The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 95, July 1991 - April, 1992 Page: 489

Notes and Documents
"Those Texians Are Number One Men":
A New Confederate Account of the Affair
at Lee's House, Virginia
JUDITH N. MCARTHUR*
H OOD'S TEXAS BRIGADE WAS DESERVEDLY ONE OF THE MOST CELE-
brated infantry brigades in the Confederate army. The only Texas
unit in the Army of Northern Virginia, it first distinguished itself at
Eltham's Landing in the spring of 1862, and during the Seven Days
Battles that summer earned the praise of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall
Jackson.' At Gaines' Mill the Texans won the day for Lee, breaking the
Federal line with an "almost matchless display of daring and valor,"
Jackson wrote in his official report.2 Under the bold and relentless John
Bell Hood, the Texas Brigade fought with such tenacity that it was for-
ever after called Hood's, even though Hood himself led it for only a
few months before being promoted to major general and given com-
mand of a division.
*.Judith N. McArthur is a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Texas at Austin
and is completing a dissertation on women's pohtical culture in Texas during the Progressive
era. She has published articles in the Journal of the Early Republic, East Texas Histouical ow nal,
and Social Sczence Journal, and is coeditor of Cittzens at Last The Woman Suffrage Movement in
Texas (Austin: Ellen C. Temple Publishing, 1987). The Griffin letter is part of an unpublished
volume entitled "A Gentleman and an Ofhcer: The Civil War Letters of Lt. Col James B
Griffin of Edgefield, South Carolina" that she is coediting with Orville Vernon Burton.
'Clifford Dowdey, The Seven Days The Emergence of Robert E Lee (1964, reprint, Wilmington,
N.C.: Broadfoot Publishing Co., 1988), 243; Douglas Southall Freeman, Lees Lieutenants A
Study in Command (3 vols; New York- Charles Scribner's Sons, 1942), I, 535, Hairy McColry
Henderson, "Hood's Texas Brigade- An Address ... Before the Houston Civil War Round
Table, February 2, 1955" (typescript, Eugene C Barker Texas History Center, University of
Texas, Austin), Confederate Mzlztary History, Extended Editon (17 vols., Wilmington, N.C.: Broad-
foot Publishing Co, 1987), I, 657-658. The standard history is Harold B. Simpson, Ilood's
Texas Brigade (4 vols., Hillsboro, Tex.. HillJunior College Press, 1968-1977) See also [Nicho-
las A Davis], Chaplazn Davis and Ilood's Texas Brigade, ed. Donald E. Everett (San Antonio: Prmn-
cipia Press of Trinity University, 1962); Mrs. A. V. Winkler, The Confederate Capital and IIood's
Texas Brigade (Austin. Von Boeckmann, 1894); and J B. Polley, Hood's Texas Brigade" Its Ma, hes,
Its Battles, Its Achievements (191o, reprint, Dayton, Ohio. Morningside Bookshop, 1976).
2 U.S. Department of War, War of the Rebellion A Compilation of the Official Recolds of the Union
and Confederate Armies (70 vols in 128, Washington, D C U.S Government Printing Office,
188o-19go), Scr. I, Vol. II, part 2, p. 556 (cited hereafter as OR).