Granbury's Texas Brigade: Diehard Western Confederates

3 Sojourn in Arkansas

39 chapter three SOJOURN IN ARKANSAS As the 7th Texas dealt with capture and prison life, the other Texas regiments that would become part of Granbury’s Brigade found themselves caught up in the mad scramble to get troops to the front. As a result, all of these regiments ended up in Arkansas, where they would get their first taste of war. Even in the earliest stages of the war, the Texas regiments stationed in Arkansas experienced trying circumstances, and for the cavalry regiments these experiences completely changed the nature of their service to the Confederacy. When the Confederate officials decided to dismount the cavalry regiments in Arkansas in 1862, it did not erase their loyalty to the Confederacy or their desire to defend the Southern way of life, it merely changed how and where they would fight. Mark Weitz in More Damning Than Slaughter posits that desertion destroyed any chances the Confederacy had for military victory, and massive desertions certainly occurred in the ranks of the dismounted Texas cavalry regiments, but Weitz ignores the fact that desertion was not a zero-sum game. Even though these Texans deserted their original regiments, most of them returned home and joined regiments in the Trans-Mississippi Department or in Texas itself. As Andrew Lang points out in “Victory Is Our Only Road to Peace,” Confederate nationalism remained extraordinarily strong on the Texas home front in 1862, ensuring that these deserters could not stay out of the Confederate service for long without risking humiliation and ridicule. Losing their Granbury’s Texas Brigade 40 horses dealt a severe psychological blow to the Texan cavalrymen in Arkansas , and they returned across the Mississippi and back to Texas in droves in 1862, but the fact that so many others stayed with their original units in spite of the desertions and the deaths of others from disease so early in the war remains a mute testament to their devotion to the Confederacy.1 The fall of Forts Henry and Donelson greatly changed the complexion of the war in the West. The Confederate heartland now lay open all the way into northern Alabama, where the Tennessee River remained undefended . Albert Sidney Johnston abandoned Nashville after Donelson and retreated southward to Corinth, Mississippi, where he hoped to marshal enough forces for a counterstroke against Grant. In the meantime Richmond scrambled to find more troops to bolster the front lines. On February 24, Secretary of War Judah Benjamin wired Brigadier General Hebert at Galveston to impress upon him the dire nature of the situation. Davis and Benjamin considered an imminent invasion of the Texas coast improbable, and therefore ordered Hebert to forward all units not needed for coastal defense to Arkansas. Benjamin ordered the Texas regiments to Little Rock, to report to Major General Earl Van Dorn, commander of Confederate forces in Arkansas. The “men,” concluded Benjamin , “are to be pushed forward with all possible rapidity to Little Rock by such route as you deem best.”2 Hebert instructed both the 6th Texas and 10th Texas to proceed to Arkansas . In early March he instructed Colonel Garland to move his regiment as soon as it reached the full complement of companies. By May 22 Garland had his regiment ready to move, and the companies of the 6th Texas formed into marching columns to head off to war. Departing Victoria, the regiment passed through Hallettsville and reached Eagle Lake after eight days of marching. At Eagle Lake Garland left his supply wagons behind and boarded his infantrymen on trains headed to Richmond and Houston.3 A disturbing incident involving larceny engaged the attention of the regiment during a stop at Navasota. One of the members of Company I stole a revolver belonging to his captain, C. P. Nanuheim. The thief attempted to sell the revolver the same day he stole it and authorities apprehended him. Garland assembled a court-martial, which tried and convicted the man. The regiment then drummed him out of the service, and two African American men paraded him through the streets with his head halfshaved riding a fence rail.4 41 sojourn in arkansas Garland’s men continued on through East Texas before they finally crossed into Arkansas and received their regimental colors. The Texans remained three days at Navasota before marching toward Tyler via Rusk. Garland kept his men at Tyler for a week before they resumed their march. In mid-July the regiment...