Although Richmond was delighted to hear this news, these successes in the Trans-Mississippi West had a strange effect on the thinking of Confederate leaders. President Jefferson Davis and the War Department suddenly came to look on Kirby Smith’s scattered, unpaid, and poorly organized army of 30,000 men as a powerful source of reinforcements for hard-pressed Confederate commands to the east of the Mississippi River. Orders were issued for heavy portions of Kirby Smith’s army to cross the great river in August, 1864. At the last moment, however, these plans were cancelled—partly because of the near impossibility of the river crossing operation and partly because of heated protests from General Kirby Smith. While the War Office was justified in seeking relief for the divisions in the east, Kirby Smith made it clear that his regiments were barely capable of securing the Southwest. The loss of any appreciable number of men would spell sure doom for his department.[104]
While Texas now seemed temporarily safe from military advances, other signs of weakness were to be observed. Confederate paper dollars came to be worth only twenty cents or thirty cents in specie. Texas tried to correct this condition by issuing state treasury warrants, but this paper likewise suffered a drastic drop in real value as the war continued.[105] The heavily indebted state pressed Richmond for payment of defense claims; but unfortunately for Texas, these claims were never honored.[106] As for cotton sales in Mexico, this one great source of revenue for the Lone Star State was very poorly managed. Due to conflicting rules set down by the Confederate government, by the departmental commander, by the state military district commander, and by the state civil government, the entire commerce was badly hampered.[107] Added to this were the manipulations of dishonest state and Confederate purchasing and marketing agents. About the only successful cotton brokers were those men who flaunted the laws and smuggled bales across the Rio Grande.
Other serious weaknesses in Texas were a continued scarcity of weapons, a shortage of laborers that forced the Confederate authorities to impress slaves, and refusals on the part of civilians to sell supplies to the army that ultimately resulted in impressments.[108] As for the citizens, they were oppressed by high taxes, inflation, and shortages of basic necessities. By late 1864 shoes cost $30, watermelons sold at $5 each, coffee brought $10 per pound when it was available, and one woman reportedly paid $90 for a yard and a half of denim material.[109] Salt was so scarce that many people dug up the floors of their smoke-houses and leached the soil to regain the saline drippings. Toothbrushes consisted of the chewed ends of twigs. Whole dishes were scarce and were handled with loving care. Paper, quinine, and tea were almost impossible to find.[110] Finally, the overall unhealthy situation of the times was aggravated by unconfirmed reports of Unionist uprisings in the state, unwarranted speculation on future invasions of Texas, and dozens of extremely wild rumors.[111]
FIGHTING BEYOND TEXAS: 1863-1865
After heavy losses at Gettysburg, Hood’s Texas Brigade was shifted to Tennessee in September of 1863. At Chickamauga, the First Texas, Fourth Texas, and Fifth Texas charged through artillery and small arms fire to push repeatedly against a determined enemy in well protected positions. One company of the First Texas had only a single officer and no men surviving as a result of the many days of fighting. The First and Fifth Texas had fewer than one hundred men each who were unscratched at this point of the campaign.[112]
In November, the Texans in Hood’s Brigade marched off with Lieutenant General James Longstreet to capture the Federal stronghold at Knoxville. When this plan miscarried, Longstreet’s army was compelled to spend a miserable and austere winter in northeastern Tennessee. With the spring thaws of 1864, the Texas Brigade again was shifted to the Virginia front. Back in familiar surroundings, the battered regiments struggled to withstand General Grant’s hammering. At the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, and other prominent Virginia engagements, the brigade continued to rely on bravery to compensate for its lack of size.
The remaining months of the war saw the Texans manning a portion of the Richmond line and then acting as a rear guard in April of 1865, when Longstreet’s Corps tried to retreat to Danville. As the news of the surrender was heard, the Texans were entrenching themselves in the face of an impending attack. The three Texas regiments had performed remarkable feats of arms and, on a number of occasions, had been singled out by General Lee for praise. But again the price of military fame had been staggering—the historian of Company “M” of the First Texas made this all too clear when he recorded that only six of the company’s original one hundred and twenty-five men were present at the surrender.[113]
Meanwhile, after Hood’s Brigade marched off towards Knoxville in late 1863, almost a dozen Texas units had remained behind to complete the Chattanooga campaign. In Breckinridge’s Corps were the Sixth Texas Infantry, the Seventh Texas Infantry, the Tenth Texas Infantry, the Fifteenth Texas Cavalry (dismounted), the Seventeenth Texas Cavalry, the Eighteenth Texas Cavalry, the Twenty-Fourth Texas Cavalry, the Twenty-Fifth Texas Cavalry, and Douglas’ Texas Battery. Two other Texas cavalry regiments, the Eighth (Terry’s Texas Rangers) and the Eleventh, were assigned to Wheeler’s Cavalry Corps.
On November 24 and 25, the Texas regiments in Cleburne’s Division of Breckinridge’s Corps engaged in bitter combat on Missionary Ridge. As the center of the Confederate line was broken, Texas regiments that had been making progress against the Union right were commanded to fall back to Ringgold, Georgia, twenty miles away, and to make a defensive stand there as the main Southern army pulled back through that town. On November 26, the Texans were manning blocking positions near Ringgold. Strenuous fighting there delayed Union advance elements until General Braxton Bragg’s main forces were safe. At one time in this rear guard action, three Texas companies routed “an entire regiment, the Twenty-ninth Missouri (Federal), capturing their colors and between 60 and 100 prisoners, and causing the attacking brigade to withdraw.”[114] The Texans were tendered a vote of thanks by the main army for their protective screening of the retreat. Hiram B. Granbury, who had recently been given command of a brigade of these Texas regiments, was promoted to the rank of brigadier general for this action.[115]
Throughout 1864 the Texans were active in the fighting that took place in northwestern Georgia and in the defenses of Atlanta. That fall, the men of the Lone Star State were present when John Bell Hood assumed command of the Army of Tennessee and instituted his winter push back into Tennessee. At Franklin, Granbury’s men were all but wiped out in a series of unsuccessful assaults against Union positions on November 30, Granbury being one of the killed. The next morning not a single captain in the brigade was capable of performing duty. The remnants of the shattered Texas regiments were almost captured at Nashville when Union Major General George Thomas’ pressure caused a break in the Southerners’ left and center. As a rout-like withdrawal commenced, the Texans on the extreme right were not given the word to fall back. When they discovered that the rest of the army was retreating, the Texans fell back and were again assigned the serious task of guarding the rear of the main force.[116]