Part 2

Throughout the early mobilization period Texans were anxiously observing the invasion of New Mexico by Lieutenant Colonel John R. Baylor and three hundred men of the Second Texas Rifles. As the summer of 1861 passed, the Baylor force pushed scattered Federal defenders northward along the upper Rio Grande.[31] Despite this early success, the Texas commander made it clear to leaders of the South that he would need many more soldiers to hold these gains. Southern control of the Arizona-New Mexico territory would increase the Confederate land area, it would give the new government access to rich minerals and poorly guarded Union supply dumps, it would secure western Texas from invasion, and it would give the South ownership of the Old Santa Fe Trail gateway to the Far West.[32]

To strengthen Baylor's position, Brigadier General Henry H. Sibley organized three regiments in San Antonio and proceeded to Fort Bliss in December, 1861. In the meanwhile, a deeply concerned Union War Department rushed forces from California and Colorado to bolster sagging Federal defenses in upper New Mexico. Sibley cut his way to Albuquerque and Santa Fe before these Union relief columns could arrive on the scene. During the battle at Apache Canyon, a United States detachment destroyed the Confederates' supply train. This disaster plus the intelligence the Federal relief columns were converging on him from two directions caused Sibley to order a withdrawal to southern New Mexico.[33]

This retreat quickly degenerated into a rout, however, as the sick, hungry, and hard-pressed Texans straggled towards El Paso. In all, General Sibley lost over half of his 3,000 men in the withdrawal that ended only after the Union had seized the western tip of Texas. The United States kept patrols and small garrisons in the Davis Mountain region of the state and in El Paso throughout the remaining years of the war.[34]

Union successes in Arkansas in March of 1862 again reminded Texans of the dangers they faced from invasions through that state. The Federal victory at Pea Ridge, where Confederate Brigadier General Ben McCulloch of Texas was killed, opened the way for United States troops to advance on Fayetteville.

To neutralize this threat, Governor Lubbock had several state regiments shifted to Tyler where they could act as guard forces to blunt Union thrusts.[35] Yet, as this precaution was being taken, the sudden fall of New Orleans and ever increasing United States naval activities in the Gulf caused Texans again to cast anxious eyes on their vulnerable coastline. In May, Galveston was partially abandoned under the threat of Union gunboat bombardment that never materialized.[36] Several months later Corpus Christi withstood a four day shelling by three Federal ships.[37]

October saw an overpowering flotilla of eight enemy craft secure the surrender of Galveston Island. With the loss of Galveston, Governor Lubbock sealed off the entire bay area and called for 5,000 volunteers to defend the main coastline. In issuing this call, Lubbock declared that "The crisis of the war seems to be at hand in Texas, and we must prepare to defend our homes, or be driven from them with insult and degradation, and all the horrors of rapine and violence."[38]

Some five hundred Massachusetts soldiers occupied Galveston while Union Major General N. P. Banks ordered several strong regiments to be transferred from Louisiana to this Texas toe-hold.[39] Before these reinforcements could embark for Galveston, however, Major General John B. Magruder, recently named commander of the Confederate Military District of Texas, instituted a lightening stroke to regain the island for the South. He called for volunteers from Sibley's veterans and a number of militia companies to mass at Virginia Point. Then in the early hours of January 1, 1863, two converted gunboats, the _Neptune_ and the _Bayou City_, attacked the United States fleet while Magruder, whose men had crept across the railroad bridge, attacked the Galveston wharves. Within a matter of minutes the attack ended in marked success. The Texans took three Federal ships and over three hundred and fifty prisoners. Galveston was once more under the Stars and Bars.[40]

In various actions during the first two years of the war, Texans took a number of prisoners of war. These men had to be held in custody until arrangements could be made for their exchange. Some of the prisoners were kept in "prison canyon" near Camp Verde in Kerr County. There was a pit-like gully where Union soldiers were allowed to build shacks and to get adequate exercise with little risk of escape. At one time this crude system held six hundred inmates.[41]

A much larger and better equipped prison was Camp Groce, near Hempstead. Prisoners were housed in four long rows of rough barracks that were described as "enclosed cowsheds." Because of open country to the north and much military patrol activity to the south, few prisoners attempted to escape from Camp Groce.[42]

The largest prison in the state was Camp Ford, four miles northeast of Tyler. Eventually it consisted of ten acres enclosed by a stockade of eighteen foot logs. Prisoners made dugout shelters on a hillside and roofed these "shebangs" with split logs. About 5,000 men were held in confinement there when the prison was operating at maximum capacity.[43]

The Confederate Congress, in April of 1862, passed its first conscription act. Although Texas now had fifty-five regiments formed,[44] all able-bodied young men from eighteen to thirty-five (the age limits were later repeatedly raised) would henceforth be subject to the draft.[45] Indignation against this act caused many protests to be heard in areas that were unenthusiastic about the war. Strongest anti-conscription feeling centered in Gillespie County. In fact, the German settlers near Fredericksburg went so far as to form a five hundred man Union Loyal League to defy the draft and to promote sympathetic feelings for the United States. To suppress this subversive group, Dunn's and Freer's state militia companies took control of the town, declared martial law, and gave the citizens six days in which to take an oath of loyalty to the South. Most Germans peacefully complied with this requirement, a few troublemakers were arrested for a short time, and a small number of incorrigibles quietly fled to Mexico.[46]

Occasionally pro-Union refugees would make their way to occupied New Orleans, where they could enlist in Judge E. J. Davis' First Regiment of Texas United States Volunteers. As this unit grew in size, Texas officials came to fear that it might be used in the execution of raids on the state. One embittered Houston editor, in publishing the facts on Davis' command, stated "let these refugee traitors set foot on the soil of Texas, whether as mounted or unmounted riflemen, and their blood will wash out their treason.... God grant that their carcasses may all enrich the soil their lives have cursed!"[47]

As passive signs of disloyalty continued to exist, Confederate military and state civil officials decided to cope with Unionism in an overpowering fashion. In mid-1862 martial law was declared over the entire state. Every alien and all native white males over sixteen were to register and to answer the questions of county provost marshals. People were required to have passes to cross county lines. Severe punishments were set for those who attempted to depreciate Confederate currency. Finally, those suspected of disloyalty were to be expelled from their counties--presumably to settle in some other county and conform, or else, to be driven from county to county until they left the state. Unfortunately for the proponents of this stern policy, the martial law decree was not approved by Richmond. That fall President Jefferson Davis declared it to be an unwarranted assumption of power and revoked the entire program.[48]

During the first two years of the war, the state government and the people at home diligently struggled to supply Texas regiments with the essentials of life. Prison made cloth, contributed items of clothing, and special county tax funds and bond sale receipts were forwarded to needy companies.[49] As for the care of the sick and wounded Texans, the financially embarrassed state passed heavy appropriations for the establishment and support of special hospitals for Texas casualties in various parts of the South.[50]

TEXAS UNITS FIGHTING ELSEWHERE: 1861-1863

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.

ISOLATION OF THE SOUTHWEST: 1863

Until the latter part of 1863 the Union was unable to hamper the growing cotton traffic from Texas to Mexico. According to the United States Navy Department, there were frequently several hundred ships standing off the mouth of the Rio Grande depositing goods in the Matamoros-Bagdad area and picking up Texas cotton for trans-oceanic shipment. Before the war, scarcely a half-dozen vessels visited these Mexican towns each year.[73] Because the Rio Grande was an international body of water, the Union was unable to blockade it. Foreign vessels, claiming to be trading with Mexico, could not legally be denied use of it. About the only way that this trade could be neutralized was for a Federal force to seize the Texas side of the river and to establish a patrol system to intercept all cotton haulers.[74] Most cotton for the Mexican trade was transported overland by ox wagon from agricultural regions for distances of up to five hundred miles or more. Convoys of three to fifteen ponderous wagons, well equipped with food and water, would normally take about three months to complete a round trip to the Rio Grande. Once across the river, the bales would be exchanged for blankets, shoes, powder, and chemicals used in the manufacturing and servicing of weapons of war.[75]

A small portion of Texas cotton was carried to the outside world by blockade runners. When the Union tightened its blockade against the southeastern part of the Confederacy, a number of runners shifted their bases of operation to the less closely patrolled coast of Texas. By 1863 Tampico, Vera Cruz, and Belize (British Honduras) had become rendezvous areas for cotton runners and cotton purchasers.[76] To gain maximum benefit from cargo space available in ships that were to run the blockade, screw-jacks were used to compress the bales of cotton into holds. It soon became a source of pride among stevedores to force the greatest number of bales into a given ship. In fact one unfortunate vessel was sunk when "over-ambitious bale handlers compressed the cargo through the bottom of the ship."[77]

Weapons and ammunition continued to be critically short in Texas. General Magruder, in 1863, estimated that 40,000 arms were needed to defend the Department of the Trans-Mississippi West.[78] With only a trickle of guns coming from outside sources, the state continued to urge local craftsmen to produce them. A cartridge factory was set up in the old land office building in Austin. Also in the capital city were a cap factory and a state foundry. Another cap factory, that used home-made machinery, was in Gillespie County. A limited number of firearms were fabricated in Rusk (Whitescarver and Campbell Co.) and near Tyler (Short, Biscoe and Co.) Elsewhere, tiny weapons shops were busy in Dallas County, and in the towns of Columbia, Lancaster, and Marshall.[79]

The first half of 1863 saw campaigning in the Mississippi Valley that was seriously to affect the future of Texas. United States forces sought to wrest control of the great river from the Southerners. As Grant maneuvered to take Vicksburg, northern Confederate stronghold on the great river, Banks moved through Louisiana in preparation for an onslaught against Port Hudson, lowest Mississippi River point still held by the South. To scatter and confuse enemy defenders, Banks advanced on Port Hudson in such a way as to endanger key points in Louisiana.[80] These disruptive thrusts caused many Louisiana planters to bring their slaves into Texas to escape possible capture.[81] Also, Banks' probes caused many Texas regiments to be shifted to Louisiana, where they were to assist in blocking Banks' column. Pyron's Regiment was one such Texas force. As it hurried from Galveston towards Niblett's Bluff, on the Sabine River enroute to Louisiana, a distinguished British military observer reported on the unit's appearance as it paraded by: