The Third Texas Cavalry in the Civil War
(Book)

Includes bibliographical references (p. 321-335) and index.

Colonel Elkanah Greer's Third Texas Cavalry Regiment, recruited from twenty-six counties of northeastern Texas, was one of the most famous Confederate units from the Lone Star State. The original regiment - lawyers, students, politicians, businessmen, and farmers - who volunteered to go to war with Greer went on to serve in Missouri and Arkansas under Ben McCulloch in 1861 and 1862 and eventually became part of General "Sul" Ross's brigade in the Army of Tennessee. The Third Texas fought for the Confederacy on battlefields from the Great Plains to the Appalachian Mountains. From their enlistment in 1861 to their surrender in 1865, these stalwart horse soldiers from East Texas participated in seventy-two separate engagements, beginning with Wilson's Creek, Chustenahlah, and Pea Ridge in the trans-Mississippi region, including the decisive campaigns around Vicksburg and Atlanta, and ending with the retreat of Hood's army from Nashville. But the story of the Third Texas concerns more than troop movements and battle action; Hale sensitively portrays the sufferings and private thoughts of individual cavalrymen and their commanders as they marched back and forth across the Southern landscape. Using material gleaned from unpublished diaries and letters, he allows the soldiers and their families to describe their own experiences on the battlefield and at home. By delineating the prewar heritage and background of these men, the book explains the motivation that kept most of them confident of their cause and standing at their posts long after any hope of victory had evaporated. At war's end, they returned to civilian life determined to preserve Texas from the social changes resulting from the conflict. Many entered the ranks of the "Redeemers," became politicians, and obstructed the Reconstruction policies of the federal government.