The site of the Battle of Galveston functioned, both before and during the fighting, as the working harbor and wharf district of Texas's principal seaport. Union naval forces occupying Galveston in late 1862 used the harbor and Kuhn's Wharf as an anchorage and defensive position, stationing troops and warships there to hold the port under blockade. On New Year's Day 1863, Confederate forces under General John B. Magruder retook the city in a combined land-and-sea assault, using cottonclad steamers to attack Union vessels in the harbor while troops advanced along the waterfront and rail approaches into the island city. The fighting itself was fundamentally tied to the area's function as a commercial and military port: control of the docks, channel, and wharves determined which side could use Galveston to move troops, supplies, and blockade-running cargo for the rest of the war. After the Confederate victory, the harbor resumed its role as an active, if blockaded, Confederate supply point through the war's end. Today the same waterfront continues to function as a working harbor and commercial district: it forms part of the modern Port of Galveston and the adjacent Strand Historic District, a mixed-use area of shipping facilities, shops, restaurants, and museums. Historical markers along the Strand and harbor commemorate the battle within this still-active port landscape.