October 31, 1862. Accurate fire from the shore batteries forced the ships to move outside the range of the smaller shore guns before resuming fire. The ships fired again on Lavaca the morning of November 1. A total of 252 rounds of shot and shell were fired by the Union navy, but caused no loss of life in a town suffering a yellow fever epidemic at the time.

“…nobly did both officers and men perform their duty, working their guns as coolly as though on inspection, while a perfect storm of shot and shell rained around them. And this, although yellow fever had decimated their ranks.” – Lt. and Adjutant George E. Conkin.

Calhoun County had a very active participation in the Civil War. The Green Lake area in the Guadalupe River Bottom housed all of the Federal Soldiers who had to leave Texas in 1861. Fort Esperanza and Saluria were destroyed and the Federal troops tramped/sailed past Port O’Connor to take over Indianola. On Christmas Eve 1861, the Battle of Norris Bridge took place and Federal troops marched into Lavaca on Christmas Day.