"The Bloody Fifth" Vol. 1: Secession to the Suffolk Campaign

By John F. Schmutz

“A thoroughly researched account of a legendary Confederate infantry regiment that will be of deep interest to the legion of Civil War buffs.” —Richard M. McMurry, author of Two Great Rebel Armies
 
The Fifth Texas Infantry—“The Bloody Fifth”—was one of only three Texas regiments to fight with Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Much like the army in which it served, the Fifth Texas established a stellar combat record. The regiment took part in thirty-eight engagements, including nearly every significant battle in the Eastern Theater, as well as the Chickamauga, Chattanooga, and Knoxville campaigns in the Western Theater. Based upon years of archival research—complete with photos and original maps—John F. Schmutz’s “The Bloody Fifth” is the first full-length study to document this fabled regimental command.
 
“The Bloody Fifth” presents the regiment’s rich history from the secession of the Lone Star State and the organization of ten independent east and central Texas companies, through four years of arduous marching and fighting. The Fifth Texas’s battlefield exploits are legendary, from its inaugural fighting on the Virginia peninsula in early 1862 through Appomattox. But it was at Second Manassas where the regiment earned its enduring nickname by attacking and crushing the Fifth New York Zouaves.
 
Schmutz’s book, which also details the personal lives of these Texas soldiers as they struggled to survive the war some 2,000 miles from home, is a significant contribution to the growing literature of the Civil War.
 
“The most comprehensive, thoroughly researched account of the [Fifth] Texas Infantry . . . belongs in the library of every serious student of the Civil War.” —John Michael Priest, author of “Stand to It and Give Them Hell”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jul 19, 2016
• ISBN: 9781611212051

Book preview

Preface

This

book is the story of the 5th Texas Infantry Regiment of Gen. John Bell Hood’s Texas Brigade in the Civil War. Its members came from the ranches, farms, hamlets, and cities of East Texas. A number were sons of men who fought for the former republic’s independence from Mexico, while others came from families who arrived thereafter seeking a fresh start in the land of the freedom and promise purchased by that fight. Its members were farmers, lawyers, physicians, legislators, educators, businessmen, newspapermen, blacksmiths, laborers, and students. Some owned slaves; the majority did not. Many advocated secession, while others preached moderation. All shared a deep love of the Lone Star State and a belief in its paramount rights as a state over the demands of the Federal government. All took up arms once Texas voted to disengage from the Union and it became apparent such a course would not prove a peaceful one. None of these men were conscripts; all willingly volunteered to serve the Southern cause and endure the hardships it entailed.

The 5th Texas assembled at Richmond, Virginia, in September 1861. It consisted of 10 companies recruited from the counties of Harris, Colorado, Leon, Walker, Montgomery, Washington, Jefferson, Liberty, Milam, Polk, and Trinity. It was one of only three infantry units from the Lone Star State to fight in the East in what would eventually become the Army of Northern Virginia, more than 1,000 miles from loved ones and home. A significant number of them would never saw home again.

Until now, no detailed account of the 5th Texas—often referred to as The Bloody Fifth, a sobriquet earned at Second Manassas—has been written. Harold B. Simpson produced his seminal work on Hood’s Texas Brigade in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and his books remain the guiding light for general information on that outstanding unit. While several personal accounts by members of the 5th Texas exist, all are abbreviated personal memoirs or short histories of individual companies.

Many have long considered the Texas Brigade as the shock troops of General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, its fighting qualities second to none. Lee recognized the courage and grit of the Texans and thought highly of them. The Texans are always ready, he noted. On another occasion the general (speaking of all of Hood’s troops) asserted that [t]here never were such men in any army before. They will go anywhere and do anything if properly led. At the Wilderness in May 1864, when he was told that the troops arriving to turn the tide of his overwhelmed front were the Texans, a relieved Lee exclaimed, The Texans always move them! And so they did, but at a horrific cost. The Texas Brigade, arguably the most celebrated infantry brigade in the Confederate Army, was to Lee what the Old Guard was to Napoleon and the Imperial Army of France. First in the advance, the Texans were routinely used in the most difficult of circumstances and in retreat, they were always a reliable rear guard. I have never seen the backs of my Texans, Lee once said, except at the charge.

This book is the first serious attempt to thoroughly detail the history of the 5th Texas Infantry Regiment, one of the three Texas regiments of Hood’s Texas Brigade (the others being the 1st and 4th). During the four years of war, almost 20 percent of the regiment fell victim to the ubiquitous Civil War killers of diseases and their accompanying medical shortcomings. Measles, typhoid fever, pneumonia, rheumatism, tuberculosis, chronic diarrhea, and dysentery winnowed the ranks relentlessly, especially early in the conflict. Disease carried off 137 men in the first winter in Virginia alone, and another 124 were so disabled they were permanently discharged. This rate of loss slowed somewhat as the war progressed, but only because the battlefield was extracting a higher price. Lead and iron also thinned the ranks. The 5th Texas fought in 38 engagements including the Seven Days’ Battles, Second Manassas, Sharpsburg, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, and the bloody landmark battles from the Wilderness through the Petersburg campaign. Its official combat casualty rate exceeded 62 percent for the four years of fighting. At Appomattox, the 5th Texas surrendered just 12 officers and 149 men. At least 1,440 men had enlisted in the regiment during the war. For a variety of reasons, close to 81 percent fell away.

Parallels with Simpson’s earlier work are unavoidable in many cases, but the focus of this two-volume study is on the 5th Texas as opposed to the entire brigade. To the extent possible, the activities and battle experiences of the 5th Texas are related through the letters and diaries of its common soldiers. My hope is that the anecdotal tenor of this method enhances the reader’s interest and engagement with these soldiers, and assists in their understanding of the larger aspects and themes of our country’s most devastating war.

I must offer my sincere apologies to South Carolina’s Hampton Legion, the 18th Georgia and 3rd Arkansas infantry regiments. Each of these exceptional commands was at some point or another attached to the Texas Brigade, and each contributed mightily to the brigade’s story. The Georgians of the 18th, during their brief time with the Texans, had so endeared itself to the men of the Lone Star State that they often referred to their regiment as the 3rd Texas. This was even more so for the 3rd Arkansas, which fought with the Texans from November 1862, until the end of the war, rendering noble and invaluable service each step of the way. However, since my objective was not to provide a detailed history of Hood’s Brigade, but of the 5th Texas, I simply use the term Texans to describe the actions of the entire brigade (which always included at least one unit from another state).

I could not have accomplished this undertaking without the invaluable assistance of many individuals and institutions throughout the country. I must first acknowledge the foundational work of Harold B. Simpson, the trailblazer for any research project involving Hood’s Texas Brigade, whose works were invaluable in my task. My particular gratitude goes out to the staffs at: the History Research Center, Texas Heritage Museum, Hillsboro, Texas; the Pearce Civil War Collection, Navarro College, Corsicana, Texas; the Texas Confederate Museum and Collection, Nita Stewart Haley Memorial Library, Midland, Texas; and the Special Collections Library, University of Texas at San Antonio. In addition to these fine institutions, I am deeply indebted to the Gettysburg National Military Park Library and Research Center; the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, The Alamo, San Antonio, Texas; the Special Collections Department, Mitchell Memorial Library, Mississippi State University; the Texas State Library and Archives, Austin, Texas; the Newton Gresham Library, Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, Texas; the Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin; the Nesbitt Memorial Library, Columbus, Texas; and Chappell Hill Historical Society and Archives, Chappell Hill, Texas. Additionally, the staffs at the Wilson Special Collection Library, Southern Historical Collection, at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; the U. S. Army Military History Institute in Carlisle, Pennsylvania; the Virginia Historical Society, Richmond, Virginia; the South Caroliniana Library Manuscripts Collection, University of South Carolina, Columbia; and the Confederate Miscellany Collection, 1860-1865, at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, all proved to be extremely helpful in my research.

I also thank Robert Alton, Bryce Suderow, Hampton Newsome, Ken Jones, and Rick Eiserman for their valuable advice on this project. My publisher, Theodore P. Savas, managing director of Savas Beatie, reached out at the eleventh hour to National Park Ranger Joe Owens, of Blanco Texas, who knows about as much as anyone about the Texas Brigade. Joe came through with some last-minute amazing photos, for which I am appreciative. It was also Ted’s idea to produce my lengthy study in two volumes rather than arbitrarily whittle down my manuscript to some preconceived length. Thank you. Special acknowledgment is due my editor Tom Schott, whose perseverance, and preeminent abilities honed this work into its final shape. Thank you, Tom. My eternal gratitude goes out to Ted Savas, production manager Lee Merideth, and the entire Savas Beatie team for their tireless effort, dedication, and professionalism in pulling everything together and forging a finished product. Ted, Lee and gang, I could not have been in more capable hands.

And last, but far from least, my sincere thanks to my wife Marie and my family for enduring my constant absorption in the research and writing of this volume.

Chapter 1

Organization of the 5th Texas Regiment

The

election of Abraham Lincoln in November of 1860 caused great excitement throughout the South. The fever over the secession of South Carolina the following month soon thereafter spread from state to state. Every citizen was forced to align himself with the secession movement or against it: there was no middle ground. On the eve of the Civil War, Texas remained unique and untouched. The hand of civilization had as yet scarcely stroked her fair face. Only 604,000 people resided within its borders, a quarter of them black slaves. The population was a robust and vigorous race—an honest yeomanry, the sons of pioneers, the progeny of the early settlers of this vast domain. While new to the constellation of states of the Union, Texas resembled most Southern states economically, socially, and politically, and, consequently, stood largely ready to embrace the secession movement.¹

On December 3, 1860, a committee in Austin published an address to the citizens of the state calling for a convention of delegates on January 28, 1861, to determine finally the issue of secession. At the time, many Texans still preached moderation, and a fair number argued against secession. Newspapers such as the Leon Pioneer, established in 1851 by W. D. Wood in Leon County, were at the forefront of advocating moderation. Many Texans addressed their concerns in public petitions similar to one signed by 208 citizens of Milam County which provided that our rights can be better secured and maintained in the Union than out of it, Pray Legislatures to take no steps tending to disunion. As talk of secession grew, Sam Houston—the Texas Republic’s own George Washington—commenced campaigning bitterly against the idea and the individuals who had instigated the movement. Regardless, a sizable majority of voters appeared deaf to such cautionary counsel.²

Neither side had really given much thought to what a full scale civil conflict might entail. Sadly, both sides viewed the prospect of war as an exciting game. The North did not believe the South would fight, due in part to the fear of a slave insurrection. Conversely, Southerners were assured by their politicians that the [m]oney-loving North would never go to war with a source of their wealth—a ‘race of shopkeepers’ would never fight for a sentiment. If they ever did, the argument went, they would be crushed at the onset by a chivalrous, warlike South. Thus the two sections were hurried, through ignorance and blind perception, toward all the untold horrors of civil war.³

On February 1, 1861, the delegates to the secession convention of Texas met in the House of Representatives in Austin to vote whether the Lone Star State should permanently sever its ties with the Federal government in Washington. The convention president, Oran M. Roberts, had made a point of inviting Governor Sam Houston to the secession, seating him on his right in the place of honor, hoping that in witnessing the overwhelming vote for session, Houston would abandon his strong Unionist views and mount the Texas secessionist bandwagon. However, the old warrior sat through the proceedings with his arms across his chest, unmoved by the historic event unfolding before him. When James Webb Throckmorton, a close ally of Houston, rose and cast his no vote, pandemonium erupted in the halls of the Texas House. When order was finally restored, Throckmorton rose again and once more addressed the chair, proclaiming, Mr. President, when the rabble hiss, well may patriots tremble. As the votes were taken, Thomas Jefferson Chambers, following his vote for secession, denounced Houston as a traitor and had to be forcibly restrained by another delegate.⁴

While Throckmorton’s extraordinary challenge was probably the most noteworthy declaration of the convention, his was an overwhelmingly minority viewpoint; members voted 166-8 in favor of secession from the Union. The convention adjourned on February 4 to reassemble on March 2, the twenty-fifth anniversary of Texas’s independence. On February 23, the electorate of Texas ratified the ordinance of secession by a more than three-to-one majority—46,153 to 14,747. The popular vote was officially proclaimed on March 4 when the convention formally reconvened in Austin.

Immediately following word of the vote, the old bell on the hill was violently rung, thus proclaiming the glad tidings to the world that Texas had left the Federal Union. Later that night, the streets were thronged with people, men wearing red and white cockades on the lapels of their coats, and women wearing them on their bosoms. The town was full of song and laughter, for that was the beginning. The time for tears had not yet come. To symbolize this new independence of the state, a Lone Star flag, which had been presented to the convention by the women of Travis County, was unfurled on the dome of the capitol amid the loud booming of artillery.⁵

The Lone Star State’s separate independence was short lived, however. The following day, March 5, the convention approved an ordinance binding Texas to the newly formed Confederate States of America. Unbeknownst to them at the time, the Confederate Provisional Congress had already independently admitted the Lone Star State on March 1. Texas thus became the seventh star in the Confederate constellation, which ultimately totaled eleven.⁶

Following its exodus from the Union, Texas faced a unique problem relative to its fellow Southern states. Currently garrisoned within its borders, and known as the Department of Texas, was a sizeable percentage of the United States Army—2,445 officers and men, assigned to the 1st, 3rd, and 8th Infantry Regiments, the 1st and 2nd Artillery Regiments, and the 2nd Cavalry Regiment. At that time, the regular Army of the United States in toto numbered approximately 16,400 men. Thus, upwards of 15 percent of the Union’s entire military might was stationed in Texas, manning some 20 permanent and semi-permanent camps and forts, a majority located on the perimeter of the western frontier and along the Rio Grande.

The necessary removal of these Federal garrisons created yet another problem, however. The state of Texas would now be responsible for guarding a thousand mile frontier constantly menaced by Mexican renegades and hostile Indians. Even with federal troops along the Rio Grande, Juan Cortina, the Robin Hood of Mexico, raided with impunity along that river. Apaches and Comanches posed a greater threat: terrorizing the western frontier as they moved through the line of forts in search of beef, blood and booty.⁷

While this frontier defense issue continued to perplex authorities, the state was fortunate in the bloodless manner in which the Federal military eased out of the state. The Department of Texas, with headquarters in San Antonio, was then commanded by Bvt. Maj. Gen. David Emanuel Twiggs, a veteran of both the Second Seminole and Mexican wars. Twiggs, a Georgian and a secessionist, held the key to Federal military resistance in Texas. In December 1860, he cut short an extended sick leave in Louisiana to resume control of the military department that, in his absence, had been under the command of Col. Robert E. Lee. Lee, considered a Unionist at the time, was soon thereafter dispatched to Fort Mason, some 150 miles northwest of San Antonio. With Lee gone, and Twiggs again in command, the Texas secessionists expected little resistance to their planned takeover of the Federal garrisons.

The act of secession placed even more pressure on the extant Texas militia. The committee on public safety, appointed during the first session of the Texas Secession Convention, was charged with overseeing the convention’s interests during the period of adjournment. But it actually assumed control of the state between the two sessions of the Convention. The committee designated Ben McCulloch, Texas Ranger and Mexican war hero, as the interim commander of existing Texas troops with the rank of colonel. McCulloch was charged with seizing all Federal property at San Antonio. His force (which soon disbanded) included a volunteer battery from Gonzales, companies from Lockhart, Seguin, and San Antonio, as well as six companies or castles of the Knights of the Golden Circle, a southern rights society founded in 1854. On February 16, 1861, these armed troops appeared at strategic points in San Antonio to force the surrender of the federal Department of Texas headquarters near the city center. Surrounding the headquarters complex, they demanded that Twiggs relinquish the buildings and arsenal. After delaying briefly over terms, Twiggs surrendered not only the San Antonio post, but also all other Federal military establishments within the state.⁸

Twiggs’ Surrender. The Alamo, San Antonio, Texas, Late Headquarters of General Twiggs. Harper’s Weekly, March 23, 1861

To assist McCulloch in taking control of the several Federal garrisons, the committee on public safety appointed Henry E. McCulloch, Ben’s brother, and Texas Ranger John S. Ford as colonels in the Texas State Army. Henry McCulloch was responsible for neutralizing the forts in north Texas, and Ford those posts in south Texas and along the Rio Grande. By April 25, 1861, all the Federal garrisons in the state had either been abandoned or had otherwise fallen into Texas (Confederate) hands. Without a shot being fired, Texas had removed close to 2,500 Federal troops, acquired military stores and supplies worth some $1.5 to $3 million, and seized $23,472 in cash.

On February 15, Twiggs was relieved of command and replaced by Col. Charles A. Waite, commanding the 1st U.S. Infantry Regiment at Camp Verde. Twiggs was subsequently cashiered from the U.S. army for treachery to the flag of his country, and almost immediately commissioned a major general by the Confederate government. Some have argued that had a more dedicated Federal officer been in command at the time, such as Robert E. Lee, matters might have progressed much differently and the war might as easily have started in Texas, rather than South Carolina.⁹

The Federal government contemplated military intervention in Texas on several occasions in early 1861. President Lincoln twice proposed sending Federal troops to the state under the command of then-governor Sam Houston. Tempted to accept Lincoln’s second offer made in mid-March, Houston, after consulting with Unionist leaders, decided against it. But he added, that if he had been twenty years younger, he would have accepted the proposition.¹⁰

Houston, following his ouster as governor, declined yet a third offer of Federal assistance from Gen. Winfield Scott, commanding general of the U.S. army. Scott had ordered Colonel Waite, then supervising the exit of Federal troops, to concentrate 2,000 men near Indianola and prepare a defensive perimeter there. But this intervention was contingent upon Houston’s raising a substantial force of Texas unionists. On March 29, however, Houston declined Scott’s proposal, suggesting that all Federal forces instead be removed as soon as possible to prevent open conflict within the state. Houston cherished the Union, but once Texas had cast its lot for secession, his loyalty remained with her. Nonetheless, the convention had stripped him of his office when he refused to take the Confederate oath on March 16, and Lieutenant Governor Edwin Clark took his place as governor. Texas thus prepared to enter its third war in less than three decades.¹¹

Once it was apparent the U.S. government would not allow its Southern states to leave the Union in peace, the Confederates began earnest preparations for war. Obviously raising an army became the first item on their agenda. An act of March 6, 1861, authorized Davis to seek and accept the service of up to 100,000 volunteers. On April 8, the Confederate government requested Governor Clark to provide 3,000 troops, and eight days later, an additional 5,000. Both of these levies were primarily for Texas coastal defenses, and it was Clark’s responsibility to see that the volunteers were adequately equipped, drilled, and held in instant readiness to meet any requisition from the Confederate war department. On May 8, the provisional congress gave Davis further authority to raise troops without any limitation on their numbers as well as power to appoint the field and staff officers for the units so organized. Three days later Davis was further authorized to bypass state governments and receive into service such companies, battalions or regiments, either mounted or on foot that offered themselves directly to Confederate service.¹²

Under these laws, Secretary of War Leroy P. Walker requested yet a third levy on Texas for 2,000 more infantrymen on June 30. These troops would serve as part of a reserved army corps of 30,000 men, to be called upon when needed. Governor Clark, to give the more populous counties adequate representation, divided the state into districts and subdistricts. Each subdistrict, comprised of three counties, was to furnish 100 men and four officers each. The state militia would be divided into 16 divisions and 32 brigades, corresponding to the state’s senatorial districts. Walker also suggested that Clark establish at least two camps of instruction at accessible points in the state where he could order companies to rendezvous for training and subsequent mustering into the Confederate service. Eventually, Texas had 11 such camps of instruction at various points within the state. Beginning July 2, each camp had to accommodate up to 1,000 recruits for as many as 40 days, with food to be supplied by voluntary subscription from the local citizenry.¹³

The authorities in Richmond initially refused to accept Texas troops for the fighting in Virginia, deeming it probable they would be needed for home defense. Besides, as Robert Campbell of Company A reasoned much later, the South’s victory at First Manassas had made [t]he whole country proud and defiant. But it had also delusively lulled [it] into the belief that a few weeks would see us free and independent with little actual war—fallacious reasoning.¹⁴

Consequently, Texas politicians were dispatched to Richmond to lobby the congress to intercede with the war department’s position. John Marshall, editor of the Texas State Gazette, a secessionist journal, helped convince his old friend, Jeff Davis, to institute the June 30 levy and the subsequent ordering of Texas companies into service in Virginia. Marshall wanted to ensure his state’s presence in the East, where the action would seemingly be the heaviest.

Following this appeal by the Texas politicians, Richmond grudgingly allowed the state to send 20 companies to Virginia, enlisted for the duration of the war, under the condition that the Confederate government itself appoint the field grade officers. The 20 companies ultimately constituting the 4th and 5th Texas were raised under this June 30 levy. The decision was met with considerable enthusiasm throughout the Confederacy, since Texans had a reputation as fighters. The citizens of Richmond looked upon the Texas Ranger (as they referred to all Texans) as a person who don’t care for anything. Most Northerners, they thought, would as soon fight devils … as Texans.¹⁵

Following Texas’s secession, and particularly after the Confederacy’s call for troops in April 1861, many populated counties formed local volunteer military companies. After Fort Sumter, war fever ran torrid, and Texas counties competed to support the men volunteering for service outside of the state. Many counties appropriated money for arms and ammunition, as well as military clothing. Often local citizens raised additional funds to help outfit the companies. While funds to acquire arms, ammunition, equipment and uniforms were there, procuring these items in sufficient quantity and quality proved more problematic. Often, local Texas artisans improvised from whatever materials and means were readily available to deliver the needed supplies. Many men left Texas with homemade equipment, while many others left without any equipment at all.¹⁶

The various military companies which ultimately coalesced to form Hood’s Texas Brigade were originally organized in towns and counties in east and central Texas. Those ultimately constituting the 5th Texas were largely mustered from the east-central part of the state. While formation of these local military drill teams and companies was hardly a new concept, Lincoln’s election greatly accelerated it. Fervor for military preparedness grew rapidly with secessionist sentiment. The bulk of local military companies were organized during the winter of 1860-61 and the following spring. A few succeeded older established militia units, such as the Bayou City Guards (Company A, 5th Texas), an offshoot of the Washington Light Guards, organized in Houston in the early 1850s as a crack drill team.¹⁷

These local military units—often young men from the finer families of the community drilling and strutting in their fancy uniforms to catch the eye of the village belle and to satisfy the martial ego of the frontier swain—were often organized or sponsored by local politicians or professional men with little or no military training. But they did serve a military purpose: protecting the state, along with the string of Federal forts in west Texas and along the Rio Grande, from Indian attacks and slave uprisings.

Clothing her volunteers proved a heavy burden for Texas. Without a large-scale domestic textile industry, the state acquired large stocks of imported cloth to fashion into uniforms, but distribution proved problematic. So Clark urged Texas companies to come prepared with clothing for its soldiers. By September, each county had been made responsible for acquiring cloth through private societies, and clothing depots were established in eleven centers. Clothing remained a constant issue for all Texas troops fighting in Virginia throughout the war, however.

Once the war started, trade ceased, and the supply of imported goods diminished radically. Locally-manufactured goods became a necessity. From that time to the end of the war a person traveling past houses on the road could hear the sound of the spinning-wheel and the loom at which the women were at work to supply clothing for their families and for their husbands and sons in the army. The lack of military clothing created cottage industries of local women who worked tirelessly to clothe their sons, brothers and husbands. The women of Leon County, for example, made many pieces of clothing and knitted hundreds of pairs of socks for their soldiers. The Milam County town of Cameron’s two sewing machines were both moved to the Baptist Church where the local women gathered daily to sew for the soldiers. The resultant group turned out the uniforms for a number of Confederate companies from Cameron.¹⁸

Thus, while some companies had uniforms before they left home, in many instances they were of poor quality and nondescript color. Numerous county governments and private citizens readily allocated money to clothe the volunteers, but quality gray cloth and tailors to fashion uniforms could be found only in large communities. Gray hunting shirts of various patterns seem to have been popular with the companies that became the 5th Texas. The Bayou City Guards later adopted a light gray double-breasted shirt with falling collar and plastron front secured by two rows of small buttons, according to B. Pugh Fuller, its former lieutenant. The Felder cousins of the Dixie Blues wore single-breasted frock coats and pants of unmatched shades of gray wool when mustered into service on August 8, 1861. Their headgear was also different—Rufus King Felder had a 1861 pattern forage cap, while Miers Martindale Felder sported a 1851 pattern dress cap with the stiffening removed. Many units wore dark blue sack coats and trousers confiscated from the Federal military inventory. Companies such as the Waverly Confederates (later Company D), for example, wore the spoils taken from the United States army at the capture of Fort Bliss when they passed through Augusta, Georgia, en route to Virginia on September 7, 1861. The uniform situation at the advent of the war can perhaps best be described by the advice given to John W. Stevens of the Polk Rifles (later Company H) upon his enlistment: get just what suited his fancy and have it made up in any style he chose—jes’ so it was a uniform.¹⁹

Far more serious than uniform issues was the dire shortage of modern firearms. Although the state had seized over 2,500 Springfield rifled muskets and revolvers from the Federal forts, and had arranged to buy some cases of Colt revolvers in the North before the firing on Fort Sumter, this hardly met the needs of its burgeoning military. While procurement from overseas, some in-state manufacturing, and modification of outdated muskets eventually eased much of this shortage, these solutions came later. A number of Texas companies headed East either empty-handed, hoping to secure weapons along the way, or carrying antiquated firearms from home.²⁰

Rufus King Felder and Miers Felder Historical Research Center, Texas Heritage Museum, Hillsboro, Texas

Another glaring deficiency plaguing the volunteer companies was lack of professional training. Most of the chosen officers were equally unschooled in military science and close-order drill. Luckily, the Texas companies arriving in Virginia saw little or no action until the spring of 1862, so they had ample opportunity to absorb quality drill instruction, marksmanship, and lessons in practical soldiering. To provide sufficient training for companies organized that spring of 1861, Clark had established formal camps of instruction at several locations. However, most of the companies going to Virginia had received little or no formal military instruction before leaving, perhaps one or two weeks at a local rendezvous point engaged in rudimentary drills, athletic events, and socializing.²¹

Most volunteer companies in the Confederate army sported an appropriate nickname. Following the election of officers, naming the company was usually the next order of business. While the company might still be unshod, dressed in rags, armed with antiquated weapons, and oblivious to marching in step, the name designation process assumed paramount importance. Each of the Texas companies ultimately comprising the 5th Texas of Hood’s Texas Brigade had a locally-designated or descriptive name, selected by a vote of the company members with no common theme. In some instances, the names celebrated a geographic area, their elected company commanders, or a public figure. In others, they typified military prowess or the color of their uniforms. Some companies ended up with more than one nickname, apparently resulting from a split vote during the selection process. For example, Capt. King Bryan’s company of the 5th Texas from Washington County had two names—the Liberty Invincibles and the Company Invincibles.²²

One company poet, so enamored with these exotic nicknames, was inspired to write:

Our country calls for volunteers,

And Texas boys reply with cheers,

The Henderson Guards and Leon Hunters,

Friends in peace—in war like panthers.

The Tom Green Rifles and Lone Star Guards,

In a cause that is just, nothing retards;

The Echo Company and the brave Five Shooters,

Will deal out death to all free borders.

The Northern vandals will learn to their sorrow,

Of the Porter Guards and the Rifles of Navarro

The Mustang Grays O, they never fight for bounty,

Nor do the other grays – those from Milam County.

The Liberty Invincibles and the Hardeman Texans

Can wallop ten to one, whether Yanks or Mexicans;

From the Waverly Confederates and the Dixie Blues,

And the Bayou City Guards you can expect good news.²³

Regular meetings of these newly formed volunteer units went on for weeks, and the drilling quickly grew monotonous. Awaiting word to join in the fighting got frustrating. Our country was bleeding at every pore, or at least trying to bleed, John W. Stevens of Company K later recalled, and here we were letting the opportunity pass to take a hand in the bleeding. Finally, the call came for two complete Texas regiments for service in Virginia. Almost all the levied companies scrambled for the honor of being selected for such service to perpetuate and spread Texas’s reputation for military prowess.²⁴

Bidding goodbye to loved ones was uniformly one of the most difficult travails a volunteer faced as he prepared to head east. Stevens recounted one of the most poignant of such farewells. Although from Liberty County, Stevens led a small group of men over to adjacent Polk County to join Ike Turner’s Polk County Flying Artillery (Company K). As the time approached for his departure, he began counting the hours, reflecting only two more hours with my precious wife and little ones—one an infant of three months. Was I bidding them a final farewell? As he left, he:

embraced his loved ones fervently… imprinting a kiss that [could] not be expressed by words … and … slowly rode away. As I reached the last turn in the road, from which my home could be seen, I turned my head and took a last look at my dear wife with her infant in her arms and my oldest of three years standing by her side…. I am sure it helped me to be a better soldier.

Stevens later wrote about another even more difficult responsibility he encountered. It was his duty to confront the mothers and sisters of his men on his return home to tell them all about it, how they died, how they fought, and that in some cases I buried them on the field where they fell, [which] was the saddest task this old soldier ever performed.²⁵

While sadness prevailed in these departures of the various companies destined for Virginia, most partings were not without humor and gaiety. Just before leaving Houston for Camp Van Dorn, the Bayou City Guards, under Capt. B. A. Botts, was presented with a box of kid gloves, enough for the entire company. They were a gift from a prominent Houston banker who desired the locals to be the class of the Texas companies traveling to Richmond. He must later have been quite surprised to see the company march through town on their way to Harrisburg with the gloves stuck on their bayonets. Thereafter, Botts’s company was also known as the Kid Glove Gentry, and their fellow Texans never let them forget the incident.²⁶

The 20 companies raised under the June levy specifically for service in Virginia were originally scheduled to rendezvous at Brenham, Texas, and then move east as a unit in the late summer of 1861. But before the companies had left home, however, the staging area was changed to Camp Van Dorn,—for the commander of the Confederate Department of Texas, Brig. Gen. Earl Van Dorn—in Harrisburg, a small village on Buffalo Bayou, a few miles east of Houston.

As the various companies soon to comprise the 5th Texas gathered in various locations preparing to depart for the battlefields, their local communities wined, dined, serenaded, and presented them with flags. Friends, relatives, and patriotic townspeople all paid homage to the local Heroes—men who had volunteered for service in Virginia where the heaviest fighting of the war was predicted. Patriotic speeches that damned the cowardly Yankees and extoled the invincibility of Southern chivalry dominated these civic ceremonies.²⁷

Flag presentations, usually of the Confederate Stars and Bars, were common and generally the final solemn act of the farewell drama. Occasionally, a company would receive the Lone Star flag. Presentation flags in 1861 were usually homemade and presented to a company member of the presenter’s choice, normally an acquaintance. The company captain was often designated as the recipient. Donor and the receiver exchanged patriotic pledges to the strains of martial airs, and the new flag fluttered in the breeze as the company marched away. Isaac N. M. Ike Turner, of the Polk County Flying Artillery, soon to become the youngest of the original officers of the Texas Brigade, received such a flag at Livingston just before his company’s departure for Harrisburg. Accepting the banner from a fair damsel of Polk County, he promised the ladies that when his men returned, he would bring each [of them back] a hero.²⁸

Texas communities along the route to Camp Van Dorn displayed the same kind of home town enthusiasm for these volunteer companies. The first few miles of marching were commonly slow, informal, and enthusiastic. While the older volunteers realized the deadly seriousness of the task they were undertaking, many younger men considered the activity a lark and a social outing. Citizens along the route to Harrisburg outdid one another catering to the men. Indeed, enthusiasm for the Cause and for its soldiers venturing to remote places to defend it ran sky high that bright, optimistic summer of 1861.²⁹

Meanwhile, the original eight companies of the 1st Texas had already made their way to Virginia in small groups during spring and early summer of 1861 without any order or planning. As Joe Joskins³⁰ of the Bayou City Guards (later Company A) later put it, these men went to Virginia on their own hook. The remaining four companies eventually assigned to the 1st Texas made their way to Virginia as individual units in the summer of 1861 and spring of 1862.³¹ On the other hand, the companies which later comprised the 4th and 5th Texas, following an organized plan of rendezvousing and routing, experienced a protracted journey to Virginia. These twenty companies, raised under the June 30 levy specifically for service in Virginia, first reported to a temporary camp facility at Harrisburg. Companies scheduled for Virginia started arriving at Camp Van Dorn in late July; by mid-August, 16 companies had arrived and prepared to proceed east.³²

The selection of Harrisburg as the staging area was controversial. Many reported the camp in a low miasmic, unhealthy region where many men contracted disease from which they never recovered. The Houston Telegraph reported the men in camp ill-fed and suffering from a lack of adequate facilities. Once in camp, however, the companies quickly settled down to the business of soldiering. On July 30, many men of Echo Company (ultimately Company B), at Camp Van Dorn, where it was encamped with five other companies, fell sick with chills and fever. As a result, the regiment’s first mortality was Pvt. Andrew Legg, who fell ill and returned to his father’s home where he died on August 25. Further, due to illness, Lt. Andrew Campbell Burford was replaced with L. Edward Collier by the end of the month.³³

The companies that became the 5th Texas received another blow when they learned that no more twelve months’ men would be received from Texas, as had been the case with the first six companies of what ultimately became the 1st Texas. This decision caused considerable dissention because the men, while enthusiastic about fighting the hated Yankees, did not feel comfortable being gone from their farms and plantations for a longer duration.

The steady curriculum at Camp Van Dorn called for close order drill and the manual of arms. While sickness and summer rains hampered progress, company commanders vied to have the best drilled and sharpest company, drilling their men whenever the weather permitted. With Van Dorn, a West Point graduate, expected to arrive any day, the captains anticipated his thorough inspection and strove to hone their units to look their best.³⁴

While some judged the location of Camp Van Dorn poorly chosen, the majority of the rank and file seemed largely content with it. Sergeant Benjamin Marshall Baker of Echo Company described the camp in late July and early August as pleasantly situated, with good water and plenty of wood being convenient. The pine trees, he said, reminded him of his home in East Texas. The camp sat on beautiful, sloping ground covered with trees and bordered by a fine grassy prairie near the east side of Oyster Creek. About 1,000 men were there, he said, with some sickness in camp. His own company had the requisite number of men if they were all upon the ground; but some have not yet arrived. And some other companies seemed better outfitted than the men from Colorado County. When I reflect that Colorado stands among the foremost in wealth, Baker wrote, I feel sorry that we received so little encouragement. Nonetheless, all the men were all in good spirits as they became not unwilling servants of ‘Uncle Jeff.’³⁵

Benjamin Marshall Baker Texas Heritage Museum

Drill was not the only required activity in camp. Cooking and washing were, too. But available cooking utensils at the camp were scarce. Provided by the Confederate government, these things had not yet arrived. The soldiers therefore had to cook in cans, pans, and other miscellaneous, available vessels. But after a period of trial and error, many men became quite adept in the culinary arts. Soldiering is not so easy, Baker confessed. Washing clothes, for example, is an operation which rather takes the self-conceit out of the subscriber, but I am getting along, and with more experience, will probably acquire such proficiency as to set up (if Black Republican bullets should spare me) a ‘Washing and Ironing Establishment.’³⁶

The men quickly tired of drills and the monotony of camp life at Harrisburg. They were anxious to move on to Virginia and join the fighting, but they still lacked necessities. As Rufus King Felder of Company E told his mother on August 5: The camp is all a stir. No one knows what we will do. We have not been mustered into the service yet…. If you have a chance I wish you would send me my oil cloth & tell I. to send my pistol & all the buckshot that wil fit in it & also my flask.³⁷

Van Dorn had been directed to arm and equip the volunteer companies as rapidly as they arrived at the staging area, and to then forward them on to Virginia by the fastest practical route. However, he continued to procrastinate, refusing to even visit the camp which bore his name. His popularity, never high at Buffalo Bayou, soon sank to new lows. While the Texans had volunteered to fight the invaders in Virginia, the general seemed to be actively blocking their way. Despite Van Dorn’s reports that the Texas troops were as yet inadequately equipped to be moved, the war department soon demanded that he obey his orders immediately as soldiers were sorely needed in Virginia. Rufus Felder reported September 12 on the men’s continuing disgruntlement at being encamped three miles from the city, without guns or marching orders. Moreover, they worried that Galveston might soon be attacked by the Federals.³⁸

On August 1, Baker expressed his frustration with the continued delays in setting out for Virginia, and especially the failure of recruits for the Colorado County company to show up.

We were the third company on the ground and we have stood by and seen six companies mustered in who arrived after we did, because we lacked a few men, and now they have now raised the minimum number to seventy-eight. I hope no citizen of Colorado county will ever gas about war again; if any one should, just tell him to come and fill this company, or – dry up! If our company is not filled, some of the men will return and join other companies already mustered in, of which number I am one.³⁹

Two days later, Baker ended on the same theme: We would be glad if old Colorado would send some more of the ‘boys,’ so we can have a full company. Then on August 10, he reported that the first division of Texas Volunteers would start for Virginia next Tuesday, with the second to follow soon thereafter. The ‘Echo’ is in the third division, he continued, and will not leave as soon as the first and second divisions by some days. The boys are all getting tired of the suspense of living in camp on uncertainty. In good health and fine spirits, they were ready and anxious to go to Virginia. The last four companies to leave were the Texas Aids, Milam County Grays, Texas Polk Rifles, and Ike Turner’s Polk County Flying Artillery. These four companies, which ultimately all became part of the 5th Texas Regiment, had arrived late at Camp Van Dorn, marching in just as the last of the first 16 companies departed the camp. They soon followed along the same route east.⁴⁰

Under one pretense or another, Van Dorn kept the men at camp along Buffalo Bayou for weeks, while he remonstrated against orders to move on to Virginia. Finally, a messenger arrived with a verbal dispatch for the general to obey his orders. This he did, entering into a contract with one J. T. Ward to transport troops from Texas across the state of Louisiana, a crossing delayed until completion of vast arrangements and the deployment of the immense resources required. To the Texans’ universal enthusiasm, they were finally on the move.⁴¹

With Galveston thoroughly blockaded, the troops could not get to New Orleans via steamer, the most efficient means of transportation. So the journey east began on August 16, with the first leg of approximately 300 miles by rail