Pike-Bullock County AlArchives Military Records.....Dawson's Cavalry A Brief History & Sketch Of William J. Hooks 
Civilwar Dawsons Cavalry
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John H. Adams johms@bellsouth.net July 1, 2008, 10:22 am

Dawson's Cavalry A Brief History & Sketch Of William J. Hooks
                    A BRIEF HISTORY OF DAWSON’S CAVALRY
          with a sketch of the military career of William J. Hooks

	The Confederate military unit known as Dawson’s Cavalry is cited on 
several headstones in the Bethel Presbyterian  Church Cemetery in Bullock 
County, Alabama.   For example, on the headstone    William J. Hooks,  there 
are no dates, only the words “ Wm Hooks Dawson’s Cavalry CSA.”     Various 
Confederate military records available at the Alabama Department of Archives 
and History in Montgomery provide  information about this unit.  Sources for 
the Hooks family information  are Hooks Family Chronicles and  genealogical 
studies of  Arnold Seals Hooks, a descendant of William J. Hooks. 
	Hilliard’s Legion was an infantry regiment organized in Pike County, 
Alabama, in the late spring of 1862.  It was later absorbed into the 60th 
Alabama Infantry Regiment.   One of the companies of this newly formed regiment 
was the Perote Guards [Company E, 3rd Battalion], commanded by Captain George 
W. Dawson.   William J. Hooks (12/5/1832-1899) enlisted in this company on May 
14, 1862, at China Grove.  Although he was almost 30,  he was  recorded as a 25 
year old married farmer residing at Farriorville [aka Post Oak], Alabama.   
Hooks had married Winnie Dozier on October 21, 1857, and had two children at 
the time of his enlistment. 
	Shortly thereafter, when he failed to be re-elected Captain of the 
Perote Guards, George Dawson left the company and sought to lead a cavalry 
unit.   Several members of the Perote Guards chose to follow Dawson, one of 
whom was William J. Hooks.  Because he  secured a substitute [R. T. Tate],  
Hooks was honorably discharged from Hilliard’s Legion  on July 1, 1862.  The 
following year,  Dawson organized the cavalry company which took his name. 
	Thomas B. Miles,  another of the Perote Guards who followed Dawson into 
the cavalry,  served as a lieutenant in Dawson’s Cavalry, and in 1909 he 
responded to several inquiries about the unit.   In a letter of  May 23, 1909,  
he states that Dawson’s Cavalry was organized at Troy in 1863, and  was made up 
of men from Pike and Macon  Counties.  [This was the area which was to become 
Bullock County in 1866.]         
	Until September of 1863, the company  was not attached to any regiment, 
and was apparently inactive, perhaps training.  At some point, the unit took on 
somewhat the character of a small battalion. In his letter of  May 29, 1909,  
J. M. Lewis, another veteran of the unit, claimed Dawson’s Cavalry was “really 
a battalion” because it had two companies---one led by Captain Brown.”  He 
added that the unit included about 200 men aged 18 to 45. 
	In September of 1863,  a battalion designated the 4th Alabama Cavalry 
Battalion was formed from five cavalry companies, one of which was Dawson’s 
Cavalry.  However,  Dawson’s Cavalry was detached and did not accompany the 
battalion north to engage the enemy.  B. B. McKinzie, a historian of the unit, 
reports that the 4th Cavalry Battalion was merged into the Jeff Davis Legion at 
the 2nd Battle of Cold Harbor, in  Virginia,  June 2, 1864.  
	Dawson’s Cavalry was instead sent south to Pollard, Alabama, near 
Mobile Bay, a Confederate encampment  at under the command of a Colonel.  
According to T. B. Miles,  Dawson’s Cavalry “had to patrol the coast from 
Mobile to east  Florida.” 
	In a letter of July 3, 1909, Miles reports that “Just before the 
surrender [the unit] was ordered back to Montgomery . . . and was captured at 
Line Creek, except 10 of them who escaped..”   The escapees fled and attached 
themselves to other cavalry units.  
	Apparently William Hooks was among those captured, because there is a 
record that on May 23, 1865, William Hooks, described as 6’3” with black hair, 
blue eyes, and a dark complexion,  signed his parole at Montgomery.  
	And that is why, 34 years later, the inscription “Dawson’s Cavalry 
CSA”  was placed on his headstone.
 



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