THIRD TEXAS CAVALRY.

Col. Elkanah B. Greer^qv mustered the Third Texas Cavalry Regiment into Confederate service at Dallas on June 13, 1861. The original unit consisted of 1,094 officers and men recruited principally from a dozen counties of Northeast Texas: Cass, Cherokee, Harrison, Hunt, Kaufman, Marion, Rusk, San Augustine, Shelby, Smith, Upshur, and Wood. With Lt. Col. Walter P. Lane^qv as second in command, George W. Chilton^qv as major, and Capt. Mathew D. Ector^qv as adjutant, Greer led the ten companies north across Indian Territory to join Brig. Gen. Benjamin McCulloch's^qv forces near Springfield in July 1861. The unit was the first regiment of Texas volunteers to serve outside the state. Greer's troops participated in the Confederate victories at Wilson's Creek, Missouri, on August 10, 1861, and Chustenahlah, Indian Territory, on December 26, 1861. They were present but not engaged on March 7-8, 1862, at Pea Ridge, Arkansas, where McCulloch lost his life. The unit, which had been consolidated with Sterling Price's command before Pea Ridge and absorbed into the army of Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn,^qv was transferred to Corinth, Mississippi, in the spring of 1862. In the fever-ridden campgrounds around Corinth, forty-three troopers from the Third Texas died from the effects of epidemic disease. An additional 200 officers and men were discharged as disabled, over age, or under age in the course of the general reorganization of the Confederate Army on May 20, 1862. Nevertheless, the regiment played a significant role in Gen. Pierre G. T. Beauregard's successful evacuation of Corinth on the night of May 29-30, 1862.

The regiment, reorganized as part of Maj. Gen. Sterling Price's Army of the West, came briefly under the command of Col. Robert H. Cumby,^qv who was succeeded by Col. Hinche P. Mabry^qv on June 26, 1862. Mabry served as regimental commander until March 29, 1864, when he was replaced by Lt. Col. Jiles S. Boggess, who remained the unit's commander until the end of the conflict. The Third Texas sustained its most severe one-day loss on September 19, 1862, when twenty-two men were killed, seventy-four wounded, and forty-eight captured in the battle of Iuka, Mississippi. Shortly thereafter, on October 3-4, the regiment participated in Van Dorn's costly and unsuccessful attack on the Union fortifications at Corinth. Two months later the Third Texas formed part of Van Dorn's cavalry column, which staged the spectacularly successful Holly Springs raid, thereby delaying Union major general Ulysses S. Grant's projected attack on Vicksburg by half a year. In February 1863 the troopers marched north into Tennessee to engage Union forces south of Nashville. There they participated in the Confederate victory at Thompson's Station on March 5. Later in the spring the regiment was ordered back to Mississippi, where it took part in the ultimately fruitless effort to defend Vicksburg and Jackson, Mississippi, against the Union advance.

After the fall of Vicksburg in July 1863 the East Texans bivouacked in Mississippi for ten months, during which time they were chiefly engaged in fending off Union raids into the interior of the state. On December 16, 1863, Col. Lawrence Sullivan Ross^qv took over permanent command of a brigade formed from the Third, Sixth, Ninth, and Twenty-seventh Texas Cavalry regiments, and the men in these units thereafter fought together as Ross's Brigade^qv until the end of the war. In May 1864 Ross's men hastened to north Georgia to serve as flankers in Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's^qv defensive line against the advancing Union forces under the command of Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman.^qv Under fire before Atlanta, the Third Texas engaged in almost continual skirmishes, as well as in the battles of Rome, New Hope Church, Lovejoy's Station, and Jonesboro, Georgia. After the fall of Atlanta on September 2, the regiment joined Gen. John B. Hood^qv in his disastrous Tennessee campaign. Serving as part of the rear guard under Maj. Gen. Nathan B. Forrest, the Third Texas played a signal role in preventing the destruction of Hood's entire army during its precipitate retreat following the debacle at Nashville on December 15-16, 1864. Decimated and exhausted, the East Texas regiment remained bivouacked in Mississippi during the final months of the war. About half the men were granted furloughs; desertion took a further toll. When the Third Texas capitulated to Union major general Edward R. S. Canby^qv at Citronelle, Alabama, in May 1865, there were but 207 members of the unit left to surrender.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Samuel Barron, The Lone Star Defenders: A Chronicle of the Third Texas Cavalry, Ross' Brigade (New York: Neale, 1908; rpt., Waco: Morrison, 1964). Judith Ann Benner, Sul Ross: Soldier, Statesman, Educator (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1983). Douglas Hale, "The Third Texas Cavalry: A Socioeconomic Profile of a Confederate Regiment," Military History of the Southwest 19 (Spring 1989). Victor Marion Rose, Ross' Texas Brigade (Louisville, Kentucky: Courier-Journal, 1881; rpt., Kennesaw, Georgia: Continental, 1960).

Douglas Hale

ROSS'S BRIGADE, C.S.A.

Although known by the name of its most famous commander, Lawrence Sullivan Ross,^qv the Texas Cavalry Brigade was under the authority of three other officers during the War between the States. The first commander was Col. John W. Whitfield,^qv who, on October 23, 1862, was given command of a newly formed brigade composed of four dismounted Texas cavalry regiments-the Third, Sixth, Ninth, and his own Twenty-seventh. (The Third, Sixth, and Ninth had previously been brigaded together under Gen. James McIntosh in Benjamin McCulloch's^qv Army of the West and had seen action at the battle of Pea Ridge or Elkhorn Tavern in March 1862.) These regiments, recruited mainly from twenty-three central, northeastern, and north central counties, were veterans of campaigns in Indian Territory, Arkansas, and Missouri as well as in the battles of Iuka and Corinth. As part of Gen. Earl Van Dorn's^qv cavalry division, the remounted Texas Brigade raided the federal supply base at Holly Springs, Mississippi, in December 1862, an action that halted Ulysses S. Grant's land advance to Vicksburg. On March 5, 1863, the brigade, operating in Tennessee, captured a large Union reconnaissance force at Thompson's Station. Later, it participated in the first battle of Franklin (April 10, 1863).

Whitfield was promoted to brigadier general in May 1863. The brigade returned to Mississippi and occupied a position generally on the periphery of action during the Vicksburg campaign. Whitfield's health deteriorated, and Sul Ross of the Sixth Texas was appointed brigade commander. Because Ross was at that time on detached service with his regiment, command of the Texas Brigade temporarily went, on October 29, 1863, to Col. Hinche P. Mabry^qv of the Third Texas Cavalry.^qv Ross took formal command in mid-December 1863 and was promoted to general a few days later. The Texans spent most of the next five months operating against Union troops in the Yazoo River valley before being ordered to Georgia.

During the ensuing Atlanta campaign, the Texans spent 112 days under fire and participated in eighty-six engagements. They began the general fighting (May 25-June 5) at New Hope Church near Dallas, Georgia, but attrition had so reduced their ranks that the Texas regiments were overrun by the superior forces of Edward M. McCook and Hugh Judson Kilpatrick later that summer. After the fall of Atlanta the Texans marched with John Bell Hood's^qv troops into Tennessee. Throughout the disastrous campaigns of November and December 1864, they served as vanguards and rear guards, raided Union supply trains, and battled federal cavalry. In the withdrawal from Nashville they were one of Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest's two brigades covering the Confederate retreat. By then dissension was rife in the brigade, and desertions occurred frequently. General Ross returned on leave to Texas on March 13, 1865, probably in an attempt to recruit replacements for the depleted ranks. Col. Dudley W. Jones^qv of the Ninth Texas was in command of the brigade at its surrender on May 4, 1865, at Jackson, Mississippi.

Ross's Brigade, one of the most famous Texas military units of the Civil War,^qv was also one of the most active. It was not, however, distinguished for its discipline. Its members were described as "rollicking, rascally, [and] brave" and appreciated for their dependability. Gen. Stephen D. Lee called the Texans the "most reliable" troops under his command. In 1875 survivors of the unit organized the Ross Brigade Association.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Samuel Barron, The Lone Star Defenders: A Chronicle of the Third Texas Cavalry, Ross' Brigade (New York: Neale, 1908; rpt., Waco: Morrison, 1964). George L. Griscom, Fighting with Ross' Texas Cavalry Brigade, C.S.A.: The Diary of George L. Griscom, ed. Homer L. Kerr (Hillsboro, Texas: Hill Junior College Press, 1976). Victor Marion Rose, Ross' Texas Brigade (Louisville, Kentucky: Courier-Journal, 1881; rpt., Kennesaw, Georgia: Continental, 1960). Ross Family Papers, Texas Collection, Baylor University.

Judith Ann Benner