San Antonio and Mexican Gulf Railroad

Magruder issued an order in 1863 to destroy this railroad between Lavaca and Victoria, using impressed slaves to do the work, sparking an injunction from a local judge to stop the destruction. The president of the railroad and other interested parties wrote to Pendleton Murrah to protest the order and ask for his intervention. One such letter mentions the use of “negroes” to grade and build the road.¹