The Confederate Congress, in April of 1862, passed its first conscription act. Although Texas now had fifty-five regiments formed,[44] all able-bodied young men from eighteen to thirty-five (the age limits were later repeatedly raised) would henceforth be subject to the draft.[45] Indignation against this act caused many protests to be heard in areas that were unenthusiastic about the war. Strongest anti-conscription feeling centered in Gillespie County. In fact, the German settlers near Fredericksburg went so far as to form a five hundred man Union Loyal League to defy the draft and to promote sympathetic feelings for the United States. To suppress this subversive group, Dunn’s and Freer’s state militia companies took control of the town, declared martial law, and gave the citizens six days in which to take an oath of loyalty to the South. Most Germans peacefully complied with this requirement, a few troublemakers were arrested for a short time, and a small number of incorrigibles quietly fled to Mexico.[46]
Occasionally pro-Union refugees would make their way to occupied New Orleans, where they could enlist in Judge E. J. Davis’ First Regiment of Texas United States Volunteers. As this unit grew in size, Texas officials came to fear that it might be used in the execution of raids on the state. One embittered Houston editor, in publishing the facts on Davis’ command, stated “let these refugee traitors set foot on the soil of Texas, whether as mounted or unmounted riflemen, and their blood will wash out their treason.... God grant that their carcasses may all enrich the soil their lives have cursed!”[47]
As passive signs of disloyalty continued to exist, Confederate military and state civil officials decided to cope with Unionism in an overpowering fashion. In mid-1862 martial law was declared over the entire state. Every alien and all native white males over sixteen were to register and to answer the questions of county provost marshals. People were required to have passes to cross county lines. Severe punishments were set for those who attempted to depreciate Confederate currency. Finally, those suspected of disloyalty were to be expelled from their counties—presumably to settle in some other county and conform, or else, to be driven from county to county until they left the state. Unfortunately for the proponents of this stern policy, the martial law decree was not approved by Richmond. That fall President Jefferson Davis declared it to be an unwarranted assumption of power and revoked the entire program.[48]
During the first two years of the war, the state government and the people at home diligently struggled to supply Texas regiments with the essentials of life. Prison made cloth, contributed items of clothing, and special county tax funds and bond sale receipts were forwarded to needy companies.[49] As for the care of the sick and wounded Texans, the financially embarrassed state passed heavy appropriations for the establishment and support of special hospitals for Texas casualties in various parts of the South.[50]
TEXAS UNITS FIGHTING ELSEWHERE: 1861-1863
While the leaders of Texas were busily concerned with the well being of their own state, the men of Texas were actively serving the Confederate cause elsewhere. From the very outbreak of the conflict Texas units made proud names for themselves on all fighting fronts.
The Lone Star State was represented in northern Virginia by three regiments in the brigade of John Bell Hood. This brigade was formed at Dumfries, Virginia, in September of 1861, and consisted mainly of the First Texas Infantry, the Fourth Texas Infantry, and the Fifth Texas Infantry.[51] After intensive training first under L. T. Wigfall,[52] and then under Hood, the Texans were baptised in fire at Elthan’s Landing, Virginia, in May of 1862. Hood’s men had been ordered to protect the Confederate retreat route from Yorktown to Richmond. Suddenly, the Texans ran into a Union skirmish line of unknown strength near the York River. In a running fight, the Texas units chased the enemy for a mile and a half, taking forty prisoners. Hood, frequently apologetic in his reports, mentioned that the density of the forests had limited his movements to such a degree that he was unable to take more captives.[53]
In June, Hood’s Brigade was attached to Jackson’s Corps. Particularly at Gaines’ Mill the unit showed promise of its future greatness. It overran fourteen Union artillery pieces and captured an entire enemy regiment. The cost of these gains was not light, however, as the Fourth Texas lost all of its field grade officers and the entire brigade had five hundred and seventy casualties. General Jackson, on later viewing the site of the Texans’ triumph, declared “the men who carried this position were soldiers indeed!”[54]
The brigade’s next major action was at the Second Battle of the Manassas in the last days of August, 1862. On the 29th, the Texans engaged in a counter-attack that gained six Federal colors. An advance on the following morning cost the Union a mile and a half of ground and four artillery guns. Although Hood had been elevated to the command of a division, he could proudly claim that the Texans’ “gallantry and unflinching courage” were “unsurpassed within the history of the world.” In this great struggle the Fifth Texas lost seven color bearers.[55]
Then, in September, the brigade gained even greater renown at Antietam. At one point the Texans and one other brigade were pitted against two full Union corps. Hood described the event as “the most terrible clash of arms, by far, that has occurred during the war. The two little giant brigades of this [Hood’s] division wrestled with this mighty force, losing hundreds of their gallant officers and men but driving the enemy from his position and forcing him to abandon his guns on our left.”[56] The division’s rear guard action saved the Confederates from near certain annihilation, but at the end of the Antietam campaign only a fraction of the command could still be classed as “effectives.” The Texas Brigade lost five hundred and sixty men out of eight hundred and fifty-four present for duty. The First Texas lost over eighty percent of its original two hundred and twenty-six members.[57]