Terry's Texas Rangers, 8th Texas Cavalry, CSA

An Address by Lester N. Fitzhugh
Before The Houston Civil War Round Table March 21, 1958

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CONTENTS

Dedication
Preface
8th Texas Cavalry "Terry's Texas Rangers"
Setting the Record Straight
They go to Montgomery and Richmond
Terry hoists the "Stars and Bars"
Call to Arms
They get a name "Texas Rangers"
Albert Sidney Johnston Sends a wire
On to Kentucky
Pistols, rifles, shotguns - 20 different kinds
Richmond's designation "8th Texas Cavalry"
Mounted by Kentucky "Angels"
Rangers Go to War - Lose their leader
New Leaders - Lubbock & Wharton
Rangers Strike Sherman on Corinth Road
Rangers Change General Crittenden's Mind
December 1862 - the Rangers' Month
Rather be a Private in Rangers than Federal General
A $1000 Saddle and a Speech in Georgia
With Hood and then Longstreet
1864-65 - Rangers still fighting!
Rangers Keep Hacking at the Enemy
Undisciplined hellions but fighters all the way
Appendix

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To Walter Williams
The Last, but one

[Inside front Cover]
All Proceeds from the publication and sale of this manuscript by Major Lester N. Fitzhugh will be donated to Walter Williams, last surviving veteran of Hood's Texas Brigade and his family.

Houston Civivil War Round Table
Cooper R. Ragan, President

Only one thousand copies
of this booklet have been printed.

This is copy No. 461

Price $3.00

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PREFACE

The deeds of the Ghosts in Gray will live forever in the memory of man.

All are now gone, except two.

One incredibly surviving relic of that host of good men, and true, who fought a gallant foe to the bitter end is Walter Williams, now 116 years of age. He once was Private Walter Williams, Company C, 5th Texas Infantry of Hood's Texas Brigade in the Army of Northern Virginia.

The other is John Saling of Slant, Va., now 111.

They are our last living links with the War of 1861-65.

This address was delivered before the Houston Civil War Round Table 21 March, 1958, and was never intended for publication. I have consented to its being reduced to the printed word because of the worthy purpose behind its publication.

Advised by my friends of the Houston C.W.R.T. that its distribution will be for the benefit of one of the last of the brave men who fought for the Confederate States of America, I have not only consented to its publication but do so without apology for its deficiencies, hoping only that it will serve its purpose.

LESTER N. FITZHUGH

Dallas, Texas
6 April, 1958

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8th Texas Cavalry "Terry's Texas Rangers"

GENTLEMEN of the Houston Civil War Round Table, it is a special pleasure to me to be here with you tonight. Being a Civil War fan can sometimes be a lonely sort of business. Even historians tend to regard us as a peculiar breed, though for the life of me I cannot see how an expert on anything so melodramatic as the Texas Revolution could patronize us devotees of the 1861-1865 period! Be that as it may, we have nothing comparable to a Civil War Round Table in the Dallas area, and I envy you the associations of this one.

My subject this evening is the 8th Texas Cavalry, sometimes called "Terry's Texas Rangers" or, more frequently, just "The Texas Rangers." The latter designation was certainly the most common one across the Mississippi River during the days of its existence.

In some of my correspondence with your president in the past year I observed that if there ever should be an expert on the Terry Rangers, logically he should be from Houston. A generation or so back, when men still remembered 1861-1865, it was the Ross Brigade, the 3rd, 6th, 9th and 27th Texas cavalry regiments, which was remembered in Dallas. The 8th was one of those overpublicized outfits from down around Houston!

Setting the Record Straight

But, as we all know and regret, none of them were publicized enough to be remembered when their last veterans were laid away. Texans today commonly confuse the Civil War service of all Texans, several score regiments of them, with that of the three regiments which served with Hood's Brigade in Virginia. So it pleases me to set the record straight on a magnificent command associated with the Houston area, and I will be grateful to any of you who ever help do the same thing for a North Texas regiment.

In a sense the 8th Texas Cavalry was born on a stage between Austin and Brenham. In April 1861 Benjamin F. Terry, Thomas S. Lubbock and John A. Wharton were returning home from the secession convention in Austin. Discussing the prospect of war, they resolved to offer their services to the organizing Confederate government to raise a regiment of Texas cavalry.

Terry, familiarly denominated "Frank" by his contemporaries, was born in Kentucky in 1821 but was brought to Texas at an early age. During his youth he lived in Brazoria County. At outbreak of the war, he was a wealthy sugar planter in Fort Bend County.

Thomas S. Lubbock, born in 1817 in South Carolina, was a kinsman of Terry's. He had arrived in Texas in 1836 in time to participate in the Texas Revolution and was a veteran of the Santa Fe Expedition of 1841. Captured by the Mexicans, he had escaped at Mexico City, returning to Texas to participate in the Somervell punitive expedition of 1842. In 1861 he was a Houston commission merchant. His brother, Francis R. Lubbock, was prominent in Texas political affairs and within a few months would be elected governor of the state.

Wharton, born in 1828 near Nashville, Tennessee, was also brought to Texas as a child. Educated at the University of South Carolina, he married a daughter of Governor David Johnson of that state. In 1861 he was practicing law in Brazoria County and was an intimate friend of the Terry family.

They go to Montgomery and Richmond

These three resolved to proceed to Montgomery, Alabama, to lay their plan before Jefferson Davis.

As an initial digression on a line of special interest to me, Terry, Lubbock, and Wharton were three only of a rather considerable number of Texans who left for Montgomery in the spring of 1861, all bound on the same errand. That is, all were on the same errand in the sense they looked for commissions in the organizing Confederate States Army. Some, quite a few in fact, wanted to be generals. Others, including Terry and his associates, had more modest ambitions. All of them, of course, posed quite a problem to Mr. Davis, who was required to estimate the defense requirements of the new-born confederacy, to plan her conversion from a peace to war footing, and to select military leadership on no better basis than personal acquaintance and recommendations of trusted advisors.

This made for a highly political atmosphere in Montgomery during April and May 1861. And it is unfortunate that scant record is ever kept of political maneuverings to gratify the historical curiosity of later generations. A complete list of Texans in Montgomery during this period would be most interesting set against the record of initial appointments in the Confederate government and army.

Terry and Lubbock proceeded overland to Alabama. Wharton, for some reason, attempted the journey by sea and was captured by the Federal navy. Talking himself out of custody, he abandoned the effort and returned to Brazoria County, where he busied himself in raising a cavalry company.

In Montgomery Terry and Lubbock seem to have been initially unsuccessful in securing official favor for the idea of a Texas cavalry regiment. While I find no direct evidence on the point, I think it probable they were met with the officially courteous but firm explanation that the government was limited for the moment in the number of regiments it could accept, that infantry would be wanted rather than cavalry, and that cavalry would particularly not be wanted from Texas.

Whether or not this was the case, and I would be pleased to have more specific information on the matter, the two Texans were still private citizens in June when they followed the Confederate government to Richmond, Virginia.

Richmond featured the same atmosphere that had prevailed in Montgomery. The Texans found friends, and in the course of a few weeks got themselves installed as volunteer aides on the staff of Brigadier General James Longstreet. They served in these roles during First Manassas and evidently made themselves completely useful, judging from the laudatory remarks in both Longstreet's and Beauregard's reports.

Terry hoists the "Stars and Bars"

Terry in particular distinguished himself by a bit of Texas derring-do. In a scout to Fairfax Court House on the day after the battle he cut the halyard of the Federal flag over the courthouse with his "unerring rifle," later replacing the fallen colors with the Stars and Bars. This seems to have pleased both those who saw it and those who heard of it out of all proportion to its military significance, but it is impossible at this distance to determine whether it added any weight to Terry's and Lubbock's standing petition to the Confederate War Department for authority to raise a regiment.

But in Texas Lubbock's brother, Francis R., was contesting Edward Clark for governorship of the state. The Lubbocks had been Jefferson Davis supporters before the war. After First Manassas it may have been that Davis felt the two Texans met both the military and political requirements for what they sought. In any event, sometime in late July or early August they were commissioned to go to Texas to raise a cavalry regiment.

Unfortunately, the records do not include the exact instructions given Terry and Lubbock on their departure from Richmond. These may have been verbal, but if available they might shed some light on a later rather curious controversy concerning the mounting of Terry's regiment. This I will refer to in a moment in its proper place in this narrative.

Call to Arms

On 12 August 1861 Terry and Lubbock issued a call from Houston for ten companies of "mounted rangers" to constitute a regiment "for service in Virginia." Each company was to consist of "one captain, one first lieutenant, two second lieutenants, four corporals, one blacksmith, two musicians, and from sixty-four to one hundred privates." Each was to report to Houston on or before 1 September 1861. Terms of service for each man was to be "during the war unless sooner discharged," and each man was required to furnish his own arms and equipment for his horse.

It is noteworthy on the point mentioned above that Terry's plan, whatever it was, did not envision that the men of his regiment would furnish their own horses.

Ten companies assembled at Houston in "less than thirty days." These, it is apparent, had been selected by Terry and Lubbock prior to their departure from their various home counties, though there appears to have been a good deal of recruiting in and around Houston itself during the period, probably to fill out companies with less than one hundred men.

As assembled, the regiment was composed of companies from counties and with commanders indicated on the handout sheet distributed to you a few minutes ago. (See Appendix)

These were sworn into Confederate service on 7 September 1861, but for some reason Terry deferred their organization into a regiment until later.

The march eastward began almost immediately, some members of the command going to Beaumont on horseback, others by train. At Beaumont all horses were sent home, and the companies were transported down the Neches River to Sabine Lake, thence upriver to Niblett's Bluff, just above present day Orange on the Louisiana side of the Sabine. From Niblett's they were marched by foot to New Iberia, Louisiana. As companies arrived at New Iberia they were transported by boat to New Orleans, the last of them apparently arriving at the Crescent City about 30 September 1861.

This somewhat awkward approach to New Orleans was necessary, of course, by reason of the Federal blockade, which made straight water transportation to New Orleans impossible. The march to New Iberia was a sore trial to the young Texans, unaccustomed to walking and, in most cases, away from home for the first time in their lives. Company commanders "pressed" wagons and carts to carry horse furniture and individual baggage and these were also carrying a considerable number of sick before the march was over. Rain and an unseasonably early norther added to the general discomfort. Most agreed the Yankees would be an easy experience compared to such an ordeal. In this, of course, they reflected the common 1861 ignorance of the trials ahead.

They get a name - "Texas Rangers"

Either at Houston or en route to New Orleans the command took unto itself the name "Texas Rangers." This seems to have been done without any original intention of misrepresenting themselves or their origins. Somewhat to their surprise, on their arrival at New Orleans, they found themselves regarded as the Texas Rangers. Such members of the command as Captain John G. Walker, attired in buckskin and Mexican sombrero, found themselves singled out for special attention by the populace. And it was noted the Louisiana folk still used the old-fashioned word "Texican" in referring to their Trans -Sabine neighbors.

This mistaken notion concerning Terry's command and its basic origins would prove impossible to correct, assuming any serious effort ever was made to correct it. That these were Texas Rangers would be a common assumption across the Mississippi, and I am satisfied this small matter of a name had a considerable effect on the Rangers themselves, an item I will touch on a little later.

At New Orleans Colonel Terry called on Major General David E. Twiggs, Confederate commander in New Orleans who as a Federal officer in the spring had surrendered the San Antonio garrison and magazines to Ben McCulloch and irregularly organized Texas forces. Terry applied to Twiggs for an issue of tentage and mess equipment, receiving nothing for his effort but a horse laugh from Twiggs at the idea of "Texas Rangers" being burdened with such unnecessary furniture. Thus it developed early in the career of Terry's regiment that a reputation, even one based on nothing but a misunderstanding, would have its disadvantages.

Albert Sidney Johnston Sends a wire

Also at New Orleans Terry had a telegram from General Albert Sidney Johnston, commanding Confederate forces in the West with headquarters at Bowling Green, Kentucky. Johnston and Terry were old friends from the days when the general had tried his hand at building a plantation in Brazoria County. Now Johnston invited Terry to bring his regiment to him for service in Kentucky.

The matter of this diversion from the original plan to proceed to Virginia deserves some explanation. Terry, of course, was under orders to proceed to Virginia. Some Rangers at least implied in later reminiscences that Johnston and Terry simply ignored the Confederate War Department in this proposal the Texas regiment be brought to Kentucky. This, of course, was not the case. Johnston, advising Richmond of his difficulties in forming an army to defend Kentucky, had been authorized at his option to direct Terry on his arrival at New Orleans to report to Bowling Green with his regiment.

One veteran recalled that Terry assembled the regiment at New Orleans, submitted the Kentucky matter to a vote, and received unanimous assurance the Texans preferred service under Johnston. Another recalled the decision to go to Kentucky as one made arbitrarily by Johnston and received with intense dissatisfaction by the entire command. That, I would say, is about par for old veteran's memories and is illustrative of how a lot gets into Civil War history that never happened.

Whatever the Texans thought about this diversion to a new theater, there seems to have been some popular conviction at New Orleans that certain advantages would accrue to service in Kentucky. Johnston and Terry were close friends, almost like brothers, it was noted. The Rangers would benefit through a sort of military nepotism. Johnston, it was said, had promised Terry the regiment would serve as an independent one, never to be brigaded so long as Johnston lived. It would be mounted on the finest horses the Blue Grass State could furnish.

I'm rather persuaded, in spite of the dissent of one disgruntled veteran, that most of the Rangers were pleased with the idea of going to Kentucky, though I'd dislike holding Johnston and Terry guilty of all the proposed chicanery that was to be involved in this reuniting of old friends!

On to Kentucky

By 2 October 1861 they were on their way. At New Orleans they left a reasonably good name. Company commanders, with considerable difficulty, had held drinking, brawling, and assaults on the citizenry to a commendable minimum.

The trip to Bowling Green was made by train by way of Jackson and Grenada, Mississippi, Grand Junction, Tennessee, and Decatur, Alabama, thence to Nashville, where the Rangers went into temporary camp at the local fair grounds. Here they remained until about the 13th, then proceeded to Bowling Green to join Johnston's main forces.

During the ten-day stay at Nashville they were lionized by the citizens, and one Ranger admitted many years later the Nashville ladies were particularly happy to meet the "real Texas Rangers" about whom they had heard so much. Selected Rangers with borrowed mounts demonstrated feats of horsemanship, and there was much joking of the "Please take off your hat so I can see your horns" type, much of which is still more or less patiently endured when 20th Century Texans venture out of state.

Camp measles struck at Nashville, and there are other indications the brief Nashville halt was more than the unclouded interlude some of the Rangers later recalled. Men defied orders to leave camp. There was drinking and disorder in the city, and the Nashville authorities found themselves contending with disturbers of the peace who resented constabulary interference with pistol fire. Johnston evidently got some citizen encouragement in the matter of removing them from Nashville at the first opportunity.

At Bowling Green Terry and his men were welcomed by their commander, whose problems at this time are familiar to all Civil War students. They went into camp happy that the long trip was over, that they would soon receive mounts and meet the enemy who, rumor said, was only 20 or 30 miles north.

Pistols, rifles, shotguns -20 different kinds

It would be a useful digression here to mention the general appearance of the Rangers. None of them were in a uniform of any particular pattern, and most of them were in "citizen's" dress. This would be their condition throughout the war. General Johnston noted that, though better armed than most of his other regiments, the Rangers were variously equipped with pistols, rifles, and shotguns of twenty different kinds. This pained the military mind, which concerns itself with the logistical implications of ammunition diversity, but it was a condition Confederate generals would learn to accept.

Pistols began as a favorite weapon of the Rangers, and they continued in high regard throughout the war. Some of the Texans had as many as four revolvers belted about themselves. A few still lacked this essential item and bewailed the going price of fifty and sixty dollars asked for pistols at New Orleans and Nashville. Pistols, it may be noted, seem to have circulated among the Rangers throughout the war as a sort of currency, probably a far more satisfactory medium of exchange than declining Confederate paper money.

No Ranger wanted a saber, but every man of them was equipped with a Bowie knife. About the Bowling Green campfires there was much talk of tactics and weapons, and men who now accepted themselves as representatives of the Jack Hayes - Ben McCulloch school of fighting agreed that shotguns, pistols and knives suited their purpose better than the regulation carbine and saber.

At Bowling Green Terry officially organized his regiment. Though the Confederate law specifying officer elections did not apply to him and Lubbock, who had Confederate commissions, both Terry and Lubbock put themselves on the ballot. I assume they had no opposition. Some veterans said in after years that Terry had "great influence" over his men, and it may be assumed the election went off without much disagreement and with results pleasing to Terry.

The companies, previously organized at Houston, now drew for letter designations from A through K. When the Bowling Green organization was completed command and staff of the regiment was that shown in the appendix.

Richmond's designation "8th Texas Cavalry"

Upon notification of this final organization, the Richmond authorities designated it the "8th Texas Cavalry," it being eighth in the list of Texas cavalry regiments furnishing such proof of final organization. This irritated the Rangers, who argued with some accuracy that had the organization been completed at Houston they would have received a number more descriptive of the relative order of their spring to arms. Herein lies a persuasive clue to their final and complete acceptance of themselves as "Texas Rangers" and neglect ever after to refer to themselves by any other term.

The new field officer, Major Thomas Harrison, had commanded Company A of the regiment. I find his elevation over John A. Wharton, left a company commander, a bit curious. Born in Alabama in 1823, Harrison was reared in Mississippi. He came to Texas in 1843 to practice law but returned to Mississippi at outbreak of the Mexican War to enlist in Jefferson Davis' First Mississippi Rifles. Mexican War service under Davis was a valuable asset to ambitious Texans of 1861, some of whom capitalized on it, and I cannot help wondering at this point if Davis had discussed Harrison with Terry in Richmond. If, however, the original Bowling Green election failed to reward Captain John A. Wharton for his early part in Ranger history, subsequent events would repair the injustice.

Sometime during October or November the regiment was mounted. To the average Ranger the fact he was furnished a horse "by the government" was a distinction. But the actual source of these horses is somewhat of a mystery. In reporting arrival of the Rangers at Bowling Green, General Johnston casually mentioned in a letter to Judah P. Benjamin, acting Secretary of War, that for want of money he was having difficulty in securing horses for Terry's regiment, reporting the previous acquisition of only 350 for the purpose. Benjamin reacted in tones of legalistic shock, expressing the hope Johnston was not expending government funds for such an unlawful purpose. According to Benjamin, Davis had informed Terry at Richmond his regiment would be accepted in Virginia only if it furnished its own horses. The diversion to Kentucky, he said, was accompanied by an understanding at the Confederate capital the Texans were going to be mounted by a popular subscription in Tennessee.

Johnston's biographer, William Preston Johnston, indicates that Johnston's undertaking to mount Terry's regiment was an actual condition of the permission given to divert the Texans on their march to Virginia. He fails, however, to clarify the means by which the condition was met.

Mounted by Kentucky "Angels"

As all evidence is against the possibility the horses were procured by a public subscription, the inference is that Johnston either bought the horses illegally on the public account or procured them with funds for which he was not required to account. As Terry and Johnston both had close Kentucky connections, including some with wealthy citizens of the state, it seems a bare possibility one or more Kentucky "angels" may have provided all this costly horseflesh. But the mystery is more interesting than important, and I will leave it here.

Kentucky in late fall and early winter is apt to be both wet and cold, a matter of which I've had some uncomfortable experience of my own. The year 1861 was no exception in this respect. Camp sanitation among Confederates about Bowling Green was as bad as imperfect medical knowledge and lax military discipline could make it. In addition, the bringing together of men from widely scattered and rural backgrounds set up ideal conditions for epidemic outbreaks. The Rangers were scourged with the rest. Men to whom the war had so far been an unprecedented lark were sobered as comrades died with measles and respiratory infections. Regimental hospital facilities, irregularly organized and staffed, were inadequate to the requirements placed on them. The sick overflowed into private homes of Kentucky and Tennessee. Others were transported by rail to hospitals at Nashville. At hardly any time during the winter could the Texans have mustered more than half their strength for duty.

Rangers Go to War - Lose their leader

At the same time the Rangers were being introduced to the war. Small patrol actions in November involved no bloodshed and only whetted a sharp desire to get at the enemy in earnest. During these preliminary events, in a scout to Jamestown, Kentucky, Major Harrison earned the bitter contempt of the Rangers by withdrawing with two companies when confronted by a larger Federal force. The withdrawal was prompt, described by some Rangers as even more precipitous than that, and Harrison was dubbed "The Jimtown Major" in consequence. The resentment of Harrison was bitter and would get worse before relations between him and the command would improve.

The Rangers, true to Johnson's alleged promise, were retained unbrigaded as army reserve. In early December, however, they were ordered forward to join Brigadier General T. C. Hindman on the Green River, where the enemy was threatening movement. Sickness, leaves, and details had depleted Terry's' ranks for the moment to hardly more than 250 men. Lieutenant Colonel Lubbock was ill at Nashville with typhoid fever. Harrison was either ill or on detail, and Terry's second in command was his senior captain, S. C. Ferrell of Bastrop.

At Woodsonville, Kentucky, on 17 December 1861, going in advance of Hindman' s infantry the Rangers charged skirmishers of the 32nd Indiana Volunteers to engage the enemy in their first stand-up fight at shotgun range. Colonel A. Willich, the Federal commander, reported the attack in the following terms:

"With lightning speed, under infernal yelling, great numbers of Texas Rangers rushed upon our whole force. They advanced as near as 15 or 20 yards to our lines, some of them even between them, and then opened fire with rifles and revolvers."

Thus was delivered the first impetuous charge of the Texas Rangers. And it cost them dearly, for Colonel Terry was killed at the head of his troops.

Hot though it was for the few minutes it lasted, the Woodsonville fight would have amounted to very little in the minds of the Rangers set off against later actions except for the death of Terry. His untimely end deprives us of a clear picture of his military personality, but through the years comes the impression he was respected by men who had high requirements for their leaders. One veteran, mourning his loss, ventured the conviction that in Terry was lost "another Forrest and veritable Napoleon of cavalry."

New Leaders - Lubbock & Wharton

The regiment elected Lubbock to succeed Terry. Then, on Lubbock's death at Nashville on 23 January 1862, the Rangers elevated Captain John A. Wharton to the rank of colonel and command of the regiment. Captain John G. Walker of Company K was made lieutenant colonel. Walker, interesting to note, had received a bayonet wound at Woodsonville. This may have recommended his courage to the critical Rangers. In my opinion it also distinguishes him as one of the few men injured with this archaic weapon after the Eighteenth Century.

The Rangers showed their continuing displeasure with Major Harrison, their "Jimtown Major," by ignoring his natural claims to preferment.

Through the month of January 1862 the Rangers remained with Hindman's brigade in the vicinity of Cave City, being employed in small groups on reconnaissance and security missions. This period of Kentucky service was brought to an end in February after Brigadier General Felix K. Zollicoffer's Fishing Creek disaster and the fall of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson wrecked Albert Sidney Johnston's extended Kentucky-Middle Tennessee line. With the rest of the army the Texans fell back through Nashville to Mississippi.

On this miserable march, made in sleet and rain, the Rangers covered the army rear on the route from Nashville, through Shelbyville and Decatur, to Corinth. En route Major Harrison again outraged the regiment by punishing two straggling and insubordinate soldiers by placing them on the Shelbyville Pike and requiring them to "mark time" under guard. With Wharton and Walker both absent from the column, Harrison was forced to beat down what would have been called mutiny in any but Confederate service. His earlier nickname was now extended to "The Jimtown - Mark Time Major."

The regiment had some opportunity to relax at Corinth as Johnston drew his scattered forces to that place during March and early April. Recruits came from Texas, among them Clinton Terry, younger brother of their dead colonel.

Rangers Strike Sherman on Corinth Road

At the Battle of Shiloh the Texas Rangers operated initially on the left flank of the army, across Owl Creek, being dismounted and fighting as infantry during a portion of the first day. Disabled by a wound received earlier, Wharton turned the command over to Harrison on the second day, and the Rangers were between the Federals and the Confederate rear as Beauregard withdrew the injured army on the road back to Corinth.

Among the Rangers slain during the two days was Clinton Terry.

Most of you, I know, are quite familiar with the charge credited to Nathan Bedford Forrest on the Corinth Road, the one which struck Sherman's advancing infantrymen in a belt of fallen timbers and persuaded the Federals of the danger of too closely pressing the withdrawing Confederates. What is usually overlooked in the narration of this event is that Forrest's troops on this occasion, except for a few others, were the Texas Rangers. And thereby hangs a tale of Major Harrison's complete rehabilitation in the critical eyes of the Rangers.

Holding his restless men in line, determined they should not charge except together and at the critical moment, Harrison's signal was "Now, by God, follow your Jimtown - Mark Time Major!" The nickname was never used again.

Some of the Rangers downrated Forrest's part in this affair, but this seems unjust to the great cavalryman whose part in it is established from other respectable sources and who took a grave wound in the charge. The Rangers, however, seem to have had a somewhat unique attitude towards Forrest both during and after the war. As will appear in this account, they served briefly under his command on several occasions following this introduction at Shiloh. Respecting him as a competent commander, they appear to have felt that with them Forrest was in quite as good a company as they were themselves. The Rangers evidently liked to receive collective credit for exploits that tended under some leadership to be blotted up by senior commanders!

In late April and May the Rangers were on an expedition into Middle Tennessee as part of a small brigade commanded by Colonel John Adams of Kentucky as senior colonel. Adams' seniority was disputed by Wharton during this operation, a quarrel which Beauregard failed to settle by telegraph from Corinth. Wharton finished the expedition with Adams on a "cooperating" basis, refusing to consider himself under Adams' command and further refusing to assume command of the entire expedition on Adams' offer to relinquish it.

The matter was of small consequence at the moment, and the Rangers never regarded these few weeks of their service as an outstanding part of their record. It does, however, give a side of Wharton's character, though not one I will venture to criticize at this distance.

In June the Rangers were made a regiment of the brigade being organized for service under Nathan Bedford Forrest. Many veterans noted in after years this officially ended whatever "independent command" status they had enjoyed under Johnston's promise to Terry. They made no objection to Forrest as their brigadier, which was not true of some others more sensitive to the Tennessean's slave-trading background.

On 9 July 1862 Forrest and the Texans, plus one regiment of Georgians, left Chattanooga, heading across the Cumberlands to Murfreesboro. At Murfreesboro was Federal Brigadier General T. T. Crittenden and upwards of 2,000 men, these critical to the security of the Nashville-Chattanooga Railroad and Major General Don Carlos Buell's contemplated operations toward Chattanooga. Having gained small accretions of strength in route, Forrest struck this force with stunning fury in the morning of the 13th, Wharton's Texans leading in a charge which would set a pattern in shock action during the rest of the war for both them and their leader.

Wharton was wounded again in a fight which lasted well into the day, but the Federals were forced to surrender with 1,200 men and much welcome equipment, including horses for the eternally necessitous Confederate cavalrymen and a battery of guns.

Citizens of Murfreesboro had suffered badly at this first occupation by Federal forces, though they would know worse trials later. Confined in the local jail were numbers of civilians, one or two awaiting execution. Murfreesboro gratitude was lavish at the release of these Federal victims, and the Rangers were given good cause to remember this fight with something of the same pleasure the Ross Brigade would, for similar reasons, remember Van Dorn's triumph at Holly Springs, Mississippi.

Rangers Change General Crittenden's Mind

A Ranger story, told in after years, was that when General Crittenden haughtily refused Forrest's offer of parole on the grounds he could not deal with a guerrilla, Forrest turned him over to the Rangers to guard. By the Rangers he was allocated to two particularly villainous looking Texans in buckskin and sombreros who managed in an hour or two to infect him with a suspicion their purpose was to kill him. Crittenden reconsidered Forrest's status and demanded and received a parole.

Forrest's operations in Tennessee continued through July and August, nonplussing Buell with a threat which seemed to endanger even Nashville and paving the way for Bragg's invasion of Kentucky.

In September Wharton was given command of a small brigade, of which the Rangers were a part, and commanded the right wing of Wheeler's cavalry as Bragg and Buell raced in parallel columns for Kentucky. Major Harrison assumed command of the regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Walker apparently having retired by reason of ill health.

The mission of Wheeler's cavalry, broadly stated, involved securing Bragg's and obstructing Buell's advance. Wharton's brigade and the Rangers fought semi-independently during most of this movement, and they fought almost continuously. After Perryville, 7 October 1862, they were in the rear guard which covered Bragg's tedious withdrawal from the state.

And in Kentucky the Texans seem to have crossed that significant line in the life of every regiment where new soldiers become old veterans. They had secured the reputation which they would protect and bear so long as any of them lived, and they were as well known to Buell's soldiers as they were to their Confederate comrades. It was some sort of acknowledgment of their accomplishments when, in November, Wharton was promoted to brigadier general and Harrison was officially promoted colonel of the Texas Rangers.

December 1862- the Rangers' Month

December 1862 was the best month the Rangers had during the entire war. Though the Federals moved with energy after Perryville, and by now were massed about Nashville facing Bragg on the pike to Murfreesboro, the war was still new enough for the Confederates to enjoy a momentary respite and the sense of Christmas. The previous winter for the most of them had been filled with sickness or the fear of sickness. But December 1862 was different. According to one Ranger historian, the month was one "among the warm-hearted and hospitable Tennesseans. Warm firesides, square meals,- and the smiles of pretty girls made an Eden on earth awhile for the war-worn soldiers."

Braxton Bragg saw this socializing in a somewhat different light, judging from this quote from a general order he issued on the subject:

"The country for miles around our military stations is full of officers and soldiers, visiting, loitering, and marauding. Many of them quarter themselves on the people of the country, claiming as a right that they should be entertained. Such parties are not only not authorized, but are denounced as highly pernicious to the discipline and efficiency of the army, and the general calls on commanding officers and citizens to aid him in suppression of the evil."

The Rangers, one judges, were no more impressed with Bragg than the rest of the Army of Tennessee.

Towards the third week in the month the Rangers were up to a strength of 690 men, which must have made it one of the larger regiments of the army at this period of the war. Its high rate of wounded returnees, plus small but steady flow of recruits from Texas, strongly suggest the morale and reputation of the command.

During the Murfreesboro or Stone's River campaign, the Rangers were among those Confederate cavalry forces which operated with conspicuous success in the rear of the Federal forces converging on Murfreesboro. Wharton's Brigade fought independently in these actions, from 26 December until after the battle, 31 December 1862, and captured in excess of 2,000 prisoners and equipment in proportion.

Rather be a Private in Rangers than Federal General

Among Ranger captures was Federal Brigadier General A. Willich, whose regiment had slain Terry just twelve months earlier. Good humor at this capture was reflected in kind treatment to the German born Federal, who had been wounded, and Willich was quoted as saying he would prefer being a private in the Texas Rangers to a general in the Federal army.' This story probably appeared reasonable to the Rangers. In any event, they told it for the truth in later years!

Some of the Rangers were convinced they themselves had whipped Major General W. S. Rosecrans, the Federal commander, that Bragg's withdrawal from Murfreesboro was worse than unnecessary. In this, of course, they shared considerable senior opinion in the army, though they probably overestimated their own part in Rosecrans' hurt at the expense of their comrades in the infantry.

Bragg, who had troubles of his own, rightly or wrongly withdrew on 4 January 1863 to the line of the Duck River, and the Rangers fell back with him. Later in the month they were again placed under Forrest, who was ordered to overtake Wheeler and join him in a raid through Middle and West Tennessee. They caught up with Wheeler in time to participate in an ill-advised attack on the fortified post of Dover, site of Fort Donelson of unhappy memory. The Confederates were repulsed, and Ranger estimates of Wheeler suffered accordingly.

The Rangers, actually, were barely involved in the Dover fight; but one of their members, Sam Maverick of San Antonio, distinguished himself in a somewhat unusual manner. Swimming the icy Cumberland River, he reached and set fire to what was described in Ranger history as an enemy transport. Some accounts, indeed, described it as two transports. The feat seems no less commendable even conceding contemporary Federal report that what was actually burned was a barge loaded with hay!

Through the spring and early summer of 1863 the Rangers operated actively in Middle Tennessee and along the Duck River front, covering Bragg's army lying in and about Tullahoma, Shelbyville, and Wart-race. Their service was active and creditable and, from most indications, more exciting than disagreeable. During the period they wrecked two Federal trains, evidently doing it more efficiently than other Confederates given the same opportunity at other places.

Also during this period Wharton became a division commander in Wheeler's cavalry corps, and Harrison was given Wharton's brigade. Both men, however, would wait a long period for elevation to appropriate rank.

After Harrison's elevation the Rangers were commanded briefly by Lieutenant Colonel S. C. Ferrell, original commander of Company D. Ferrell's health failed in the spring or early summer, and he was succeeded by Lieutenant Colonel Gustave Cook, former commander of Company H.

Cook, it might be noted parenthetically, was a district judge here in Harris and Galveston counties after the war, a noted anti-prohibitionist, and an unsuccessful candidate for governor against James S. Hogg.

A $1000 Saddle and a Speech in Georgia

In June and July Rosecrans maneuvered Bragg out of Tennessee, all the way back to Chattanooga, and the Rangers fell back with the army. At Cave Springs, Georgia, they recruited their strength and for two months gave themselves over to such diverse occupations as barbecues, a religious revival, and organization of a Masonic lodge. The whole happy period was highlighted by a grand festival on the 5th of August in which a thoroughbred horse and one-thousand dollar saddle, all bought by popular subscription, was presented to General Wharton. During the barbecue which followed the presentation Wharton, not always tactful in speech, angered the Georgians present by referring to Tennesseans as the people for whom he would rather fight than anyone except Texans.

The barbecue was followed by a ball at nearby Rome, attended by those of the Rangers not dissuaded by currently revived religious objections, plus all of the pretty girls in North Georgia.

Rested and in good spirits, the Texans numbered 412 men as they were ordered to work in the closing days of August. Rosecrans was moving across the Cumberlands. His army began crossing the Tennessee River at Stevenson and Bridgeport, Alabama, and in the first two weeks of September the Rangers obstructed passes through the Lookout Mountains and skirmished daily with Federal troopers.

With Hood and then Longstreet

On the 19th they sideslipped behind the army to move onto the Federal left on Chickamauga Creek. On the way they met Longstreet's incoming corps of the Virginia army. Among these, of course, were the Texans of Hood's old brigade, the 1st, 4th, and 5th Texas. Old friends and kinfolk greeted each other, and the famous infantrymen of Lee's army looked with professional respect at the only command outside Hood's Brigade they considered as good as themselves.

The command appears to have operated in the vicinity of Gordon's Mill on the 19th, and on the 20th they were with the forces which followed the withdrawing Federals to Chattanooga. Neither Harrison nor Wharton filed a report of the battle, and exact details of their two-day participation are scanty.

It is interesting to note that David S. Terry, brother of the dead Frank and recently arrived from California, served in the battle as a voluntary aide to Wharton, managing in apparent Terry tradition to get himself wounded. Terry, better known in his adopted state than in Texas, would later organize his own Texas regiment then return to California after the war and eventually die at the hands of private enemies.

Following Chickamauga the Rangers were kept busy for a few days doing outpost and other cavalry duties, then were attached to Wheeler for a Tennessee raid in the Federal rear. Crossing the Tennessee River below Chattanooga on the 1st of October, they went on a destructive course to McMinnville, where they captured and burned enormous stores, then proceeded to Murfreesboro and almost to Nashville. Coming out by way of Pulaski, they crossed the Tennessee near Decatur, Alabama, on the 8th. This raid accomplished much destruction on the Federals, but it was done by continuous marching and fighting which cost men and horses and wore out both the Rangers and all other elements of Wheeler's command. Colonel Cook was wounded and temporarily disabled, as were, apparently, all other field officers of the command. Again, and unfortunately for Ranger history neither Wharton nor Harrison filed a report of the part taken in this raid by their commands.

Routine service followed for a month, then on 5 November 1883 the Texans were ordered from Ringgold, Georgia, to Athens, Tennessee, from which place on the 11th they were assigned to Brigadier General Frank Armstrong's division to support Longstreet's movement against Federal General Burnside at Knoxville.

This took the Rangers from under Wharton's command, and it involved them in the futile effort on the 29th to take Knoxville. When it was over they learned with the rest of Longstreet's men that Bragg had been whipped at Missionary Ridge on the 24th, and Sherman was between them and Georgia.

The Texans remained with Longstreet until the last of February 1864, then were ordered to remain in East Tennessee as Longstreet withdrew from about Knoxville and other cavalry returned to Georgia. They themselves withdrew to the vicinity of Dalton, Georgia, in early April, rejoining the Army of Tennessee, now under command of Joseph E. Johnston.

The East Tennessee service of the Rangers was probably the most difficult they experienced during the entire war. They went into it with worn horses and at reduced strength. The winter weather was bitter, and no concession could be made to it. Longstreet's situation was precarious, and constant demand was made on the cavalry of his corps. A Ranger historian recorded that the command crossed the Tennessee River six times during the period, and there was constant skirmishing and fighting with the aggressive Federals. Much note was taken of the Union sentiment so general among the East Tennesseans, and the story of an alleged effort to destroy the command with poisoned flour was circulated against these people regarded by the Rangers as traitors to the Southern cause.

During absence of the Rangers from the main army their old commander, John A. Wharton, had fallen into difficulty and had gone home to Texas.

Wharton, who had been a division commander for over a year, was ambitious for promotion to appropriate rank. Apparently he was somewhat impatient of official explanations of delay which were couched in terms of the excessively reduced strength of his and all other commands, not justifying the usual command grade. Finally, on 10 November 1863, he was promoted to major general, but in some respects, and this may not have been the only factor involved, his position in the Army of Tennessee and the cavalry corps had deteriorated.

Wheeler's relationship with Wharton had been occasionally marked by asperity, and the senior officer believed Wharton to be intriguing with an unnamed Texas Congressman to use Richmond influence to secure for the Texan command of the cavalry of the army. An episode at Wharton's headquarters in December 1863, involving a forged order purporting to have been issued by Wheeler, backfired on Wharton. Wharton's explanation that the order originated as a joke rather than an effort to discredit Wheeler's judgment was not accepted by the latter. Wheeler denounced Wharton as a "frontier political trickster." Wheels turned at Dalton, Richmond, and Houston, and Wharton was directed to report to Lieutenant General E. Kirby-Smith, commanding the Trans-Mississippi Department.

Wharton was destined to die 6 April 1865 at the Fannin Hotel here in Houston, shot to death by Colonel George W. Baylor.

These difficulties of Wharton's, however, now had little to do with the Rangers. Harrison's brigade was assigned to the division of Brigadier General Y. C. Hume. For a month the Texans rested at Dalton, receiving back some of the winter wounded and attempting to recruit their horse strength. Then Sherman moved in front of Rocky Face Ridge, and in early May the Rangers were ordered to the front.

1864-65 - Rangers still fighting!

Through the late spring and summer of 1864 they fought continuously. At Resaca and Cassville they functioned as cavalry. At New' Hope Church and Big Shanty they dismounted to be introduced to pickaxe and spade and the life of infantrymen in Johnston's army.

By July Sherman was before Atlanta, and Harrison's and Ross's Texas brigades were sent to Newnan, Georgia, where they met and defeated Federal General E. M. McCook, attempting to cut the railroads south of Atlanta.

The McCook affair encouraged Hood, now commanding the Army of Tennessee, and in August he directed Wheeler and his cavalry to raid in Sherman's rear. The Rangers accompanied this expedition, which went burning and destroying up the railroad through Marietta and Resaca to Dalton. Demonstrating against Chattanooga, Wheeler then headed for East Tennessee, reaching the vicinity of Knoxville before turning westward towards Nashville. But the Federals concentrated, and the Confederate cavalry was forced off into North Alabama. In September the Rangers were at Florence, from which place they groped their way back to Georgia and the army. Their raid had been destructive, but it was nullified by highly organized railway repair services available to the enemy, and in the meantime Hood had lost Atlanta.

Rangers Keep Hacking at the Enemy

In late October, following Hood's sparring with Sherman on the rail line north of Atlanta, the army started for Tennessee, and the Rangers were left with Wheeler to watch Sherman. They moved out on Sherman's flanks and van as the Federal commander began the winter and early spring move which was to take him through Georgia to the sea and north into the Carolinas.

For months the Rangers skirmished almost daily, a few desperate men hacking at an enemy now clearly beyond the powers of any Confederate force to destroy. And after nearly a century it no longer matters to assume some truth in what their enemies said of them during this campaign, that they fought Sherman's foragers and "bummers" to the knife in their effort to narrow the trail of destruction his army left through the South. Often separated into detachments, the regiment was assembled for its last charge of consequence at Bentonville, North Carolina, 19 March 1865. Here they lost wounded Colonel Cook, Lieutenant Colonel Christian, and Major Jarmon. Command was assumed by Captain J. F. (Doc) Mathews of Company K, who retained it for the few weeks left to the war.

In April the army lay at Goldsboro, North Carolina, Johnston negotiating with Sherman. After the war it was understood that Captain Mathews discussed the situation with General Hardee and received the general's encouragement to take the Rangers out, should they so desire, to join General Taylor in Louisiana.

Mathews consulted with his company commanders, affirming he felt himself too young to take the responsibility of surrendering the regiment. Each company was returned to its own commander with authority to surrender or leave as it saw fit. There is a fragmentary record only of what followed. 248 men were present for duty on the day before surrender. At the surrender, 26 May 1865, Captain Tom Weston, of Company H, commanded 90 members of the regiment to represent what remained in the field of the 8th Texas Cavalry, Terry's Texas Rangers.

These accepted their paroles and turned their faces west to follow those of their comrades already headed back to Texas.

Undisciplined hellions but fighters all the way.

In concluding this narrative it only remains for me to make a few general observations on the Texas Rangers.

The regiment was a superb one and almost unique in the army of which it was a part. It was notoriously lacking in discipline, common vice of Confederate regiments, but redeemed itself in this respect by an esprit reflected in the relatively high numbers it could field for action. In action it went aggressively, and I feel certain that the Rangers were never free of the conviction they had to conduct themselves like the Texas Rangers whose name they had, perhaps incautiously, assumed as their own.

Without conclusive evidence on the point, I feel their methods of fighting differed somewhat from the usual run of cavalry in the Army of Tennessee. Forrest's great contribution to cavalry tactics was the concept by which horsemen moved mounted and fought dismounted. The Rangers however, though they fought dismounted from time to time, seem to have favored mounted action with pistols and shotguns. Much of their service was of the small unit variety, one and two company actions under senior captains or a field officer, and there was probably no one at any time to persuade them to fight any way except their own.

On one or two occasions, particularly about Murfreesboro in the winter of 1862, they had the experience of stopping Federal cavalry charging with sabers by controlled volleys from double barreled shotguns. The results were so devastating to the enemy as to satisfy the Rangers a saber was completely useless. "What's the range of a saber?" seems to have been a common half-humorous query with which they met argument on the point.

Their relatively high "present for duty" strength throughout the war indicates, in addition to other things, that they had better success than most in keeping themselves mounted. A "wagon dog," or dismounted Ranger, was subjected to so much ridicule among them that "Company Q," common harbor of horseless and shirking cavalrymen, seems never to have developed into an institution among the Rangers. This attitude, however, undoubtedly had much to do with their bad reputation for horse stealing, and the Rangers pretty obviously took the horse of a Southern civilian with quite as much assumption of right in the matter as when they plundered the enemy.

They early developed a special reputation for efficiency at those small operations commonly lumped under the term "scouting" in 1861-1865, and they assumed a special character in the eyes of their enemies. To the Federals they became the Texas Rangers very much as they were to Confederates. In the fall of 1864 thirty Rangers were detailed under Captain A. M. Shannon as scouts for the Army of Tennessee. These, apparently, were selected for an excess of those individual qualities the Rangers valued in themselves collectively, and Shannon's Scouts became a sort of select group in what was already a corps de elite. It is unfortunate that the official record makes so little mention of Shannon's activities. Fragmentary recollections of the Rangers themselves suggest he and his men improved on whatever proper missions were assigned them to further function as avenging angels on behalf of the suffering citizens of Georgia and South Carolina.

As a final observation, the Texas Rangers seem to have been fortunate in that every leader they ever had possessed those attributes of character necessary to lead and use them. This, I think, was largely fortuitous, but it was their good fortune and may help explain their record.

The Texas Rangers were a special product of their state, their time and their war. They had some equals in the Confederate States Army and, perhaps, among their enemies.

Later generations of American soldiers would see service quite as hard as any which confronted the Rangers. And occasional commands, would, and will yet, equal them for toughness of spirit and a capacity to always hurt the enemy. But more sophisticated generations would not, and could not, exactly duplicate this band of undisciplined young hellions who combined in themselves and exemplified to the nth degree all that was great in the Confederate soldier.

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APPENDIX

8TH TEXAS CAVALRY
"Terry's Texas Rangers"

Companies mustered into Confederate service for the war at Houston, Texas, 7 Sep 61 (Note: Letter designations of companies were drawn later at Bowling Green, Kentucky):

Colonel Benjamin F. Terry
Colonel Thomas S. Lubbock
Colonel (later Maj Gen) John A. Wharton
Colonel (later Brig Gen) Thomas Harrison
Lieutenant Colonel S. C. Ferrell (original Capt, CO D)
Colonel Gustave Cook (previously Capt, CO H)
Lieutenant Colonel S. P. (Pat) Christian (previously Capt. CO K)
Major W. R. Jarmon (previously Capt, CO F)
Captain J. F. (Doc) Matthews (previously Capt, CO K)
Captain Tom Weston (Capt. CO H; commanded remnants at surrender)

Note: Above is compiled from various sources and is believed accurate so far as it goes. It omits numerous captains and some field officers promoted during the war. It omits officers replacing original staff officers. Data as to county origins of the several companies is from best available sources. All companies probably included men from many counties other than those indicated.

This booklet is reproduced here on this website by the permission of the Houston Civil War Round Table and Judge Fitzhugh's daughter, . We greatly appreciate their sharing this contribution to the Terry Ranger's memory with us.

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