While the leaders of Texas were busily concerned with the well being of
their own state, the men of Texas were actively serving the Confederate
cause elsewhere. From the very outbreak of the conflict Texas units made
proud names for themselves on all fighting fronts.
The Lone Star State was represented in northern Virginia by three
regiments in the brigade of John Bell Hood. This brigade was formed at
Dumfries, Virginia, in September of 1861, and consisted mainly of the
First Texas Infantry, the Fourth Texas Infantry, and the Fifth Texas
Infantry.[51] After intensive training first under L. T. Wigfall,[52]
and then under Hood, the Texans were baptised in fire at Elthan's
Landing, Virginia, in May of 1862. Hood's men had been ordered to
protect the Confederate retreat route from Yorktown to Richmond.
Suddenly, the Texans ran into a Union skirmish line of unknown strength
near the York River. In a running fight, the Texas units chased the
enemy for a mile and a half, taking forty prisoners. Hood, frequently
apologetic in his reports, mentioned that the density of the forests had
limited his movements to such a degree that he was unable to take more
captives.[53]
In June, Hood's Brigade was attached to Jackson's Corps. Particularly at
Gaines' Mill the unit showed promise of its future greatness. It overran
fourteen Union artillery pieces and captured an entire enemy regiment.
The cost of these gains was not light, however, as the Fourth Texas lost
all of its field grade officers and the entire brigade had five hundred
and seventy casualties. General Jackson, on later viewing the site of
the Texans' triumph, declared "the men who carried this position were
soldiers indeed!"[54]
The brigade's next major action was at the Second Battle of the Manassas
in the last days of August, 1862. On the 29th, the Texans engaged in a
counter-attack that gained six Federal colors. An advance on the
following morning cost the Union a mile and a half of ground and four
artillery guns. Although Hood had been elevated to the command of a
division, he could proudly claim that the Texans' "gallantry and
unflinching courage" were "unsurpassed within the history of the world."
In this great struggle the Fifth Texas lost seven color bearers.[55]
Then, in September, the brigade gained even greater renown at Antietam.
At one point the Texans and one other brigade were pitted against two
full Union corps. Hood described the event as "the most terrible clash
of arms, by far, that has occurred during the war. The two little giant
brigades of this [Hood's] division wrestled with this mighty force,
losing hundreds of their gallant officers and men but driving the enemy
from his position and forcing him to abandon his guns on our left."[56]
The division's rear guard action saved the Confederates from near
certain annihilation, but at the end of the Antietam campaign only a
fraction of the command could still be classed as "effectives." The
Texas Brigade lost five hundred and sixty men out of eight hundred and
fifty-four present for duty. The First Texas lost over eighty percent of
its original two hundred and twenty-six members.[57]
The next large scale action in which the brigade participated was at
Gettysburg in July of 1863. During a series of attacks against Little
Round Top Mountain, the men found that "as fast as we would break one
line of the enemy, another fresh one would present itself, the enemy
reinforcing his lines in our front from his reserves."[58] The fighting
became so heated that the First Texas ran out of ammunition and had to
resort to emptying the cartridge boxes of fallen comrades and enemy
dead. When darkness fell on July 2, members of the command piled rocks
in front of themselves to protect their forward positions on the slope
of the hill. The Texans continued to hold the right of Lee's line
throughout July 3, while Pickett's great charge against the Union center
was broken and the Southern army was bloodily repulsed. Over four
hundred of Hood's men were casualties in this great battle that marked
"the high tide of the Confederacy."[59]
Elsewhere, in the great campaigning area of the
Kentucky-Tennessee-Mississippi region, Texas regiments were likewise
prominent in military campaigns of this first half of the war. At
Shiloh, described by Grant as "the severest battle fought at the West
during the war,"[60] Texas was represented by Terry's Texas Rangers (the
Eighth Texas Cavalry), the Second Texas Infantry, and the Ninth Texas
Infantry. On April 6, 1862, the Rangers shielded the Confederate left by
scouting and blocking enemy flanking sweeps. The next day they protected
artillery positions and stood by to lead a counter-attack that never
materialized.[61] On the opposite extremity of the gray line the Second
Texas cut its way forward for two miles on the first day's fighting. It
captured an entire Union artillery battery and, in the vicinity of the
Hornet's Nest, it secured the surrender of Prentice's Sixth Union
Division. One-third of the members of the Second Texas were casualties
by the time General P. G. T. Beauregard ordered a general retreat on
April 7. Beauregard had assumed command of Confederate forces after the
death of General Albert Sidney Johnston of Texas in the afternoon of the
first day.[62] Meanwhile, for two days the Ninth Texas had spearheaded
attacks of the Second Brigade, First Division, of Bragg's Corps.[63]
At Iuka, Mississippi, in September, 1862, Whitfield's Texas Legion
(twelve dismounted companies) and the Third Texas Cavalry (dismounted)
captured a Union battery after a one hundred and fifty yard charge into
the mouths of the guns. Then, as a Federal regiment sought to flank
them, the Texans redressed their line in such a way as to force the new
challengers back for several hundred yards. So close was this combat
that a company officer of the legion killed the opposing regimental
commander with a dragoon pistol. The Texas unit lost almost one-quarter
of its men.
One month later the Second Texas Infantry gained fame at Corinth,
Mississippi. For two days their courageous commander, Colonel William P.
Rogers, led charges against the enemy's heaviest fortifications.
Finally, Rogers managed to plant his regimental flag on the wall of the
inner works. Seconds later, however, the Texans were forced to pull back
before a Union counter-thrust. In the withdrawal Rogers escaped about
twenty paces when his body was riddled by hostile fire. So brave had
been this Southern leader that the United States forces gave his body a
worthy funeral with full military honors. The Second Texas lost about
half of its men in these two days.[64]
In the December battle at Stone's River (Murfreesboro), Tennessee, a
number of Texas organizations were attached to Bragg's army. Terry's
Texas Rangers, the Fifteenth Texas Cavalry, the Tenth Texas Cavalry, the
Eleventh Texas Cavalry, the Ninth Texas Infantry, the Fourteenth Texas
Cavalry, and Douglas' Texas Battery were involved in this conflict. The
Rangers raided the enemy's rear and gained intelligence while the rest
of the Lone Star State units, except Maxey's Ninth Infantry, were
grouped together in Ector's First Brigade of Hardee's Corps. The Tenth
Texas Cavalry took three stands of enemy colors and six artillery
pieces, and the Eleventh Texas Cavalry captured three batteries and
drove the Union forces back for three miles. The remaining Texas units
participated in heavy fighting.[65]
Then, in the spring and early summer of 1863, two Texas organizations,
the Second Texas Infantry and eleven companies of Waul's Legion
particularly distinguished themselves in the defense of Vicksburg. When
Grant's men closed in on the river town, the Second Texas was charged
with safeguarding the vital Baldwin's Ferry Road approach to the
Southerners' line. This was judged to be "the assailable point of our
lines; the face of danger; the post of honor; the key of this portion of
our works of defense."[66] After preliminary probes against the Texans'
positions, on May 22 the Union threw five regiments against them.
Colonel Ashbel Smith, the Second Texas regimental commander, reported
that during this horrible struggle "my men received the enemy with a
most resolute fire; my cannon belched canisters: my men made the air
reel with yells and shouts as they saw the earth strewn with the enemy's
dead. One of the enemy's regiments staggered and was thrown into utter
confusion. Our men, too, fell thick and fast; the detachment of
cannoneers suffered particularly."[67] At times during the days'
fighting, opposing infantrymen were firing within five paces of each
other. Cotton bags that had been stacked to shelter the Confederates
were torn open by Minie balls, and as whisps of cotton floated through
the air some were ignited by the gunfire. In fact, these bits of burning
fibre had to be snuffed out by the Texans' bare hands when they
endangered the unit's ammunition supply. As the unsuccessful Union
attackers fell back that night, the Second Texas, all but broken as a
military organization, estimated that five hundred United States dead
were left on the ground before it.[68]
Beleaguered Vicksburg fell on July 4, but Colonel Smith could claim that
his unit was justifiably proud even in defeat.
The Second Texas Infantry achieved one victory--they utterly destroyed
any prestige which the enemy might have heretofore felt when the
soldiers they should encounter should be Texans.... When the Second
Texas Infantry marched through the chain of the enemy's sentinels, the
spirits of most of the men were even then at the highest pitch of
fighting valor. Released from the obligation of their parole, and arms
placed in their hands, they would have wheeled about, ready and
confident.[69]
Also noteworthy in the great Vicksburg campaign was Waul's Texas Legion,
commanded by Colonel T. N. Waul. On May 22, all but two of its companies
were defending the outskirts of the town. As an element of General S. D.
Lee's Brigade, these Texans, "Unprotected by breastworks, ... were
subject to the most galling fire, and well they sustained the noble
cause for which they fought, never relaxing, but [fighting] with
increased ardor, until the last of the enemy was prostrated or driven
from their sight." The loss was very severe, particularly so in
officers, every officer of the staff present being either killed or
seriously wounded.[70] Later, when two Alabama regiments were unable to
take a heavily defended United States flag on a close-in parapet,
General Lee assigned the task to Waul's men. They "moved to the assault,
retook the fort, drove the enemy through the breach they entered, tore
down the stand of colors still floating over the parapet, and sent them
to the colonel commanding the Legion, who immediately transmitted it,
with a note to General Lee."[71] At the time of surrender, Waul's unit
had suffered almost seven hundred casualties at Vicksburg and had lost
more officers than all the other regiments of the oversized division to
which it was attached.[72]
These were instances of but a few Texas units involved in several major
engagements. Elsewhere dozens of Lone Star State regiments were proving
their military prowess. Naturally not all units were as outstanding as
Hood's, but in the great majority of cases Texas organizations performed
in a very impressive manner.