Barely two dozen yards ahead lay the northern end of the Cornfield.  At that moment it must have entered the minds of the men of the 1^st Texas that it might just be possible to break the Yankees’ hold on this spot, if only they could reach it in time… 

By David A. Welker

The 1st Texas Infantry Regiment—which eventually earned the nickname the “Ragged Old First”—was assembled at Richmond, Virginia, in August, 1861.  Initially the regiment was comprised of ten independent companies raised in eastern Texas—from Marion, Cass, Polk, Houston, Harrison, Tyler, Anderson, Cherokee, Sabine, San Augustine, Newton, and Nacogdoches Counties—which were lettered Companies A through K.  Sent to the seat of war in Virginia, they soon combined to form the 1st Texas and were quickly joined by two additional companies from Galveston and Trinity Counties, which became Companies L and M. [i]

If the regiment was organized in a less than conventional way, their overall command organization followed a similarly convoluted path. The regiment’s first commander was a former US senator, Colonel Louis T. Wigfall, who was promoted to brigadier general on October 21, 1861 in order to command the newly-formed “Texas Brigade.” With Wigfall’s elevation to brigade command (and eventual departure from the army altogether to serve in the Confederate Congress), Lieutenant Colonel Hugh McLeod assumed authority over the 1st, but his time with the regiment also would be short because he died of pneumonia near Dumfries, Virginia, on January 2, 1862.  Lieutenant Colonel Alexis Rainey, a former Texas legislator, assumed command next and served with the regiment until June 27th, when he was wounded in the Battle of Gaines’ Mill.  In the chaos of the fighting at Gaines’ Mill the 1st Texas finally found leadership stability when Lieutenant Colonel Philip Alexander Work assumed command.  And it would be under Colonel Work that the 1st Texas would do some of its fiercest fighting.  [ii]

Even before the regiment took to the field it gained a measure of fame when on October

22^nd, 1861 it was joined with the 4th and 5th Texas regiments to form the “Texas Brigade.”   Like the 1st Texas, the brigade quickly changed commanders and on February 2^nd, Brigadier General John Bell Hood assumed command of the unit that would soon come to bear his own name, enshrined alongside the name of the State of Texas.  Soon joined by the 18th Georgia and South Carolina’s famed Hampton’s Legion, Hood’s brigade never lost its western name or flavor; in fact, the addition of these two “outlying” regiments just made the brigade that much tougher when in battle.

Along with the other regiments in Hood’s Texas Brigade, the 1st Texas joined Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia and fought in a long and impressive list of military engagements, eventually numbering thirty-two major battles. The regiment’s first taste of combat came in defending the Confederate capital at Richmond from advancing Union troops that were part of General McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign.  The 1^st Texas was heavily engaged at the Battle of Seven Pines from May 31 to June 1, 1862 and during the Seven Days Battles, from June 25 to July 1, 1862.  Shortly before the Second Battle of Manassas (Bull Run), Hood was elevated to division command and Brigadier General William T. Wofford became the new commander of the Texas Brigade.  During the Second Manassas fight, on August 28–30, 1862, the 1st Texas took part in a reconnaissance-in-force near Groveton on the evening of August 29th, searching for the Yankee position ahead of Major General Longstreet’s advancing wing of Lee’s army.  The Texans played a central part in Longstreet’s flank attack on August 30, smashing Colonel Gouverneur Warren’s 5th and 10th New York—which sought to stall the Confederate juggernaut—and then chasing these New Yorkers in their retreat across Chinn Ridge and Henry Hill.

After joining Jackson’s Command near Ox Hill—only 20 miles from the Union capital at Washington, they barely missed the Battle of Chantilly—the 1^st Texas rested for nearly two days.  The men had been marching and fighting for nearly two weeks, so this was much-deserved rest.  But it would be a short time, indeed, because on September 3rd, the Texans were once again on their feet, this time marching north toward Maryland.  Lee’s invasion of the North had begun.

As they entered Union territory for the first time, the Texans marched without their beloved division commander because General Hood had been placed under arrest by General Longstreet following a dust-up with General Evans; Hood marched into the North behind his own command.  Though General Lee and military necessity would soon restore Hood to command, for a time during these early days of the campaign the Texans shared Hood’s uncertain state.  By September 14th, the 1^st Texas men were pushed up South Mountain to slow McClellan’s Union advance on Lee’s still-dispersed army.  Deploying along the ridge on the southern end of the National Road, the Texas Brigade soon was shifted south to plug a weak point in Longstreet’s line in Fox’s Gap.  Their timely arrival stopped General Reno’s Union IX Corps from breaking through and once again, Hood’s Texans had proven their mettle in a fight.

Moving westward off South Mountain late on the 14th, the Texans headed toward Sharpsburg and their next fight.  During the afternoon of the 16th, the 1^st Texas marched north along the Hagerstown Pike, past a small white church, after which the men turned east and marched into a grassy field bordering a patch of thick corn.  Late that night, along with Law’s brigade, the men of the 1st Texas engaged their first Union troops since the fighting two days before.  These were the men of Meade’s division from Hooker’s I Corps, who were streaming into position in the nearby East and North Woods.  Though Hood’s men had fought well in the gathering darkness, they were exhausted and hungry and when nightfall brought on a lull, Hood was allowed by General Jackson—with the requirement they be ready to return to battle at a moment’s notice—to move his men to the rear for some much-needed rest and food, to be replaced south of the Cornfield by Lawton’s and Hays’ brigades.  They could have no idea just how short-lived this break from fighting would be…

During the early hours, as dawn broke, the 1^st Texas and their comrades slept, ate, and rested as best they could with the sound of fighting growing nearby.  Though almost certainly none of the Texans were aware of it, their break from fighting was interrupted by the arrival of General Lawton’s messenger.  Upon finding General Hood in the morning light, the now-weary staffer saluted Hood and instantly reported “General Lawton sends you his compliments, with the request that you come to his support!”  Hood had been monitoring the fighting since dawn and had received Lawton’s earlier warning to be ready, so the call for help was no surprise.  But when the aide added that General Lawton was wounded, Hood knew that now was the time to make good on last night’s pledge to General Jackson to be ready for action when needed.

The Texas Brigade formed beside Hood’s other brigade, led by the 4th Alabama’s Colonel Evander M. Law.  Law’s brigade was comprised of the 4th Alabama, 6th North Carolina, and the 2nd and 11th Mississippi.  As they formed, Union shelling intensified, suggesting to many of the men in Hood’s ranks that the enemy gunners were specifically targeting them.  They had good reason to believe this, but almost certainly they were wrong.  These shells were most likely being firing by the Union’s artillery posted across Antietam Creek and out of sight of the forming Confederates.  But regardless of their origin, the shells were beginning to take a toll on the Texans and their comrades, so Hood moved his two columns forward at once.  Law’s brigade moved first, pressing out of the woods, past the church, across the roadbed, and into the clover field beyond.  They could move so quickly in part because they advanced to the south of the Dunker Church and inadvertently into a spot where there was a gap in the solid post and rail fence lining the Hagerstown Pike.  This was the first daylight view Hood’s men had of the Cornfield, which they were about to enter.  As one soldier in the 4^th Texas recalled of the sight “[R]ight here, when we reached the top of the hill, was the hottest place I ever saw on this earth or want to see hereafter.  There were shot, shells, and Minie balls sweeping the face of the earth; legs, arms, and other parts of human bodies were flying in the air like straw in a whirlwind.  The dogs of war were loose, and “havoc” was their cry.”  [iii]

The scene greeting General Hood on the eastern side of the Hagerstown Pike was no more encouraging, though for a very different reason.  He knew his left flank was uncovered by the flight of Starke’s and Taliaferro’s brigades and now Hood discovered that the center of the Confederate line across the Cornfield was held by almost nothing at all.  Lawton’s once-strong command had dissolved into chaos.  Only Harry Hays stood firm in the rear of the Confederate ground opposite the Cornfield, along with about 40 of his men.  Hood advised Hays “to retire, replenish his cartridge boxes, and reassemble his command,” which Hays and his survivors immediately did.  At the same time, Hood’s division readied for battle.  It was just seven o’clock in the morning.  [iv]

Once across the road, Hood’s division deployed nearly as one giant line spanning the entire width of the Cornfield from the East Woods across to the Hagerstown Pike.  Nonetheless, this unity would be short-lived as they started moving north.  Hood first fractured the formation when he ordered Colonel Law to have his brigade strike directly at a Yankee force holding the southeastern end of the Cornfield, which took them almost directly eastward.  Colonel Law ordered his command to march slightly to the right—moving at the right oblique, a formation in which the men walk diagonally to the right—in order to give Wofford’s Texas Brigade room to maneuver.  Meanwhile, on their left, Hood ordered the Texas Brigade to drive almost due north.  At first it was a slight thing, barely noticeable to the few men in the ranks who might have been aware of it, but soon enough it would prove a fateful development.  Hood had spilt his division into two; not only were the two brigades each moving in very different directions, but they were about to open up two nearly independent fights.  Hood may have felt justified in splitting his force so because they were, after all, only moving to counter the Union presence, which itself was widely divided.  Regardless, it was a decision that was to have a significant impact on their battle.  But for now, Hood’s massive division was about to overwhelm some very determined Yankees. [v]

“A long and steady line of rebel grey, unbroken by the fugitives who fly before us, comes sweeping down through the woods and around the church,” recalled the 6^th Wisconsin’s Major Dawes of the sight.  Those in Gibbon’s Iron Brigade ranks who saw the Texas Brigade rolling toward them knew instantly that the tables had just turned.  They had been pressing forward toward Starke’s and Taliaferro’s men so swiftly that their unit cohesion had begun to dissolve and rather than an organized fighting force, the Iron Brigade now resembled a chaotic mass.  Reaching the fence on the Hagerstown Pike had restored some form and order to their lines, but not enough.  And barely had Hood’s division appeared on their unprotected left flank, when the Confederates opened fire on the disorganized and unprepared regiments of Gibbon’s and Phelps’ brigades.  “They raise the yell and fire,” remembered Rufus Dawes of that moment, “It is like a scythe running through our line.”  The enfilading fire—pouring into the Iron Brigade’s open left flank in a way that they couldn’t stop—swept away men’s lives and what little order had existed in the Union ranks.  Without prompting, Gibbon’s men ran.  [vi]

 

Wofford quickly pushed his Texans into the void created by his regiments’ raking fire.  Up the long slope of the shattered Cornfield they moved, keeping their order and dress despite the speed with which they’d been thrown into this fight.  They pushed the Yanks back 600 or so yards when the left of Wofford’s line—the Hampton Legion and the 18th Georgia—suddenly stopped altogether, though they continued firing rapidly.  What had halted the two regiments were two artillery pieces (Stewart’s section of the 4^th US Artillery) deployed on a rise across the Hagerstown Pike, pouring a deadly, accurate fire of canister into the flank of Wofford’s line.  And like the experienced officers they were, the Hampton Legion’s Lieutenant Colonel Gary and the 18^th Georgia’s Lieutenant Colonel Ruff moved their regiments’ front to the left to return fire on this threat. [vii]

Colonel Wofford could plainly see that his attack was stalling and that the reason for it was that his left flank was stuck on something.  But before he could do anything about this, the Texas Brigade’s commander needed intelligence to tell him exactly what to do.  “I rode hastily to them (Hampton’s Legion and the 18^th Georgia), urging them forward, when I saw two full regiments, one in their front and other partly to their left.”  What Wofford could see across the road almost certainly was the 19^th Indiana and the 7^th Wisconsin, coming slowly through the West Woods to the south of Stewart’s guns.  And he knew instantly that with such a force in their front and a Yankee battery tearing at their flank, the men of Hampton’s Legion and the 18^th Georgia could do nothing more than hold their ground – and that if they didn’t get help soon, even continuing to do that might be impossible. [viii]

Racing to the right of his line, Wofford found Lieutenant Colonel Work and ordered him to move his 1^st Texas from the center to the left to relieve the threat there.  His thought was a sound one given all he could see at that moment.  The center wasn’t being pressed by more than scattered infantry fire and the occasional artillery round, but the left was under stress to the point of breaking.  It was a simple matter of putting troops where they were most needed.  Wofford intended that the 1^st Texas move forward a few dozen yards out of the line—giving them room to maneuver—after which they would drive through the Cornfield to the right of the 18^th Georgia, aiming for the flank of the Yankee battery and the two regiments of infantry threatening his own brigade’s left flank.  And with Wofford’s order, Work prepared to move his men out of the Texas Brigade’s line and to the left. [ix]

At the same time, General Hood, too, was watching the Texas Brigade’s attack stall.  From his position to the rear of the brigade Hood could see—probably even before Wofford could—the presence of the Yankee regiments in the West Woods threatening Wofford’s left, so the reason for the brigade stopping was no mystery to its division commander.  While Wofford rode to the left to investigate, Hood rode to the right to take action.  From his vantage point in the rear, Hood could also see that the right of Wofford’s line was unopposed—there was no Yankee infantry at all in the middle of the Cornfield—so troops here were ideal reinforcements for the threatened left.  Racing to their position, General Hood ordered Lieutenant Colonel B. F. Carter to take his 4^th Texas to the left.  Moving at the left oblique, the Texans soon reached the Hagerstown Pike, where Hood once again joined them and ordered Carter to deploy on the left of the Hampton Legion.  Once this quick change of position was completed, Wofford’s brigade found itself in a radically different position than what it had taken on deploying for battle.  The 1^st Texas now held the right flank, with the 18^th Georgia, Hampton Legion, and the 4^th Texas to their left.  The Texas Brigade no longer faced north, but nearly west; the only regiment still moving north was the 1^st Texas.  And the Texas Brigade had lost one of its regiments completely.  Shortly after ordering the 4^th Texas to the left, General Hood decided that the 1^st Texas had things there well-in-hand and so directed the 5^th Texas to move to the far right of the Cornfield to support Law’s Brigade.  Once in motion, the 5^th Texas would walk forever out of the Texas Brigade’s fight and into a completely different reality in the East Woods.  [x]

At nearly the same moment that the 4^th Texas was ordered to the left of Wofford’s line, Lieutenant Colonel Phillip A. Work led his 1^st Texas cleanly through their change of direction, moving “By the right flank, March!” that would—as every soldier in the regiment knew—instantly put them back in their original direction moving north.  Marching north, all they needed to do to satisfy Hood’s order was to align on the 18^th Georgia’s right flank to stabilize Wofford’s line. The Texans pushed over the shattered southern fence of the Cornfield and into the remains of the field itself.  [xi]

Barely had the 1^st Texas stepped amidst the husks of corn when they attracted the fire of Ransom’s Battery C of the 5th US Artillery, posted atop the ridge overlooking the Cornfield from the north.  But the scattered shots of Ransom’s Napoleons couldn’t stop these veterans and deeper into the corn they went.  Here and there musket shots ripped through the remaining standing clumps of corn, but they did little more than anger the Texans as they pressed ahead.  Approaching the Union infantry, the Yankees scattered and broke for the rear, nearly without prompting.  The Texans were scoring a tremendous victory and had barely fired a shot.  If this pace kept up, they might break the Union’s hold on this spot single-handedly!   The men instantly started moving forward after the fleeing enemy with a will all their own, pressing deeper and deeper into the Cornfield and farther and farther from their appointed post on the 18^th Georgia’s right flank.  In their flush of victory, the men of the 1^st Texas had no idea what a disaster they had just set in motion.

What caused this tremendous error was quite simple – Lieutenant Colonel Work and his officers lost control of the regiment.  Years after the battle, defenders of the 1^st Texas would claim that they’d not gotten word of Hood’s orders or that those orders had been unclear.  General Hood would comment that the 1^st Texas had “slipped the bridle and got away from the command.”  And while John Bell Hood certainly knew how to shade the truth to defend his actions and reputation, in this case he’s almost certainly correct.  In his account published in the Official Records, Colonel Work explained that “[a]s soon as the regiment became engaged with the enemy in the corn-field, it became impossible to restrain the men, and they rushed forward, pressing the enemy…”  Colonel Work had committed the gravest of failures for a military commander, losing control of his fighting machine and allowing it to morph into an uncontrolled, surging mob.  Philip Work must have been nearly frantic at that moment because he knew only too well that unless he recovered control soon, disaster certainly loomed.  But regardless, for a moment it may have seemed that the men’s uncontrolled spirit might win the day because the Yankees were indeed running, yielding with each stride control of ever more of the blood-soaked, precious Cornfield.   For the moment, Lieutenant Colonel Work must have felt able only to be carried along by the situation his loss of control had created and hope for the best.  As events would soon prove, it was to be a vain hope indeed.  [xii]

Hood might have been cheered by the situation facing Law’s brigade, if he could divert his attention from Wofford’s sorry state to see its movements in any detail.  Law’s three regiments—the 6^th North Carolina, the 11^th Mississippi, and the 2^nd Mississippi—swept through the fallen remains of the Cornfield that Lawton’s and Hooker’s men had already cleared for them as if anticipating their advance.  As they first entered the corn, a stout fire from Union troops holding the northern end of the field—100 or so men from the 104^th and 105^th New York from Duryee’s brigade—found them.  But as they reached their much sought after objective, the Cornfield’s northern fence, Law’s men beheld at that instant a sight that staggered them.  Meade’s fresh division of the I Corps stood like a blue steel curtain across the entire width of D.R. Miller’s field from the Hagerstown Pike to nearly the East Woods.  Hood’s gains in the Cornfield were about to be tested as never before.    [xiii]

At the same moment that the 1^st Texas had been beginning its advance, across the Miller farm fields Meade’s division had moved into the fight behind Doubleday’s and Ricketts’ men, filling the void the Union’s first attackers had created as they advanced.  After stepping from the safety of the North Woods, Meade had prepared them to move quickly.  Colonel Albert Magilton’s brigade of Pennsylvania Reserves held the left of Meade’s position, while Lieutenant Colonel Robert Anderson’s brigade deployed on the right.  Between the two formations, Meade placed Ransom’s battery, which moved ahead of the Pennsylvania Reserves and deployed in nearly the center of the grassy field overlooking the Cornfield itself.  Immediately, Meade started his two columns forward.  After pausing briefly in the swale north of Miller’s Cornfield, the Union division moved from the fleeting cover between the two swells and up the slope toward the Cornfield as one force to meet Hood’s attackers.

At that critical moment, the 1^st Texas was the only link between Law’s nearly-victorious brigade and Wofford’s stalled men.  Cresting the ridge, they drew artillery fire from the right-most guns of Ransom’s battery.  Still, Work’s Texans pressed bravely on, firing at those Yankees they could see through the remaining, scattered patches of standing corn.  Although they probably didn’t know it at the time, the 1^st Texas had reached nearly to the Cornfield’s northern fence, only 30 yards away.  But barely could they have registered this fact when, seemingly out of the very ground, Meade’s Pennsylvania Reserves arose to pour a solid wall of fire into the advancing Texans.

Lieutenant Colonel Robert Anderson’s men had been waiting for this moment now for some time because the retreating New Yorkers and Wisconsinites threading through their ranks had warned that the enemy was coming right for them.  The fire rolled in on the Texans from their right as the 12^th Pennsylvania Reserves fired first, followed by a similar regimental volley from the 11^th Reserves on the 12^th’s right.  The Texans were still reeling from this shock when another volley swept through the 1^st Texas from the far left as the 9^th Pennsylvania Reserves fired their volley at the left oblique.  Work’s men had walked into a firestorm.  [xiv]

At first the Texans tried to hold their ground.  Private Hanks from Company K recalled picking out of Anderson’s line a Pennsylvanian wearing a double breasted coat at just the moment the man rose up from behind his fence rail breastwork to fire. Taking aim, Hanks thought “I am going to see you killed” and fired.  But Hanks would never know if he hit his mark because a Yankee ball tore through his upper chest, forcing him to the rear for medical help.  Others in the 1^st Texas suffered similar fates and the regiment’s ranks were thinning fast.  In the few minutes they stood in that deadly spot, eight men were killed holding the regimental colors.  Each time a colorbearer was shot to the ground some brave soul instantly lifted the flag back to its place of honor.  Work knew his regiment couldn’t stay here long so he sent his adjutant, Sergeant Shropshire, to the rear to find someone in authority to approve pulling the 1^st Texas back.  But barely had the sergeant left before the regiment melted away to the rear, “ordered” there by the Yankee fire of Anderson’s brigade.  To remain behind would have been suicide.  [xv]

Men raced away in such confusion that it took considerable time before Lieutenant Colonel Work and his Texans realized that in the confusion in the Cornfield they’d lost their beloved regimental color, a Lone Star flag of Texas.  The flag had been made by Lula Wigfall—daughter of the regiment’s first commander, Colonel Wigfall—using pieces of her mother’s wedding dress.  But worse for the regiment was the loss of men who formed its lifeblood.  Only 56 men from the 1st Texas would survive the moments before Anderson’s brigade that morning to reach muster later in the day.  Lieutenant Colonel Work only then would discover that of the 226 men he’d marched into the Cornfield, 170 had been killed or wounded.  It would be for later historians to figure that 82.3 percent of the regiment fell in the Cornfield.  The 1^st Texas had marched in a regiment and emerged as barely four squads.  [xvi]

Despite these tremendous losses, the men of the 1^st Texas fought on.  They served with the Army of Northern Virginia at Fredericksburg on December 13^th, 1862 and at Gettysburg on July 1–3, 1863.  Detached to join Longstreet’s command in the west, the regiment served in Georgia and Tennessee; fighting at Chickamauga on September 19–20, 1863 and taking part in the siege of Chattanooga from September to November 1863. The 1^st Texas returned to Virginia in time to participate in the 1864 battles at the Wilderness on May 5–6, Spotsylvania Court House from May 8 to 21, Cold Harbor on June 1–3, and the Petersburg siege from June 1864 to April 1865. The regiment surrendered along with the rest of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House on April 9^th, 1865. All of the men who surrendered at Appomattox Court House were paroled by the Union Army under Ulysses S. Grant and allowed to return home.  For these valiant men, the war was truly over.

Throughout the war the 1^st Texas Infantry suffered heavy casualties. At Gettysburg, more than 20 percent of its 426 troops were lost. At the time of its surrender at Appomattox Court House, only 16 officers and 133 men remained of the regiment. But it was in Antietam’s bloody Cornfield that the 1^st Texas paid its dearest price of the war.  That day, 211 soldiers had assembled at dawn to march northward into the Cornfield; by nightfall 50 were killed and 132 men wounded, amounting to a stunning 82 percent casualty rate.  It was a fact that earned the hard-fighting Texans the “honor” of having paid the greatest human cost of any regiment—on either side—in a single battle for the entire war.

[i] Texas State Historical Association Online – https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/qlf03.

[ii] Texas State Historical Association Online – https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/qlf03. Philip Alexander Work was born in Cloverport, Breckinridge County, Kentucky, on February 17, 1832, the son of John and Frances (Alexander) Work. The family moved to Velasco, Texas, in 1838 and several years later settled in Town Bluff, Tyler County.  Work had served as a lawyer before the war.

[iii] Confederate Veteran, Vol. 22, (December, 1914), p. 555.

[iv] Ezra A. Carman and Joseph Pierro, Ed. The Maryland Campaign of 1862; Ezra A. Carman’s Definitive Study of the Union and Confederates at Antietam. (New York: Routledge Books, 2008), p. 227.; The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume XIX, Part 2 (hereafter referred to as “OR”) (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1887), Vol. XIX, Pt. 1, pp. 923, 928, 932, 937-8.

[v] OR, Vol. XIX, Pt. 1, p. 937.

[vi] Rufus R. Dawes A Full Blown Yankee of the Iron Brigade: Service with the Sixth Wisconsin Volunteers (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1962), pp. 91.

[vii]   What they faced here was not only Lieutenant Stewart’s two-gun section of the 4th US Artillery but their infantry support, the 80th New York, as well.   The Union men probably couldn’t appreciate it at that moment, but opening an unexpected fire on Wofford’s flank had stripped its momentum and stopped the Confederate attack nearly in an instant.  Stewart’s artillerists and the New Yorkers had just duplicated the very situation that had robbed Gibbon’s attacking brigade of success only a half an hour or so earlier.

[viii] OR, Vol. XIX, Pt. 1, p. 928.

[x] OR, Vol. XIX, Pt. 1, p. 928.

[x] Carman, The Maryland Campaign, p. 229.; OR, Vol. XIX, Pt. 1, p. 935.

[xi] Carman, The Maryland Campaign, p. 231.  Joseph Pierro, editor of Carman’s Antietam manuscript, notes that the source for this quote from General Hood has yet to be identified.; OR, Vol. XIX, Pt. 1, p. 932.

[xii] OR, Vol. XIX, Pt. 1, p. 932.  Carman, The Maryland Campaign, p. 231.

[xiii] Carman, The Maryland Campaign, p. 229.

[xiv] OR, Vol. XIX, I, p. 933.

[xv] Commager, The Blue and the Grey, p. 306.   Carman, The Maryland Campaign, p. 231.  Priest, Antietam: the Soldier’s Battle, p. 66.  O.T. Hanks Reminiscences, 1861-1865, 1918, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin. Box 2R31.

[xvi] The 1st Texas also lost a battle flag on April 8, 1865 at Appomattox Court House when it was captured by 1st Lt. Morton A. Read of the 8th New York Cavalry. Read earned the Medal of Honor for this deed.