CONFEDERATE BIOGRAPHY:  A. T. Rainey

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Submitted by Mary Love Berryman - marylove@tyler.net
7 June 2002 
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TEXANS WHO WORE THE GRAY by Sid S. Johnson 

A. T. RAINEY.

Alexis Theodore Rainey, of Palestine, was born June 5, 1822, in 
Tuscaloosa county, Alabama, and was educated there.  He was married 
in Union county, Ark., in 1852, to Miss Anna Quarles.  Removing to 
Texas in December, 1854, he located in Palestine and began the 
practice of law, and soon acquired clients and fees.  He was 
elected to the state senate of Texas, serving with ability for four 
years.  A stern Democrat and state's rights man, when the war came 
in 1861 he raised a company at Palestine and went with it to 
Virginia, where it was mustered in the Confederate serv­ice as 
Company H, of the First Texas Infantry of Hood's famous brigade. 
At the battle of Eltham's Landing his regi­ment was the most active 
and daring.  His gallantry in this fight was such that he was 
shortly thereafter chosen colonel of the First Texas.  In the battle 
of Gaines' Mill, near Rich­mond, while leading his regiment he was so 
severely wounded that he was sent back to Texas.  After his wounds 
had nearly healed and his general health improved the gov­ernment 
placed him in command of Galveston Island, where there were about 
four thousand troops, and here he ren­dered invaluable service to the 
Confederate cause.  After the war Col. Rainey practiced law for a 
while, but his gen­eral health was never fully restored after his 
wounds and illness caused by exposure in Virginia, and he retired 
to his plantation.  He was again chosen a member of the Texas 
legislature, and was presidential elector on the Greely ticket. He 
died in May, 1891, near Elkhart, Anderson county., Texas, aged sixty-
nine years.