Sketch of the Famous Eighth Texas Cavalry

Confederate Veteran
Vol. 5, No. 1, Page 194
May 1897

Benjamin Frank Terry and Thomas Saultus Lubbock, both Texas pioneers, after the state had severed its connection with the Federal Union, went to Virginia at the commencement of hostilities and participated in the battle of Manassas as volunteer aids on Beauregard's staff, the general commanding. Their conspicuous daring and ability at once impressed the authorities, and they were given permission to raise in Texas a regiment of rangers for service in Virginia. This mission they performed in a short time, and so anxious were the Texans to go that many were refused membership. They were mustered into service in September, 1861, for the period of the war, and started for the tented fields of Old Virginia. While en route Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, who was assigned to duty commanding the Western Army, made urgent appeals to the authorities to have the rangers assigned to duty under his command, and succeeded; and thus the rangers became a part of the Western army.

At Bowling Green, Ky., in October, 1861, the companies held an election for regimental officers, and Benjamin F. Terry was elected colonel; Thomas S. Lubbock, lieutenant-colonel; Thomas Harrison, major; Benjamin A. Botts, A. Q. M.; R. H. Simmons, A. C. S.; John M. Weston, surgeon; R. E. Hill, assistant surgeon, and M. H. Royston, adjutant. They were immediately mounted on fine Kentucky horses and assigned to advance duty in and around Bowling Green, Glasgow, and Green River, Ky. The severe winter of 1861 and arduous scout duty caused many to succumb to sickness, and not a few were called hence.

The first fight of any moment was at Woodsonville, Ky., on Green River, December 17, 1861, where the gallant Terry was killed. Shortly thereafter Lubbock was elected colonel and John A. Wharton lieutenant-colonel. After that time on to the close of the war the regiment was engaged with the army actively up to the surrender at Greensboro, N. C., at which time thirtyseven men surrendered, and the balance started to the Trans-Mississippi Department, where it was believed that the struggle would be continued.

They were engaged in the last fight made by any portion of the Western Army, at Bentonville, N. C., where they held in check Mower's Division of Sherman's Army, being posted on the extreme left of Joe Johnston's Army. In this engagement the regiment was commanded by Capt. (Doc) J. F. Mathews, of Company K, a mere boy, the senior officers being absent on account of wounds. Here Gen. Hardee's son, a member of the Rangers, was killed, a boy barely in his teens.

The Rangers participated in the following battles: Shiloh, first and second Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, Knoxville, with Longstreet in his East Tennessee campaign, Franklin, Atlanta, Rome, Dalton, Resaca, throughout Johnson's campaign from Dalton to Atlanta, Johnsonville, Bentonville, and many others.

Regimental officers at the close: Gus Cook, colonel; S. P. Christian, lieutenant-colonel; W. R. Jarmon, major; A. L. Steele, A. Q. M.; John M. Claiborn, adjutant; R. E. Hill, surgeon.

Total membership, 1,276; killed, over 300; officers killed, 21; wounded, over 600; officers wounded, 42. Promotions from the command to other commands, more than 100. Not more than 112 now living who served six months or more.

Gen. Joe Wheeler's farewell address to the Rangers:

Gallant Comrades: You have fought your fight. During four years' struggle for liberty you have exhibited courage, fortitude, and devotion. You are victors of more than two hundred sternly contested fields; you have participated in more than a thousand conflicts of arms. You are heroes, veterans, patriots. The bones of your comrades mark the battlefields on the soil of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. You have done all that human exertion could accomplish. In bidding you adieu I desire to tender my thanks for your gallantry in battle, your fortitude under suffering, and your devotion at all times to the holy cause you have done so much to maintain. I desire also to express my gratitude for the kind feeling you have seen fit to extend toward myself, and invoke upon you the blessings of our Heavenly Father, to whom we must always look in the hour of distress.

Brethren in the cause of freedom, comrades in arms, I bid you farewell.

Signed, JOSEPH WHEELER, Major-general.

Officially signed, WILLIAM A. WAILES, Acting Adjutant-general.

Twenty-nine years ago the Rangers commenced the practice of meeting annually at some point in Texas, and we are now known as the "Terry Texas Rangers." Our main object is to build a monument on the capitol grounds at Austin, Tex., and we expect soon to realize this object by erecting thereon a structure to cost something over $10,000---raised from our own membership.