CONFEDERATE BIOGRAPHY: FOURTH TEXAS IN BATTLE OF GAINES' MILL.- Smith County, TX 

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Submitted by James H. Douglas   JimRedWing@aol.com  
02 December 2001 
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TEXANS WHO WORE THE GRAY by Sid S. Johnson, ppg.388-395. 
 
     On the morning of the 26th of June, 1862, we left our camp 
near Ashland, Va., about fifteen miles north of Richmond, as the 
advance guard of Stonewall Jackson's corps, marching toward Cold 
Harbor, then in the rear of the Federal army.  Nearly all of the 
afternoon and far into the night we could hear heavy firing on our 
right in the direction of Mechanicsville.  About three o'clock in 
the afternoon we passed an old Virginia farmer sitting on his fence 
by the roadside.  His negroes were in the field cutting wheat.  He 
was delighted to see us, and, waving his hat, said: "Hurry on, boys; 
the Yankees have just gone flying over the creek."  While he was 
cheering us, Reilly's Battery, of our brigade, pulled down the 
fence and ran into field just into the rear of where the old man 
was sitting and opened fire upon the enemy, who had burned the 
bridge and had taken positions on the hill beyond the creek in 
front of us.  The first shot from Reilly's guns was a surprise to 
the old man.  He fell backward from the fence and exclaimed, "My God! 
a battle here on my plantation;" and then, turning to his negroes, 
shouted to them to get to the woods as fast as their legs could 
carry them, and he led the procession.  Company B were thrown 
forward as skirmishers. The enemy were soon dislodged from their 
position, and we continued to drive them back until we went into 
bivouac for the night.

     Early in the morning on Friday, June 27, we were again on the 
march through fields, crossing creeks, climbing hills, and finally 
wading a swamp about one hundred yards wide, and waist deep in mud 
and water.  After crossing the swamp, we climbed another hill and 
passed through a pine forest into the edge of an old field, where 
a conference was held between Gens. Lee, Whiting, and Hood; which 
ended by Lee and Whiting riding rapidly away.  In a short while 
Gen. Lee returned and, addressing Lieut. Walsh, of Company B, 
inquired for Gen. Hood, who was only a short distance from us and 
who heard the inquiry.  He at once saluted Gen. Lee, who said that 
the efforts to break the enemy's lines in front of us had been 
unsuccessful and that it was of the utmost importance to do so.  
Gen. Hood replied: "We will do it."  As Gen. Lee turned his horse 
o ride away, he lifted his hat and said:  "May God be with you!"

     Just before we were ordered into line of battle, and while 
heavy firing ould be heard in our front and on each flank, Captain 
Owens of our regiment, was talking to some comrades of the battle 
in which we expected soon to be engaged, and drawing his sword and 
waiving it over his head, repeated the following lines from 
Scott's "Marmion:"

		"The war that for a space did fail
		Now, trebly thundering, swelled the gale,
		And 'Stanley!' was the cry;
		A light on Marmion's visiage spread
		And fired his glazing eye;
		With dying hand above his head,
		He shook the fragment of his blade
		And shouted 'Victory!'
		'Charge, Chester, charge!  On, Stanley, on!'
		Were the last words of Marmion."

     While they were the last words of Marmion, they were almost 
the last words of Gallant Owens, who fell mortally wounded in less 
than half an hour from the time he quoted them with such prophetic 
inspiration.

     The other regiments of our brigade - Hampton's Legion of South 
Carolinians, the First Texas, the Fifth Texas, and the Eighteenth 
Georgia - were at once ordered forward on our left.  Our regiment, 
the Fourth Texas, moved by the right flank farther into the field, 
fronting the Federal lines, which appeared to be about half a mile 
in fro...illegible.  From our position we could form some idea of 
what was required of us.  At the farther side of the field the 
enemy occupied a steep hill covered with timber; at the foot of 
the hill was a creek whose banks afforded protection by abatis and 
log breastworks; at the top of the hill was another line of infantry 
behind intrenchments and supported by artillery.

     The troops in front of us who had failed to break the enemy's 
lines were retreating in disorder, and to use the language of Gen. 
Whiting, our division commander, "some were skulking from the front 
in a shameful manner."  The conditions confronting us vividly 
recalled the remark Hood had made when he was colonel of our 
regiment, that he "could double-quick the 4th Texas to the gates 
of hell and never break the line."

     About 6 o'clock in the evening our line was formed under fire 
from the enemy in front of us and from artillery that enfiladed us 
on our right and left.  Gen. Hood had assumed personal command of 
the regiment and ordered us to dress to the center upon our colors 
and not to fire until he ordered us to do so.  We started at 
quick-time march with our guns at "right shoulder shift." The fire 
from the enemy was falling upon us like drops of rain from a 
passing cloud, and as we advanced their messengers of death grew 
thicker until they came in teeming showers, "while cannon to the 
right and cannon to the left volleyed and thundered." At every step 
forward our comrades were falling around us.  When we were within 
about one hundred and fifty yards of the enemy, we passed over a 
line of our own troops lying upon the ground.  They had gone that 
far, but would not go further.  A young lieutenant of that regiment 
was pleading with his men to go forward; and when they would not do 
so, he said they had disgraced their flag, and, throwing away his 
sword, he seized a musket and joined our ranks; but the brave boy 
had gone only a short distance when he was killed.  As we passed 
this regiment Lieut. Col. Warwick snatched up their colors, and, 
like the standard bearer of the 10th Legion of Ancient Rome, told 
them to follow their flag, but they did not do so.  With that flag 
in one hand and his sword in the other, the gallant Warwick fell 
after he had crossed the second line of fortifications.

     Gen. Hood was in front until we were within about one hundred 
yards of the creek, when he wheeled his horse to our right and 
ordered us to fix our bayonets and charge at double-quick.  Here 
the fire of the enemy was poured into us with increasing fury, 
cutting down our ranks like wheat in the harvest.

     More than half of our regiment had fallen upon the field, 
although we had not fired a gun.  Raising the Rebel yell, we 
dashed across the creek (which we found to have steep banks, in 
some places twenty feet high, with sides cut to form a ditch) and 
climbed over the breastworks, when the enemy gave way in confusion.  
The Federal colonel in command of the line broken by the 4th Texas 
says: "All along the line our fire was opened on the enemy and 
maintained in a most vigorous manner.  Nothing could have been 
better done.  The effect upon his ranks was perceptible, and the 
slope of the hill bore testimony to the steadiness and accuracy of 
our fire, yet he moved steadily along until up and onto us, when 
unable to resist, our line broke."

     We fired into their retreating ranks as they ran up the hill, 
and, reloading as fast as we could, we followed them over their 
second fortifications, when their entire line gave way in disorder, 
but continued to fire as they retreated.  A Federal officer who was 
on their second line says: "The enemy made a final and desperate 
effort to break through our lines, and were successful, but not 
until our weary men were trampled upon.  The attack was desperate, 
and so was the defense.  The noise of the musketry was not rattling 
as ordinarily, but was one intense metallic din."  This position of 
the Federals was strong and well selected, and their double line of 
defense ought to have been held against almost any force that could 
have been thrown against them.

     After we crossed their second line of defenses, eighteen 
pieces of artillery massed on an elevation in the rear of their 
lines on our left opened a heavy fire of grape and canister upon 
us.  Without halting to reform our lines, we charged the batteries, 
capturing fourteen cannon; but one battery with four guns succeeded 
in escaping before we reached them, which we had the satisfaction 
of capturing a couple of months later in the battle of second 
Manassas.  We then turned upon the retreating infantry and drove 
them through an old orchard.

     In a short while we felt the ground begin to tremble like an 
earthquake and heard a noise like the rumbling of distant thunder.  
It was a regiment of United States cavalry charging us.  This 
regiment was one of the most famous in the United States army.  
Albert Sidney Johnston had been the colonel, Robert E. Lee had 
been the lieutenant before resigning to enter the Confederate 
service.  The captain of Hood's old company commanded the regiment 
in the charge, and was captured by us.

     To hear the trumpets sounding the charge, to see the squadrons 
coming toward us at full speed, and to see their sabers glistening 
in the sunlight of the dying day like a flame of fire from heaven 
was a spectacle grand beyond description, and imparted a feeling 
of awe in the bravest of hearts.  When they were within about forty 
yards of us, we poured a volley into them and prepared to receive 
them on our bayonets; but our one volley had done dreadful execution.  
Horses and riders fell in heaps upon the ground, and the groans of 
the wounded and the shrieks of the dying could be heard above the 
roar of the battle as the setting sun shed a fading light over the 
battlefield.  Capt. McArthur, who succeeded to the command of the 
regiment after the battle, in his official report says; "The regiment 
charged under a most galling fire until all the officers but one had 
been struck down, and being without officers, wheeled to the right 
and came off in as good order as could be expected."

     After the charge of the cavalry had been repulsed, we pushed 
on to the brow of the hill overlooking the valley of the Chickahominy.  
Desultory firing continued until it was so dark we could not 
distinguish friend from foe a few yards from us: in fact, we were 
fired upon by our own troops resulting in the killing of Lieut. 
Brooks, of Company F, of our regiment.

     The gentle breezes of that night in June were whispering 
requiems for the brave spirits who had fought their last battle when 
our regiment was re-formed in line about nine o'clock by Gen. Hood, 
who counted only seventy-two present; but others reported during the 
night who had been seperated from us in the darkness in the latter 
part of the battle.

     The charge of the 4th Texas Gaines's Mill was a dearly bought 
victory; but the Federal lines around Richmond , and for a time, at 
least, the capital of the Confederacy was saved.  Out of less than 
five hundred who went into the battle, we lost two hundred and fifty-
two men and twenty-three officers, killed and wounded, including Col. 
Marshall, Lieut. Col. Warwick, and Maj. Key.

     With a detail of one man from each company in the regiment, I 
stood picket that night at the corner of the garden fence of a 
farmhouse which we were informed had been the headquarters of Gen. 
Fitz-John Porter, whose corps we had fought that day.  As the rations 
issued to us at Ashland on the 25th had been exhausted, and as our 
commissary trains were far in the rear, we went on duty with empty 
haversack.  We had been at our post some hours, and could hear the 
Federal troops pushing their retreat across the bridges of the 
Chickahominy as fast as possible, while the lonliness of the night 
was increased by the wail of the whippoor-wills that came to us from 
the swamps below us.  We were recounting the incidents of the day 
and of the baptism of fire through which we had passed, when we heard 
the trampimg of horses and the clanking of sabres coming towards us 
from the direction of our own lines.  When they were whithin a short 
distance of us, we halted them and demanded who they were, supposing 
them to be a scouting party of our own cavalry.  Although it has been 
nearly forty-four years since then, the answer we received will never 
be forgotten.  A pompous voice rang out clear and distinct, "Maj. Gen. 
McCall, of the Grand Army of the Potomac," which evidently came from 
one who had straightened himself up in his stirrups so as to get the 
answer out strong and forcible.  Our surprise can scarcely be imagined, 
as we had heard that Gen. McCall was in command of the Federal forces 
the previous day at the battle of Mechanicsville.  We at once demanded 
their surrender, but instead of doing so they put spurs to their horses 
and dashed by us down the hill toward their own lines, followed by a 
volley from us.

     Gen. Morell, whose division formed the left wing of Porter's Corps 
in the battle of Gaines's Mill, in his official report says: "The 
Confederates made their first attack about twelve o'clock upon the 
right, which was handsomely repulsed.  The second attack was made about 
2:30 and the third about 5:30 o'clock, each extending along my entire 
front, and both, like the first, were galantly repolsed.  The fourth 
and last came (about 6:30 P.M.) in irrestible force, and swept us from 
the ground."

     Gen. Seymour, whose division went to the support of Gen. Morell's 
Division, in reporting the action of his artillery after we had broken 
the Federal lines, says: "The batteries which had already played an 
important part now endeavored to drive back the Confederates and 
opened with rapidity and precision, but could not contend successfully 
against the bullets of the infantry at short range.  Capt. Easton, 
nobly encouraging and cheering his men, fell, and his battery (six guns) 
was lost with him.  Capt. Kerns was wounded early in the battle, but in 
spite of his wound kept the field; and when the enemy came upon his 
battery, he loaded and fired the last shots himself and brought four 
of his guns off the field.  Capt. De Hart's battery did its best service, 
keeping its ground and delivering its fire against the advancing enemy.  
Capt. De Hart was here wounded.  All displayed the greateat gallantry; 
but no efforts could repel the rush of a now successful foe, under 
whose fire rider and horse went down and guns lay immovable upon the 
field."

     Gen. R. E. Lee, in his official report of the battle, in 
speaking of breaking of the enemy's lines says: "The dead and wounded 
marked the way of the intrepid advance, the brave Texans leading, 
closely followed by their no less daring comrades, driving the enemy 
from the ravine to their first line of breastworks, over which the 
impetuous column dashed up to the intrenchments on the crest of the 
hill, which were quickly stormed and fourteen pieces of artillery 
captured."

     The day following the battle of Gaines's Mill Gen. Jackson, in 
riding over the ground where the 4th Texas had charged, exclaimed: 
"The men who carried this position were soldiers indeed," and in his 
official report of the battle said: "In this charge, in which more 
than a thousand men fell, killed and wounded, before the fire of the 
enemy and in which fourteen pieces of artillery were captured, the 
4th Texas, under the lead of Gen Hood, was the first to pierce these 
strongholds and sieze the guns.  Although swept from their defenses 
by this rapid and almost matchless display of daring and desperate 
valor, the well disciplined Federals continued to fight with stubborn 
resistance as they retreated."

     Gen. Whiting, our division commander, in his official report of 
the battle says: "The battle was severe, hotly contested, and 
gallantly won.  I take pleasure in calling special attention to the 
4th Texas, which was the first to break the enemy's line and enter 
is works.  Of the other regiments in the division, it would be 
invidious and unjust to mention one above another."

	Gen. Hood, who commanded us in the charge, says; "With a 
ringing shout we dashed up he steep hill, through the abatis, and 
over the breastworks upon the very heads of the enemy.  At this 
juncture the artillery stationed on a hill to the left opened fire 
upon the 4th Texas, which changed front and charged in their 
direction.  I dispatched every officer of my staff to the main 
portion of the brigade in the woods on our left, instructing them 
to bear the glad tidings that the 4th Texas had pierced the enemy's 
line and were moving in his rear and to deliver orders to push 
forward with utmost haste.  Meantime the long line of blue and steel 
to the right and left wavered, and finally gave way as the 18th 
Georgia, the 1st Tesas, the 5th Texas, and Hampton's Legion 
gallantly moved forward from right to left, thus completing a 
grand wheel of the brigade into the very heart of the enemy.  
Simultaneously with this movement burst forth a tumultuously shout 
of victory, which was taken up along the whole Confederate line." 
                                        -M. R. Hamby.