1st Texas

We made the charge with the rest of the brigade and, having driven back the first line of the enemy, went on to their second line, charged it and did not stop as long as there was a Yankee in sight. They ran through the cornfield and we had nearly gone through it when Colonel Work called a halt to reform our line and await the arrival of the balance of the brigade. While thus halted a Federal battery some 250 yards distant from us gout our range and began making it hot for us. The boys wanted to charge and capture it, but Colonel Work objected.​

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We began firing at the men around the battery, and after we had given them a couple of rounds they abandoned their guns and took to flight. Just as they did so a body of Federals who lay behind a rock fence fifty yards away, and partly hidden from our view by the standing corn, poured a volley into us. Turning our eyes in this direction, we began firing at them, taking the precaution however, to lie down and do our shooting. You can imagine how brisk the firing was from both sides when I tell you that within five minutes not a stalk of corn was left standing between us and the rock fence. But we stayed there and continued the fight until most of our men were killed or wounded, and then, ordered to retire, fell back and got in touch with other regiments of the brigade. Of my company only Captain Connally and myself were left.​

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While ramming the thirty-fourth cartridge down my gun it stuck about half way. Just then the order to fall back came, and having no time to tinker with a choked gun I picked up that of one of my wounded comrades. Getting back to where we had routed the first line of the enemy. I found a comrade named Dixon – we called him Dixie – lying down and severely wounded. He asked me to help him off the field, and I did, and although for 150 yards the air was full of lead fired at us by the Yankees, neither of us got scratched. About this time other troops relieved our brigade and we went back to the camp we had occupied the night before. When Captain Connally learned that he and I were the sole representatives of Company D he said that as we did not need any officers for so small a squad he would get a gun and fall in with me, and that we two would do the fighting for Company D as long as we lived. Captain Connally was one of the bravest men in the army. He was in the last stage of consumption and had to be hauled to the battle field that morning. But the day overtaxed his strength. He was sent back to Richmond and thence went to Georgia, where he died a few months later.​

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The last I saw of our regimental flag that day was at the time we were ordered to retire. I saw the flag fall, its bearer being killed, then I saw it grasped and raised by another man, who started back with it, furling it around its staff as he walked, then I lost sight of it, and am sure that this last man I saw in possession of it must have been killed in the retreat. Anyhow, the flag was not captured and was not secured by the Federals in any way of which they had a right to be proud.​

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Not one of the regiments that composed Hood’s Texas Brigade ever had its flag captured in battle. The man who got credit for capturing the First Texas flag picked it up as it lay beside its dead or mortally wounded bearer, after all the fighting of the day was over. No doubt, however, he told his superiors that he had wrested it from the hands of its bearer. It put a feather in the cap of a Federal soldier to be credited with the capture of a Confederate flag, for in most cases not only was his name mentioned in general orders, but he was likely, if at all qualified, to receive promotion. The Confederate soldier, though, was offered no incentive of that kind; his regiment got all the credit, no matter what the risk he took. The best that the Confederate authorities did to encourage gallantry was to offer gold medals to the bravest man of a regiment. But as these superlatively brave were usually selected by the vote of the regiment, personal popularity had much to do with the awards.​

Pvt. J. P. Cook, Co. D "Star Rifles," 1st Texas, San Antonio Daily Express, March 29, 1908