HOOD'S TEXAS BRIGADE
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Gen. John B. Hood
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Reprinted from the Texas Historical Association.
Hood's Texas Brigade
was organized on October 22, 1861, in Richmond, Virginia. It was initially
commanded by Brig. Gen. Louis T. Wigfall and composed of the First, Fourth, and
Fifth Texas Infantry regiments, the only Texas troops to fight in the Eastern
Theater. The First was commanded by Wigfall and Lt. Col. Hugh McLeod, the
Fourth by Col. John Bell Hood and Lt. Col. John Marshall, and the Fifth by Col.
James J. Archer and Lt. Jerome B. Robertson. On November 20, 1861, the
Eighteenth Georgia Infantry, commanded by William T. Wofford, was attached. On
June 1, 1862, eight infantry companies from Wade Hampton's South Carolina
Legion, commanded by Lt. Colonel Martin W. Gary, were added, and in November
1862 the Third Arkansas Infantry, commanded by Col. Van H. Manning, joined the
brigade. Both the Georgia and South Carolina units were transferred out in
November 1862, but the Third Arkansas remained until the end of the war.
Wigfall resigned command of the brigade on February 20,
1862, and on March 2, Hood was promoted to brigadier general and placed in
command. Because of his daring leadership the brigade became known as Hood's
Texas Brigade, despite his brief service of only six months as commander. The
brigade served throughout the war in Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia
and in James Longstreet's First Corps. It participated in at least twenty-four
battles in 1862, including Eltham's Landing, Gaines' Mill, Second Manassas, and
Sharpsburg (Antietam). In October the Third Arkansas regiment replaced the
Eighteenth Georgia and Hampton's Legion. On November 1, 1862, Brig. Gen. Jerome
B. Robertson became brigade commander, and Hood was elevated to command of the
division in which the Texas Brigade operated.
In April 1863 the brigade moved to North Carolina; in May it
rejoined Lee's army; and on July 1, 2, and 3, it took part in the battle of
Gettysburg. In Georgia the brigade fought on September 19 and 20 at
Chickamauga, where Hood was wounded and forced to leave his division, ending
his official connection with the brigade. In Tennessee the brigade joined in
the sieges of Chattanooga and Knoxville. Gen. John Gregg became commander when
the brigade returned to Virginia in February 1864. In the battle of the
Wilderness, General Lee personally led the Texans in one of the charges. After
Gregg was killed in October the brigade was temporarily led by Col. Clinton M.
Winkler and Col. F. S. Bass. At the surrender at Appomattox on April 10, 1865,
Col. Robert M. Powell commanded the brigade, Capt. W. T. Hill the Fifth
regiment, Lt. Col. C. M. Winkler the Fourth, Col. F. S. Bass the First, and Lt.
Col. R. S. Taylor the Third Arkansas.
It is estimated that at the beginning of the war the Texas
regiments comprised about 3,500 men and that during the war recruits increased
the number to almost 4,400. The brigade sustained a 61 percent casualty rate
and, at its surrender, numbered close to 600 officers and men. It was praised
by generals Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson, James Longstreet, and Robert E. Lee
and by high officials of the Confederacy.
The Hood's Brigade Association was organized on May 14,
1872. Sixty-three reunions were held between that date and 1933, when the last
two physically able veterans, E. W. B. Leach and Sam O. Moodie, both
ninety-one, met for the last time in Houston. Through the efforts of the
association a monument in memory of the brigade was erected on the south drive
of the Capitol in Austin on October 27, 1910. The monument is a
thirty-five-foot marble shaft with a bronze statue of a brigade infantryman on
top, mounted on a sixteen-foot base carved with the names of all the battles
fought by the brigade. The association was reactivated at Hill Junior College
in the summer of 1966 with a membership of Hood's Brigade descendants. It is an
activity of the Texas Heritage Museum at Hill Junior College and meets in
even-numbered years.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Harold B. Simpson, Hood's Texas Brigade: A Compendium
(Hillsboro, Texas: Hill Junior College Press, 1977). Harold B. Simpson, Hood's
Texas Brigade in Reunion and Memory (Hillsboro, Texas: Hill Junior College
Press, 1974).
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