A STORY OF TERRY'S TEXAS RANGERS

Confederate Veteran
Volume 32, Number 4, pp.137-8
April, 1924
By Mrs. Samuel Posey, Pecos, Tex.

On the stagecoach between Austin and Brenham, Tex., in March of the fateful year 1861, three delegates, returning from the secession convention, were discussing the prospects of war. Believing an invasion imminent, and to repel it the duty of every man in the South able to bear arms, they determined to offer themselves to President Davis and to set about raising troops for the field.

These men were Frank Terry, wealthy sugar planter of Fort Bend County, frank, generous, and courtly, a typical Southerner of antebellum times; Tom Lubbock, a commission merchant of Houston; and John Wharton, planter and lawyer, of Brazoria.

Terry and Lubbock hurried overland to Montgomery, Ala., but Wharton set about getting his men together and soon raised Company B of the Rangers.

In the meantime Terry and Lubbock had rushed on to Virginia just as Major General Scott received orders to push his columns on to Richmond. They reported to General Longstreet and served with distinction on his staff during the first battle of Manassas. It was Colonel Terry, with his unerring rifle, who severed the halliards and thus lowered the Federal flag floating over the courthouse, and who also secured a large Federal garrison flag which had been designed by the Yankees to unfurl over the Confederate entrenchments at Manassas.

For their gallant services during this battle both Terry and Lubbock were commissioned, with orders to recruit a regiment of skilled horsemen for immediate service. No Highland torch ever gathered Scottish clan more quickly than did this call to muster young planters, professional men, merchants, the "kid-glove gentry" of the old South. In less than thirty days one hundred men each had reported at Houston, been sworn in for as long as the war should last, and were on their way to join the long gray line amid the "God speed you" of sweethearts and wives.

At New Orleans, Terry received a letter from Albert Sidney Johnston requesting that the Rangers report to him at Bowling Green, Ky., where he was recruiting an army, and promising that while under him they should be an independent command. A vote was taken and the voice was for Kentucky. About the middle of November, Terry reported to General Johnston at Bowling Green.

Early in December Colonel Terry was ordered to the Louisville pike to join a small force of infantry under General Hindman," said Major Littlefield. "At Woodsonville, December 17, 1861, the Rangers made their first charge.

The main body of the Federal army was lying at Camp Wood on the Green River. Colonel Willich, with a regiment of German troops, had been sent across to test the strength of the Confederates, and had deployed his men behind fences, haystacks, and trees near the river. Colonel Terry had instructions from General Hindman to decoy the enemy up the hill, so that he could use his infantry and artillery with effect. Leaving General Hindman several miles is the rear, Terry came upon the Federal pickets early in the morning.

Ordering Captain Ferrell to take half the regimeat and move to the right of the enemy, he, with the other half, marched rapidly to the left. A deep railroad cut divided the two commands until they reached an open field, where, at a given signal, they charged headlong at the foe. Colonel Terry, on the left, riding at the head of his seventy-five Rangers, led them against three hundred of the Federals behind their defenses, routed, and drove them back, and fell mortally wounded

General Hardee's official report says of the Rangers: "Colonel Terry was killed in the moment of victory. His regiment deplores the loss of a brave commander, the army one of its ablest officers."

Some days after the Confederates captured a Federal scout, and among his papers was a letter which said: "TheTexasRangersareasquickaslightning. They ride like Arabs, shoot like archers at a mark, and fight like devils."

Lubbock was unanimously elected to fill Terry's place, but died of typhoid fever soon after, and John A. Wharton, captain of Company B, was made the Ranger's colonel.

General Albert Sidney Johnston now began his retreat toward Corinth, Miss., going by way of Nashville, Murfreesboro, and Shelbyville into Corinth. The two commanding officers of Terry's Texas Rangers being away on duty, shortly after we reached Corinth, I was placed in command. The battle of Shiloh followed, that bloody, terrible fight, in which many men were killed, and the South lost one of its ablest leaders in the death of Albert Sidney Johnston.

For some reason, after the battle of Shiloh our captain resigned, the first lieutenant was put in his place, and I was made lieutenant. On May 10, Captain Houston, with the Ist Kentucky Cavalry and a detachment of the Rangers, was ordered to cut off the enemy's retreat on the Elk River. We had a sharp fight near a. railroad bridge, and Captain Harris and five Rangers were killed.

I was now placed in command of my regiment with the rank of captain. On June 9, the Rangers, under the heaven born cavalryman, N. B. Forrest, were brigaded with the 4th Tennessee. Up to this time we had been an independent command, as General Johnston had promised. "Forrest now began the forward movement, and, like Stonewall Jackson, was always an unknown quantity to the enemy, cutting his line of communication to-day, and tomorrow destroying his supplies miles away. Dashing into wagon trains, capturing arms and ammunition, much-needed medicine stores, he played havoc with the blue coats.

The 4th Tennessee Regiment was commanded by Capt. Paul Anderson, and Nvas known to the army as "Paul's People," not because they had met the Lord in the highway and been converted, but because the captain always called them 'My People.' This dashing young officer had all of Forrest's scorn for tactics, and as his volunteers were from 'Lebanon in the Cedars,' he christened them 'Cedar Snags.' His morning exercises were unique in the extreme. He would call his command thus:

"Fall in, Cedar Snags!
Double up on Jim Britton!
Double up again!
March!"

During a battle you could hear him yell;

"Attention, Cedar Snags!
Line up on Jim Britton.
Charge!"

In the gray light of the summer's dawn on July 13, 1862, twelve hundred gray-coated soldiers were before Murfreesboro, Col. John Wharton, riding at the head of the Terry Rangers. Lieutenant Weston was sent from our command to capture the pickets in our front without firing a gun. This order was obeyed promptly, then, like the surge of the sea, rose the sound of the hoof beats as we galloped into Murfreesboro behind Forrest and Wharton. By some mistake, only the Rangers had followed.

Wharton, with his one hundred and twenty men, charged the infantry at the right of the town, and received a fierce repulse, in which he was slightly wounded, causing him to fall back. Forrest had charged the artillery on the left, and, on looking back, found only thirty Rangers behind him. He rushed back for his Georgians, and found himself lost in the town. Nothing daunted by this, he rode boldly up to a house and routed out a citizen, and at the point of his pistol made him mount behind him in his night clothes and pilot him to his men.

He charged back to the relief of the Rangers, and with incomparable coolness began his strategy of "bluff." Marching his men around the courthouse, he sent a flag of truce to General Crittenden with a demand for complete surrender. Thinking that the whole of Bragg's army was upon him, Crittenden surrendered, and was muchly chagrined when he found how small a force had attacked him.

The 19th of September, 1863, found us moving rapidly upon the left flank of the enemy toward Chickamauga. Rosecran's army was distributed up and down the west side of Chickamauga Valley, Chickamauga Creek separating it from the Confederates. A two-day battle followed, and at the end of the second day the Confederates moved in one resistless wave, driving the Federals back to Missionary Ridge. Night fell with a brilliant moon. Longstreet ordered Wheeler to dash forward with his cavalry between Chattanooga and the enemy. I was ordered to go back over the battle field twelve miles and take possession of a ford, which we feared a brigade of Federals would cross and get in the rear of our army. It was the most distressing ordeal of my career as a soldier to ride through that twelve miles of country. where the guns of both North and South had mowed the ground like a giant reaper. Everywhere Jay the wounded and the dying and the slain of both armies. The screams of the mangled artillery horses made the night hideous with their heart-rending appeal for relief, and the pitiful moans of those brave fellows who had fought so gallantly through that dreadful carnage made the tears flow from my eyes, and even to this day I cannot talk about it without great emotion.

To reach the ford in question, we had to draw the fire of Colonel Avery's Georgians in order to let them know we were not Federals. We reached the ford at daylight and sent out a scouting party to locate the enemy's brigade of cavalry and, just as we had anticipated, they were heading for the ford. They came up on the opposite side of Chickamauga Creek, and for an hour we skirmished back and forth, then General Wharton attacked them in the rear, capturing their wagon train, and the others fled to the hills.

Now followed the battle of Lookout Mountain. As we crossed the Tennessee River fifty miles above Chattanooga, we captured the wagon train and ammunition intended for Rosecrans'sarmy. We burned the supplies.killed what mules and horses we could not carry, and took fifteen hundred prisoners with us to McMinnville, Tenn. At Shelbyville we looted a ready-to-wear store and dressed ourselves in such style that we were considered the best-dressed regiment in the whole Confederate army.

In the fight at Bardstown, Ky., in July, the Terry Rangers had engaged in the most desperate fight of their career.

Thirty-five hundred Federal cavalry were between us and our army, but Wharton ordered us to charge them. Yelling and shooting, we rode toward them, and we made such a fierce demonstration they thought the whole Confederate army was upon them and ran like sheep. We captured seven hundred and fifty of the cavalry. Our next engagement was at Shell Mound; we had completly circled Rosecrans's army.

We particapated in the siegeof Knoxvillein December, 1863, and at the battle of Mossy Creek I received a wound which incapacitated me for further service, but it was the proudest day of my life when my commanding officer rode up and looked down upon me where I Jay and said: "I promot e you to rank of major for gallantry upon the field."

[NOTE.-Major Littlefield has passed over the river and "rests with Lee and Jackson in the shade of the trees," but this was given me verbatim a short time before his death and should be preserved as valuable data coming from one of the most renowned sons of Texas.]