Terry's Texas Rangers

Confederate Veteran
Vol. 5, No. 6, Pg. 252
June, 1897

The thirtieth annual reunion of Terry's Texas Rangers occurs in Nashville, Tenn., June 21, 1897, the day preceding the United Confederate Veteran reunion. This invitation is to all members and their friends. The invitation is signed by Baxter Smith, chairman; J. K. P. Blackburn, J. B. Allen, George B. Guild, Frank Anderson, W. G. Lillard.

J. M. Clairborne, president Survivors' Association:

Terry's Texas Rangers are frequently spoken of by the United States troops as "centaurs," "mamelukes," and "devils." In the Confederate archives the command is numbered Eighth Texas Cavalry.

Ben Franklin Terry, a Texas sugar and cotton planter, and Thomas S. Lubbock, a gentleman of wealth and high social position, left Texas in April, 1861, for the seat of war at Richmond, Va., to offer their services to the Confederacy. These gentlemen participated in the Bull Run and first Manassas battles, and exhibited so great ability that they sought and obtained the privilege of returning to Texas with authority to raise an independent command of one thousand and four men, rank and file. On the 5th day of August, 1861, a call was made for the men through a newspaper published in the city of Houston, and in thirty days eleven hundred and ninety-three men, armed and equipped, responded. From these one thousand and four were selected and sworn into the Confederate service for the war. Subsequent recruits added to the roll made a total of thirteen hundred and five. Of these, 193 were killed on the field; 305 were wounded; 31 were transferred to other branches of service as drill masters, engineers, special secret service, etc.; 196 were discharged on account of wounds and diseases; 203 died from these causes, and 38 were promoted out of the regiment to other armies, leaving at the close of the war 339 men present or accounted for. There are today 114 survivors, a majority of whom will be at their special annual reunion at Nashville, June 21, 22. They will be joined by Col. Baxter Smith's Fourth Tennessee Cavalry, the Second Georgia, Eleventh Texas, and Third Arkansas Cavalry, with whom they were brigaded under Brig.-Gen. Thomas Harrison the last year of the war.

After being sworn into service they took up the line of march overland. Reaching New Orleans, they were informed that they were not to go to Virginia. They were disappointed in this, because the First, Fourth, and Fifth Infantry had preceded them a few days. Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston had asked for and obtained them for the army he was then organizing at Bowling Green, Ky., Johnston being himself a Texan. Reaching Nashville, Tenn., they camped for a week, making friends of her citizens, as was fully tested in time of the great distress that followed. This kindness they never forgot, and at no time during the war, had volunteers been called to go into the city of Nashville, would a single man have failed to loyally respond. From Nashville they went to the front, picketing, skirmishing, scouting, and watching the advance of the enemy along Baron and Green Rivers, in Kentucky, until the 17th day of December, 1861, when they were engaged in their first pitched battle at Woodsonville, or Rowlett's Station, Ky. The battle was one of those charges that they made so often during the war, always carrying with them death and consternation to the enemy. From sickness and detached duty, only one hundred and eighty-one went into the fight, opposing Willich's German Brigade of three thousand men, behind straw ricks, forage stacks, and railway embankments. The impetuosity and the, impudence of the charge threw the Federal Germans into consternation. The loss in four minutes was seven killed and fifteen wounded. The Federal loss was one hundred and sixty-three killed and two hundred and eighteen wounded. In the fight the gallant, chivalrous Southern gentleman, Col. Terry, was killed, and the death of one hundred and sixty-three men, not even American citizens, would not cover the loss of any single one of the Rangers who fell that day. Col. Terry was killed while leading a squad of ninety-one men against an infantry hollow square at a kneel and parry by bayonet against cavalry.

Then began the retreat via Nashville, finally culminating in the battle of Shiloh, April 6-8, 1862. Gen. Johnston constituted the regiment "the eyes and ears" of the army. Thus it continued to the firing of the last gun under Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, in North Carolina, in April, 1865.

The regiment always commanded the respect and esteem of the various commanders under whom it served: Sidney Johnston, J. E. Johnston, Joseph Wheeler, Gen. Hardee, Bedford Forrest, and Frank Armstrong. The latter knew the great majority of the file of the regiment by name. They always held the post of honor in camp, on the march, and in the field. Two general officers came from their ranks; and men who, as brigadiers, commanded them were promoted for results obtained, due to the sagacity and esprit of the Rangers. For three years they were not brigaded, but were attached to divisions for specific duty, principally to teach other cavalry how to ride and how to fight and "stay with 'em." No officer, from the general commanding down to the brigade commander, that handled them ever failed to give them high tribute. This commendation came from the enemy as well. Col. John McIntyre (a classmate of mine before the war), of the Fourth Ohio Regulars, who met the Rangers in more single combats than any other, said to me under flag of truce: "You fellows have killed over seven hundred men for me. I have recruited four times." Gen. Stoneman, a distinguished Federal cavalry commander, being asked what troops he had been engaged with in front in the early morning, replied: "I don't know; either devils or Texas Rangers, from the way they rode and fought."Hundreds of tributes are of record by and from men like Bedford Forrest, John B. Hood, and Braxton Bragg.

Who were these men at home? The scions of the grandest and only pure aristocracy the world ever saw: the old-fashioned Southern gentlemen. They were of Harvard, Yale, Virginia, and Texas Military Institutes, Baylor University, and matriculates and graduates of the foremost colleges of the country. They were lawyers, doctors, preachers, merchants, planters, surveyors. Many of them had fought Indians and Mexicans, and nearly all of them had been enlisted in the state's service from the passage of the ordinance of secession until the call made by Terry for the war in Virginia.

Of those who returned, we find them carrying their names high in fame's niches: some on the Federal bench, some on the higher state judicial benches, some members of Congress, bankers,merchants, and planters. They have a history compiled, and will publish it when the monument is completed in the grounds of the State Capitol at the seat of government.

The organization of the survivors was formed at Houston December 17, 1867, and the meeting at Nashville will be the thirtieth annual reunion. At the last reunion citizens and some ladies of Nashville invited them to come to the city that they offered their lives to defend. They gladly accepted this invitation, and will be their guests on June 21 and 22.

The following is the letter of Judge Gustave Cook, the last surviving comrade of the Rangers, to Capt. J. K. P. Blackburn, of Waco, Tenn.:

Dear Blackburn: You ask for a sketch of my life to go with my picture. My dear friend, it could not possibly be of the slightest service or interest to the present or any future generation. The truth is, I never did or said anything worthy of record in either civil or military life. I have made an indifferent citizen and set no example worthy of imitation.

I was born in Alabama, but the state was not to blame. I had every means, facility, and opportunity to get an education, but failed utterly even to try. I came to Texas when a boy, without any business or any particular capacity to do anything. I worked for wages, studied a little by myself, and acquired what little smattering of education I have. Just before the war I flattered myself that I could succeed at the bar and began the study of law. I enlisted in our regiment and served out my time. By some fortuitous circumstances I became orderly sergeant, captain, and then, by the death and resignation of those above me, became regularly major. lieutenant-colonel, and finally colonel of the regiment. I could have picked out a hundred men in the ranks of our command better qualified in every respect to command the regiment, and any one of whom would have done better for the country and the men than I. I was wounded several times by the carelessness of the Yankees, for I am sure that I never failed in using every precaution and prudence to avoid getting hurt.

I came home after the war and went back to the law. By reason of personal partiality for me Gov. Coke appointed me to the district bench, which I occupied for fourteen years without having done anything worthy of note outside of the usual routine. I resigned my position a few years ago and moved from Houston, where I had lived, to San Marcos, on account of ill health, and have been starving along in pursuit of practice up to this time. I forgot to mention that I was sent from Harris and Montgomery Counties to the Thirteenth Legislature during reconstruction times, and drew my salary regularly during the session.

My picture flatters me very much now, for I am in very weak health, quite thin, and am getting very white. I have been confined to bed and room for nearly seven months. I hope to get well, but am prepared for the result, whatever it may be.

God bless my old comrades! Give them my love. I have four children and fifteen grandchildren. In this I have been moderately successful, and possibly have not lived entirely in vain.

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