CONFEDERATE BIOGRAPHY: PRAISE OF TEXAS TROOPS
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Submitted by Doris Peirce - ginlu@home.com 
12 October 2001 
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TEXANS WHO WORE THE GRAY by Sid S. Johnson 

PRAISE OF TEXAS TROOPS

Major General Dabney Maury in praise of Texas troops in the Confederate 
army said of the splendid brigade of Gen. M. D. Ector:  "My last 
experience of the efficiency of Texas soldiers was in the defense of 
Spanish Fort, during the battle of Mobile.  Ector's Texans had come 
to me from Hood's campaign so destructive of the army of Tennessee.  
The brigade was ragged and battle scarred; there was not 500 of them 
left, but there was an honest scar for every man of them.  I had 
placed them in the works at Blakely, five miles above Spanish Fort.  
When Canby's army developed  his attack the opening of fire on the 
enemy's artillery some young boys who had never before heard the howl 
of the Howitzer unanimously moved from the skirmish line into the 
works.  When I saw them go I telegraphed to Gen. Lidell at Blakely to 
send me Ector's Texans at once and for sixteen days and nights they 
held their place, fighting and working by day and fighting and working 
by night.  When it was decided to risk the garrison no longer 
volunteers from the 9th Texas made their way across the Blakely and 
staked out the route by which a few nights after they guided the 
retiring garrison to safety."