After heavy losses at Gettysburg, Hood's Texas Brigade was shifted to
Tennessee in September of 1863. At Chickamauga, the First Texas, Fourth
Texas, and Fifth Texas charged through artillery and small arms fire to
push repeatedly against a determined enemy in well protected positions.
One company of the First Texas had only a single officer and no men
surviving as a result of the many days of fighting. The First and Fifth
Texas had fewer than one hundred men each who were unscratched at this
point of the campaign.[112]
In November, the Texans in Hood's Brigade marched off with Lieutenant
General James Longstreet to capture the Federal stronghold at Knoxville.
When this plan miscarried, Longstreet's army was compelled to spend a
miserable and austere winter in northeastern Tennessee. With the spring
thaws of 1864, the Texas Brigade again was shifted to the Virginia
front. Back in familiar surroundings, the battered regiments struggled
to withstand General Grant's hammering. At the Wilderness, Spotsylvania,
Cold Harbor, and other prominent Virginia engagements, the brigade
continued to rely on bravery to compensate for its lack of size.
The remaining months of the war saw the Texans manning a portion of the
Richmond line and then acting as a rear guard in April of 1865, when
Longstreet's Corps tried to retreat to Danville. As the news of the
surrender was heard, the Texans were entrenching themselves in the face
of an impending attack. The three Texas regiments had performed
remarkable feats of arms and, on a number of occasions, had been singled
out by General Lee for praise. But again the price of military fame had
been staggering--the historian of Company "M" of the First Texas made
this all too clear when he recorded that only six of the company's
original one hundred and twenty-five men were present at the
surrender.[113]
Meanwhile, after Hood's Brigade marched off towards Knoxville in late
1863, almost a dozen Texas units had remained behind to complete the
Chattanooga campaign. In Breckinridge's Corps were the Sixth Texas
Infantry, the Seventh Texas Infantry, the Tenth Texas Infantry, the
Fifteenth Texas Cavalry (dismounted), the Seventeenth Texas Cavalry, the
Eighteenth Texas Cavalry, the Twenty-Fourth Texas Cavalry, the
Twenty-Fifth Texas Cavalry, and Douglas' Texas Battery. Two other Texas
cavalry regiments, the Eighth (Terry's Texas Rangers) and the Eleventh,
were assigned to Wheeler's Cavalry Corps.
On November 24 and 25, the Texas regiments in Cleburne's Division of
Breckinridge's Corps engaged in bitter combat on Missionary Ridge. As
the center of the Confederate line was broken, Texas regiments that had
been making progress against the Union right were commanded to fall back
to Ringgold, Georgia, twenty miles away, and to make a defensive stand
there as the main Southern army pulled back through that town. On
November 26, the Texans were manning blocking positions near Ringgold.
Strenuous fighting there delayed Union advance elements until General
Braxton Bragg's main forces were safe. At one time in this rear guard
action, three Texas companies routed "an entire regiment, the
Twenty-ninth Missouri (Federal), capturing their colors and between 60
and 100 prisoners, and causing the attacking brigade to withdraw."[114]
The Texans were tendered a vote of thanks by the main army for their
protective screening of the retreat. Hiram B. Granbury, who had recently
been given command of a brigade of these Texas regiments, was promoted
to the rank of brigadier general for this action.[115]
Throughout 1864 the Texans were active in the fighting that took place
in northwestern Georgia and in the defenses of Atlanta. That fall, the
men of the Lone Star State were present when John Bell Hood assumed
command of the Army of Tennessee and instituted his winter push back
into Tennessee. At Franklin, Granbury's men were all but wiped out in a
series of unsuccessful assaults against Union positions on November 30,
Granbury being one of the killed. The next morning not a single captain
in the brigade was capable of performing duty. The remnants of the
shattered Texas regiments were almost captured at Nashville when Union
Major General George Thomas' pressure caused a break in the Southerners'
left and center. As a rout-like withdrawal commenced, the Texans on the
extreme right were not given the word to fall back. When they discovered
that the rest of the army was retreating, the Texans fell back and were
again assigned the serious task of guarding the rear of the main
force.[116]
After Hood's failure in Tennessee, command of the army was returned to
General Joseph Johnston in January, 1865. For the rest of the war the
Texans in Johnston's army fought in vain to arrest Sherman's advance
from Savannah into the Carolinas. At the time of the surrender there
were only about six hundred men in the eight regiments that composed
Granbury's old brigade. In one company of the Eighteenth Texas Cavalry
there were but five men left.[117]
Elsewhere, earlier in the war, Ross' Cavalry Brigade had engaged in
extensive raiding operations in the Alabama-Mississippi-Tennessee area.
Ross' command was composed of the Third Texas Cavalry, the Sixth Texas
Cavalry, The Ninth Texas Cavalry, and Twenty-Seventh Texas Cavalry.
After patrolling to the south of Vicksburg, the brigade spent much of
the remainder of 1864 harassing a large Union force that shifted from
the Mississippi Valley to the east, and in defending Atlanta. While
striving to delay United States advances against Atlanta, the brigade
averaged a fight a day for over three months. Late that fall, Ross was
ordered to support Hood's re-entry into Tennessee. In raids of late
November and December, Ross lost over one hundred men; yet he captured
over five times that number of prisoners, he seized nine Federal colors,
he relieved the enemy of a great amount of equipment, he destroyed two
fully loaded United States railway supply trains, and he captured almost
fifty supply wagons. Ross' Brigade ended the war again conducting patrol
actions in Mississippi.[118]
Similarly active was Terry's Texas Rangers. After suffering forty per
cent casualties in the Chickamauga-Chattanooga struggles, the Rangers so
diligently carried out raids against Federal camps that they crossed and
re-crossed the Tennessee River on six different occasions in the winter
of 1863-64. After the fall of Atlanta and the commencement of Hood's
Tennessee campaign, the Rangers remained in Georgia with Wheeler's
Cavalry Corps--the only sizable unit left to oppose Sherman's march
across Georgia. When the Union army reached Savannah and redirected its
march into the Carolinas, the Texans kept up their futile efforts to
delay the advance of the overpowering Federal forces. Finally, in April
of 1865, at Greensboro, North Carolina, the Texans learned of General
Joseph Johnston's surrender. In spite of this, a number of men agreed to
evade their captors and to flee westward in small groups to join Kirby
Smith's army in the Southwest. But by the time these men reached the
Mississippi River, news was heard of the surrender of all Confederate
forces to the west. Disappointed brigade members then realized the
hopelessness of their situation and disbanded.[119]
Texas contributed heavily to the Confederate military effort in terms of
manpower and in the area of leadership. It contributed one general,
Albert Sidney Johnston. It was the adopted home of a lieutenant general,
John Bell Hood. It furnished three major generals: S. B. Maxey, John A.
Wharton, and Tom Green. In addition there were thirty-two brigadier
generals and almost one hundred colonels.[120] As for troop units, the
Lone Star State supplied the Confederate army with forty-five regiments
of cavalry, twenty-three regiments of infantry, twelve battalions of
cavalry, four battalions of infantry, one regiment of heavy artillery,
and three light artillery batteries. Besides these units mustered into
Confederate service, Texas had many organizations that remained under
state control. A current listing of named Texas units includes thirty
artillery batteries, one artillery regiment, thirty-nine cavalry
battalions, sixty-one cavalry regiments, thirteen infantry battalions,
twenty-eight infantry regiments, and two legions.[121] These
organizations fought in all parts of the South and their operations
ranged from Maryland to Arizona and from the Potomac River to the Rio
Grande. As for heroism, the state produced such outstanding regiments as
those of Hood's Brigade and such noted individuals as Lieutenant Dick
Dowling. In all, the men of Texas did their utmost to support the
Southern cause to which they had pledged their allegiance.