Terry's Texas Rangers

“Captain Matthews told him and of our orders from General Wheeler. He took a look across the field at the dense blue line and said, ‘Then execute your orders.’ It looked like the old regiment was this time surely going to its grave. Everything was so plain and clear you could see the men handling their guns and hear their shouts of command. Without a moment’s hesitation Captain Matthews gave the order, ‘Charge right in front,’ and with that wonderful rebel yell we charged across the 500 yards of open field upon and among the mass of Yankees. We rode them down and emptied our pistols at close range. When the force of the charge was expended we fell back with about 200 prisoners.”

Like our other brilliant charges, it was the very audacity that brought success.

In this charge fell, mortally wounded, Wm. J. Hardee, Jr., son of Lieutenant General Hardee. Nearly a year before he, with several other boys, had run away from school to join the Rangers, but on account of their extreme youth Colonel Harrison sent them back to school. The boy would not remain in school, so General Hardee kept him with him for several months, but he fretted to join the Rangers. Finally the father consented. The boy was enlisted in Company D and fell in this, his first action.

I reached the command shortly before the surrender. The regiment in numbers was little more than a good company. Battle and disease had claimed and received their toll; but this little remnant seemed as full of courage and spirit as when first they left their State.

The dream was over. General Lee, “yielding to overwhelming numbers and resources,” had laid down his arms. General Johnston, again in command of the Army of Tennessee, agreed with Sherman to disband his army. Sadly the Rangers dispersed, taking the roads to their distant homes.

General Wheeler issued the following order, which for intense feeling and felicity of expression is a gem:

“Headquarters Cavalry Corps,“April 28, 1865.

“Gallant Comrades: You have fought your fight. Your task is done. During a four years’ struggle for liberty you have exhibited courage, fortitude and devotion. You are the victors of more than 200 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 battlefields upon the soil of Kentucky, 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 feelings you have seen fit to extend toward myself, and to invoke upon you the blessing 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.

“Joseph Wheeler,“Major General.

“Official:

“Wm. E. Waites,

“Assistant Adjutant General.”

CHAPTER XVI

CONCLUSION

I am well aware of the imperfections of this work. I can only say that I have tried to tell an unvarnished tale, to do no one injustice, nothing extenuate nor set down aught in malice. Beyond a few old letters which have escaped the ravages of mice, and such official reports as I could find, I have been compelled to rely on memory – frail and unreliable at best, more so after the lapse of half a century. I beg to remind those who may find fault that it is much easier to find fault than to do good work. No two persons see events exactly alike. This is illustrated in our courts every day.

From the standpoint of the martinet our organization could hardly be called a regiment. A distinguished lieutenant general is reported as saying that it was not a regiment at all but “a d – d armed mob.” If there was ever any serious attempt to discipline it the effort was soon abandoned. Volunteers we began, volunteers we remained to the end. If any wished to evade duty, they found a way, and the punishment for evasion was light. To our credit it may be said that few ever avoided a fight. There were few real cowards among us, and they were simply objects of pity. If a man did not wish to go into a fight he held his horse until it was over.

One reason of our almost uniform success was the superiority of our arms. It will be remembered that at the beginning the possession of a good pistol was a requisite for enlistment. If a man died or was killed his comrades kept his pistol. When a prisoner of the enemy’s cavalry was taken this part of his outfit was added to the general stock, so that after a few months most, if not all, had two weapons of this kind, and some even tried to carry three or four. No other regiment of the army was so supplied.

Again, it was a noteworthy fact that the men were all good horsemen, accustomed to the use and management of horses from childhood. When three or four hundred of such men, charging as fast as their horses would go, yelling like Comanches, each delivering twelve shots with great rapidity and reasonable accuracy, burst into the ranks of an enemy, the enemy generally gave way. It did not take us long to find this out; also the enemy were not slow to “catch on.”

If it be said that other commands lost more men in battle, the explanation is simple and easy. The purpose of fighting is to destroy the enemy in battle; all drill, organization and hard marches are to this end – to kill and wound as many of the enemy as possible. If this is granted, the Rangers invite comparison with the best in any army. It is safe to claim that the regiment killed, wounded and captured a number of the enemy at least several times our highest enlistment of nearly 1200. If it be said that my claim for superiority is biased by prejudice in favor of my own regiment, I will give estimates of others.

In a letter to me acknowledging an invitation to one of our reunions, General Wheeler said:

“They were unceasingly vigilant, matchlessly brave and daring.”

General Thomas Jordan, an educated soldier, a writer of ability, chief of staff to General Beauregard, was selected by Forrest and his principal officers to write a history of the campaigns of that great soldier. In a note on page 160 of his book, General Jordan says:

“This regiment was raised and commanded by the lamented Colonel Terry, whose brief military career, beginning as a volunteer scout at the first Manassas, was full of distinction. He was killed at Woodsonville, Kentucky. The privates included a large number of the wealthiest and best educated young men of Texas, who, with many others specially trained in the business of stock raising on the vast prairies of that State, had acquired a marvelous skill in horsemanship. The career of this regiment has been one of the most brilliant in the annals of war.”

Dr. John A. Weyeth, who also wrote a life of Forrest, says, “No braver men ever lived than the Texas Rangers.”

General Hood (“Advance and Retreat,” page 202) writes of the cavalry:

“I had, moreover, become convinced that our cavalry were able to successfully compete with double their numbers. The Confederacy possessed, in my opinion, no body of cavalry superior to that which I found guarding the flanks of the Army of Tennessee when I assumed its direction.”

I now quote Federal authority. Writing of the comparative merits of the soldiers of the two armies, in a paper on the Kentucky campaign, General Buell, while denying the superiority of the Southern soldiers over the Northern, admits it was true of the cavalry. He says:

“Another sectional distinction produced a more marked effect in the beginning of the war. The habits of the Southern people facilitated the formation of cavalry corps which were comparatively efficient even without instruction; and accordingly we see Stuart, John Morgan and Forrest riding with impunity around the union armies, destroying or harassing their communications. Late in the war that agency was reversed. The South was exhausted of horses, while the Northern cavalry increased in numbers and efficiency, and acquired the audacity which had characterized the Southern.”

Read that again. It comes very near saying that the South was overcome because the supply of horses failed. The writer is an educated soldier and student of war.

L’ENVOI

My task is done. My story is told. I have derived pleasure as well as pain and grief from the recital; pleasure in going back over the dreary waste of years to the morning of life, and dwelling in memory amid the scenes of my early manhood; pain that I can not do justice to all who, at the call of country, periled their young lives for home and the right; grief for the heroic dead, who sleep in unmarked graves wherever duty lead to danger and death. Their matchless courage and devotion earned undying fame.

“Their praise is hymned by loftier harps than mine;Yet, one I would select from that proud throng”:

Because he was my bedfellow, and I loved him as a brother; faithful in the discharge of every duty, clean, brave, and true – William Nicholson.

1

Attack was really made by Ferrell on the enemy, advancing under command of Von Trebra, as Colonel Willich reports. – G.