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Forts Chadbourne and Belknap were in western Texas, near Abilene. No record of "Old Fort Kearney." In Texas all the Federal forts were surrendered relatively peacefully.

Old Fort Kearney wasn't in Texas. Here is a record of Old Fort Kearney being taken and retaken from an 1861 New York Times article. [Link] This is apparently the same incident I reported on above from a different newspaper.

In San Antonio, in April 1861, US Army officers were treated as POWs.

Texas militia units surrounded and outnumbered the Federal troops in San Antonio. The Federal troops were allowed to take their weapons and horses and some supplies to the Gulf coast where ships started loading them up for the trip back to the Union. Some ships or a ship departed with a portion of the Federal troops and later arrived in New York (I believe it was New York). While this was loading of Federal troops was underway on the Texas Gulf coast, Lincoln sent his armed fleet to Charleston, and the bombardment of Fort Sumter occurred. At this point war was underway, and it made no sense to the Texans to let the Federal troops leave simply to have them come back as invaders. So the remaining Federal troops were captured and given paroles that they agreed to that stated that they would not fight against the Confederacy until exchanged.

As near as I can remember off the top of my head this morning, that is what happened. I don't remember if any of the federal troops were held for a long time. Here is one Link that provides links to other Texas documents of the time including the parole.

There were some tense negotiations in San Antonio and Brownsville over the surrender of federal installations there. One old newspaper report said that Sam Houston was working behind the scene to not have the war start in Texas.

from 1,902 rustbucket: "Old Fort Kearney wasn't in Texas. Here is a record of Old Fort Kearney being taken and retaken from an 1861 New York Times article. [Link] This is apparently the same incident I reported on above from a different newspaper."

The article references Nebraska City and "Old Fort" Kearney. Kearney and Nebraska City are both in Nebraska, not exactly a central theater of the Civil War.

Your point was that, in addition to the four forts selected by President Buchanan in 1861 to defend against Southern seizures -- Forts Pickens, Jefferson, Tyler and Sumter -- there may have been a fifth, "Old Fort Kearney."

I doubt if events at Old Fort Kearney represented anything other than exuberance of the fort's commander. At the time, some Nebraskans owned slaves, but it was a Union territory, and sent three regiments of cavalry to support the Union war effort.