Download "... Willing Never to Go in Another Fight": The Civil War

"... Willing Never to Go in Another Fight": The Civil War Correspondence of Rufus King
Felder of Chappell Hill
Author(s): Stephen Chicoine and Rufus King Felder
Reviewed work(s):
Source: The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Vol. 106, No. 4 (Apr., 2003), pp. 574-597
Published by: Texas State Historical Association
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". .. Willing Never To Go in AnotherFight":
The Civil WarCorrespondence
of Rufus King
Felderof ChappellHill
STEPHEN CHICOINE*
UFUS
HIS
YEARSOLD WHENHE ACCOMPANIED
KING FELDERWASFIFTEEN
widowed mother to Texas in 1855. The family established itself in
South Carolina before the American Revolution and several branches
were prominent cotton planters in the antebellum era. Judge Gabriel
Felder was the first of the family to move west. He relocated to Washington County, Texas, in the spring of 1851 and began clearing nearly two
thousand five hundred acres of fertile soil. Jesse Felder brought Judge
Felder's remaining slaves from South Carolina to Texas in 1854. The
186o Census listed Gabriel Felder as the largest slaveholder in Washington County with one hundred and thirty slaves.Jesse, a Yale graduate and
a former state legislator, was accompanied by his younger brother, Miers,
on the journey. Rufus King's mother sent her family's slaves along with
those of Judge Felder to begin clearing land she acquired near his holdings. She and her five children moved to Chappell Hill, Texas, in the following year to settle their new plantation. Rufus King grew into manhood
with his older cousin, Miers, who also settled in Chappell Hill.'
*Stephen Chicoine lived in Texas for twenty-five years before moving to Minnesota two years
ago; he and his wife and daughter, both native Texans, retain their love of Texas. Chicoine's sixth
book, a monograph on Civil War GeneralJohn Basil Turchin, will be published by Praeger in the
coming year. This article is an excerpt from an unpublished manuscript, which is a social history
of the period before, during, and after the Civil War, as seen through the microcosm of Chappell
Hill in Washington County. The work is dedicated to the memory of the late Nath Winfield, wellrespected historian of Chappell Hill and a friend of the author. Special thanks to Ladonna Vest
and Judy Winfield of the Chappell Hill Historical Society and to Peggy Fox at the Hill College
Harold B. Simpson History Center, Hillsboro, Texas.
'Francis W. Johnson, A History of Texas and Texans, ed. Eugene C. Barker and Ernest William
Winkler (5 vols.; Chicago: American Historical Society, 1914), IV, 1616-1617; "Gabriel Felder,"
VOL. CVI, NO. 4
SOUTHWESTERN HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
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APRIL 2003
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A number of wealthy families of planters from across the Deep South
settled in the Chappell Hill area in the period before the Civil War. The
bottoms of the Brazos floodplain produced high yields of cotton and the
town soon became a center of wealth and privilege. Chappell Hill evolved
a decidedly Southern character with its Greek Revival mansions. Large
numbers of slaves toiled in the fields to plant, raise, and cultivate the cash
crop. The establishment of Soule University enhanced Chappell Hill's position as an aristocratic center of the state. Soule University, under the
control of the Texas Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
South, had the finest faculty and library of any college in Texas before the
war. Judge Gabriel Felder, scion of the Texas Felders and one of the
largest slaveholders in the state, served as president of the board of
trustees of the university and endowed a chair of ancient and modern
languages.2
While the majority of Texans were not plantation owners or slaveholders, the high cotton yield in the extensive floodplains of the Brazos and
Colorado Rivers resulted in planters of substantial wealth being concentrated in these stretches. This planter elite held considerable influence in
Texas politics and they saw the conflict between North and South as a
fight to preserve their livelihood and way of life. As a result, Texas seceded from the Union and Texans enlisted to fight in the Confederate Army.3
Rufus King Felder was twenty-one years old when the Civil War broke
out in 1861. He was a student at Soule University at the time. The First,
Fourth, and Fifth Texas Infantry Regiments, which would become the
Texas Brigade, formed on Buffalo Bayou near Houston in the summer of
1861. Washington County men made up the majority of two companies
of the Fifth Texas Infantry. Capt. Jerome Bonaparte Robertson formed
Company I, the Texas Aids, and Capt.John Rogers raised Company E, the
Dixie Blues. Rufus King and his twenty-nine-year-old cousin, Miers, were
among the Chappell Hill men in Company E, both enlisting at Washington, Texas, on July 11.4
Rufus King Felder wrote his mother from Houston:
The camp is all in a stir.No one knowswhatwe will do. We have not been mustered into the serviceyet. . . . If you have a chance I wish you would send me
Handbook of Texas Online (accessed Mar. 15, 1999); L. E. Daniell, Personnel of the Texas State Government, with sketchesof distinguished Texans (Austin: Smith, Hicks & Jones, 1889), 338.
2 Carole E. Christian, "Soule University,"Handbook of Texas Online (accessed Feb. 2o, 1999);
HistoricalQuarterly,
Ralph A. Wooster, "Noteson Texas' LargestSlaveholders, 186o," Southwestern
65 (July, 1961), 79.
3 Randolph B. Campbell, An Empirefor Slavery: The Peculiar Institution in Texas, 1 82 1-1865 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989), 68, 194; Elizabeth Silverthorne, Plantation Life
in Texas(College Station:Texas A&MUniversityPress, 1986), 192.
4 Johnson, A Historyof Texasand Texans,1618; Rufus King Felder military service record,
Records of Confederate MilitaryOrganization,RG 10og9.9
(NationalArchives,Washington,D.C.).
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". . WillingNeverTo Go in AnotherFight"
577
my oil cloth & tell I. to send my pistol & all the buckshotthat wil fit in it & also
myflask ...
By August, the regiments moved east to Virginia. The regiments marched
and Felder referred to it as "that long & ever to be remembered march
... from knee to waist deep in mud & water."'
From New Iberia, the regiments moved downriver by boat to New Orleans, where they loaded onto trains for Virginia. Felder wrote from Virginia five days later:
Sept. 12, 1861, Richmond,VA.... Weare growingquite tiredof our inactivity.We
are encampedthree miles from the citywithoutguns or marchingorders.... It is
rumoredthat Galvestonis about to be attacked& it createdin me deep feelings
of regret& self condemnationthat I left &will not be there to defend the stateof
my adoption& the home of all those on earthwho are so dear to me, though my
humble mite [might] would be small, yet it would be given with a prior determined will & a truersense of an outragedpeople. If it is true that our state has
been invadedthere is not a man or boy in the lone starstate,but wouldriseup in
anger & swearto drivefrom our soil the last man that dare oppose us ...
Felder's first encounter with Federal soldiers occurred while he was on
furlough in Richmond. He reported home, "I also had the pleasure of
seeing the yankee prisoners .. . They sometimes got very insulting. Several of them had to be shot by the guards .. ." Rufus King closed his letter
with, "Tellall the Negroes howdy for me & tell them I am growing fast and
harty [hearty]. Give my love to all & tell the girls I will expect letters from
all of them .. ."7
On October 21, 1861, the three Texas regiments were combined with
the Eighteenth Georgia Infantry to become the Texas Brigade. Brig.
Gen. Lewis Wigfall assumed command on the following day. The new
soldiers settled into camp for the winter and suffered terribly from disease. At one point, only twenty-five of the eight hundred men in the
Fifth Texas Infantry were fit for duty. Thirty men in the Fifth's Company
K alone died of yellow fever in the first six months of service. Rufus King
wrote that his company was the healthiest in the regiment and left only
eighteen behind when they marched off on the night of November 7th.
Orders were to fill knapsacks with three days' worth of rations for a
forced march, which Rufus King felt made his load "Enough for a pack
mule." The brigade marched all night for a distance of nearly twenty
miles to Dumfries, where Quantico Creek empties into the Potomac.
SRufus King Felder, letter, Aug. 5, 1861, Hood's Texas Brigade Letter Collection (Harold B.
Simpson Confederate Research Center, Hill College, Hillsboro, Tex.). Correspondence from this
collection is cited hereafter as Felder letter.
6
Felder letter, Sept. 7, 1861.
7 Felder letter, Sept. 12, 1861.
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Rufus King wrote, "We had a dreadful march of it over the worst road I
ever saw .. ." The men found some relief watching each other slide and
fall in the mud. But the pace was grueling and many fell out of the ranks
from exhaustion. Rufus King and his comrades "were greatly disappointed on our arrival to find that the enemy had not crossed [the Potomac
River] & there was no chance for a fight. The useless order was from
Gen. Wigfall & has I think the fancy of an intoxicated brain." The eager
soldier-to-be added, "no telling what moment the long roll will be sounded to lead us forth to battle. Come when it may they will find brave
hearts to meet them & men who not only feel the power of their arm,
but know that the God of battles are with us & will sustain the cause of
right &justice ..."8
In his letter of November 17 from Dumfries, Virginia, Rufus King
wrote that, per his mother's request, he had his photograph taken. He
wrote, "Miers & myself had ours taken together the day before we left K
[Kentucky]. We will keep it & send it back by who ever brings our clothing." The photo of the two young Confederates survived the war and has
survived the passage of time as a part of the Chappell Hill Historical Society collection of Nath and Judy Winfield.'
Felder wrote on February 2o, 1862, that his company had lost two
more men to disease since he had last written and added, "I hope they
will be the last we shall loose [lose] until we return to the bosoms of our
familys." Young Felder had no idea of the loss of life that his brigade
would sustain in the three years ahead of them. His sister delivered a baby boy, causing Rufus King to reflect with a touch of homesickness:
GivesisterE. mycongratulations& tell her to find him well thathe maysoon grow
up & make a stout healthysoldier & make himselfuseful[,] a Boregard[Gen. P.
G. T. Beauregard]for the risinggenerations.The farmers,I suppose, are by this
time planting a new crop. It seems strange that it should be planting time in
Texas.Here the ground is coveredwith snow .. .10
On March 12, 1862, John Bell Hood took command of the brigade,
which would be known thereafter as Hood's Texas Brigade. Col. Jerome
Bonaparte Robertson became commanding officer of the Fifth Texas Infantry. Robertson had arrived in Texas in 1835 to help in the fight for independence. He settled down in Washington, Texas, in 1837 to practice
medicine. He also served in the state legislature and took part in several
campaigns against hostile Indians.
8 Harold B. Simpson, Hood's Texas Brigade: A Compendium (Hillsboro, Tex.: Hill Junior College
Press, 1977), 558; Felder letter, Nov. 17, 1861 (quotations).
9Felder letter, Nov. 17, 1861.
10Felder letter, Feb. 2o, 1862.
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"... WillingNeverTo Go in AnotherFight"
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Company E found itself with a new company commander and Rufus
King was little disturbed by the loss of Captain Rogers, writing:
The Capt.has receiveda commissionor ratheran order to raisea reg.... Some
of the boyscondemn Capt.R. for leavingthe company,but most of them are very
willingto get rid of him as he thoughtmore of enjoymentand promotionthan he
did of his company.Our governmentcertainlymust be scarceof militarymen to
appoint him Col. when he cannot drill a Companymuch less take care of it. We
were verymuch disappointedin him, but I did not complain as I knewit would
createuneasinessat home."
Rufus King was sick and sent to Richmond's Chimborazo Hospital at
the end of March. He did not return to duty until nearly the end of April.
The brigade marched without Rufus King to Yorktown in response to the
landing on the peninsula of Gen. George McClellan's Union army.Felder
was witness to the ensuing panic in Richmond, as the fighting wasjust sixty miles from the Confederate capital. Enthusiastic cheering overcame
fear as Confederate troops in large numbers began to pass through Richmond on April 6 to engage McClellan's army. Felder wasjust returning to
his unit when the Siege of Yorktown ended at the beginning of May and
the Confederate forces fell back toward Richmond to regroup. He saw action when Hood's Brigade fought a delaying action at Eltham's Landing
on May 7. Historian Stephen Sears noted the skirmish "wasmarked by the
same aggressive Southern tactics that characterized Williamsburg." The
Fifth Texas Infantry was not engaged in the Battle of Seven Pines, which
took place on May 31-June 1, 1862.12
Rufus King traveled by train with the brigade to Staunton, Virginia, on
June 12, 1862, to join Stonewall Jackson's army in a series of rapid movements. Felder wrote his sister Kate:
When I wrote last to mother,we were on our wayto reinforceJackson.Wellwe
havereachedhim & have takenwith him some of his famousforced marches....
The boys were continuallybreakingdown & worn out with fatigue. . . . Among
those that broke down on the marchwasyour weaklybrother.... It was about a
week before I had good use of my legs ...
Private Felder was left at a hospital in Charlottesville, Virginia, onJune 20,
1862, and wrote:
... the consequencewasI wascut out of the fight. ... It mayhavebeen best that
I wasnot in it, as our companysuffereda greatdeal. Out of the 42 thatwere in the
fight, 19 were killed &wounded ... [Cousin]Mierspassedthroughunhurt.Our
" Felder letter, Mar. 3, 1862.
1
Stephen Sears, To the Gates of Richmond: The Peninsula Campaign (New York: Ticknor & Fields,
1992), 44, 85 (quotation).
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brigadedid damn good service& though it fought as becomes Texiansthe loss
was very heavy .... Our brigade charged & drove the enemy from one of their
strongestpositions,whichone or twoothershad failed to accomplishhavingbeen
drivenbackby the deadlyfire of the large batteriesof the enemy planted on the
surroundinghills &which continued to throwa showerof shot and shell into our
lines .. ."
Rufus King Felder had missed the brigade's first major battle, Gaines'
Mill, on June 27, 1862. Hood's Texas Brigade distinguished itself by
breaking a deadlocked battle with a dramatic frontal assault in which they
overran two lines of entrenchments and captured an entire regiment and
fourteen artillery pieces. Only sunset saved the Federal Army from disaster. Other attacks that day had failed and there was little reason to expect
Hood's Texans to do any better. The Confederate victory at Gaines' Mill
saved Richmond and delivered victory to Robert E. Lee, who had just assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia. Lee would never forget, and turned to Hood's Texas Brigade time and time again to serve as
his shock troops. The Confederates proceeded to pursue the Union Army
out of Virginia in what became known as the Seven Days' Battle, of which
Felder's existing correspondence makes no note.'4
In the aftermath of the success in the Seven Days' Battle, Gen. Robert
E. Lee marched his Army of Northern Virginia towards Washington, D.C.
On August 28-30, 1862, North and South clashed again at Manassas
Junction. Hood's Brigade was reassigned from Jackson's to Longstreet's
command. Longstreet's right wing played an important role in the Battle
of Second Manassas, attacking the Federal left on August 30 in a massive
assault involving nearly twenty-five thousand men. Hood's Texas Brigade
led the advance, its front extending seven hundred yards as it marched
across an open plain. The Texans essentially destroyed two enemy
brigades and turned the Federal flank. The Fifth Texas Infantry advanced
to close range of the Fifth New York Zouaves, unleashed a devastating volley, and charged with bayonet. The Fifth New York lost nearly three hundred men in ten minutes in what was the greatest loss of life of an infantry
regiment in any single battle in the entire war.'5
Felder described the battle two weeks later in a letter to his family back
in Texas:
"1Felder letter, July 14, 1862.
14 U.S. War Department,
The War of the Rebellion:A Compilation of the Official Recordsof the Union
and ConfederateArmies (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1881-1900oo), Series 1,II,
568; Richard M. McMurry, John Bell Hood and the Warfor SouthernIndependence(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1982), 49.
15John J. Hennessey, Return to Bull Run: The Campaign and Battle of Second Manassas (New York:
Simon & Schuster, 1993), 364, 368, 373, 407; Harold B. Simpson, Hood's Texas Brigade: Lee's
GrenadierGuards (Waco: Texian Press, 1970), 152.
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". . WillingNeverTo Go in AnotherFight"
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Ourbrigadewasorderedin aboutthree.We double-quickenedit abouta mile before we met the enemy.We first met two reg. of Zouaves.We kept advancing&
shooting until we got within thirtyyardsof them. They then broke and fled, but
few of their numberwereleft to tell the tale. The groundwasperfectlystrewnwith
the bodies of the red breeched fellows.This was but the commencementof the
carnage.Wethen had three successivelines of battleto chargeover.Thiswasdone
& when night came & put an end to the dreadfulcarnageit found the enemy in
full retreat.Had there been aJoshua to savethe settingsun, we might havemade
captivesof almostthe entire army,but when dawncame theyweretoo far off to be
followedby our worn out and exhaustedtroops ...
Rufus King continued by sharing the reality of the glorious victory and
sparing no details:
I walkedover the battlefieldthis morning.The sightwasindeed horrifyingin the
extreme,you could see corpsmangledin everyconceivableway& hear the moans
of the wounded in everydirection.The only consolationwas that you could see
five timesas manyYanksas Rebels.Our brigadesuffereddreadfully.Our reg. lost
280 killed&woundedout of fivehundred.Our companylost 25 out of about40.16
While yet another frontal assault caused the Houston Tri-Weekly
Telegraph
to proclaim, "The glorious Texan soldiers have again won undying fame
on the battle field," the Fifth Texas Infantry suffered higher losses than
any other Confederate regiment at Second Manassas. The regiment lost
seven different flag bearers and the regimental flag had twenty-eight [bullet holes] through it. Yet, Rufus King could write that he "went through
the fight of M. [Manassas] ... without a scratch. Miers, I suppose you have
heard, was wounded at M. in the arm & foot.""17
Rufus King's cousin Miers was first wounded in his foot. He was a big
man, well over six feet tall and weighing over two hundred pounds, and fell
to the ground while attempting to hobble back to safety. While Miers was
lying there, a musket ball struck him in the arm. He lay on the battlefield
amid the wounded and dying through the night and into the next day. A
detail finally came across Miers and loaded him onto an ambulance wagon,
full of screaming and moaning men, which took him on ajolting, painful
ride to a field hospital. He lay there without care for some time, as doctors
were occupied with more seriously wounded men. Miers knew that he
needed to remove the minie ball lodged in his arm and convinced a young
man passing by to perform the extraction with an old pocketknife. Infection set in and a brother-in-law came up from South Carolina and took
16Felder letter, Oct. i, 1862.
17 Houston Tri-WeeklyTelegraph,Sept. 29, 1862 (ist quotation); Hennessey, Return to Bull Run,
405; H. B. Simpson (ed.), Touched with Valor: Civil War Papers and Casualty Reports of Hood's Texas
Brigade. Writtenand CollectedbyJeromeB. Robertson(Hillsboro, Tex.: HillJunior College Press, 1964),
12; Felder letter, Sept. 23, 1862 (2nd quotation).
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Miers home to recuperate. Months in recovery, he was finally discharged
from the army with a disabled arm and foot and sent home to Texas."8
Lee followed up his success at Second Manassaswith his first invasion of
the north. Rufus King Felder referred to it as "a campaign unequalled by
any thing of this war."Historians would later argue that the outlook for
the Confederacy never looked brighter, but Rufus King felt otherwise,
writing, "I have heard a great deal of southern feeling in Ma [Maryland],
but I found it a mistake. There are some trusted men there, but the majority are Union." Lee's army was exhausted and ill-prepared for an invasion into the North in the aftermath of Second Manassas. Colonel Robertson, suffering from a shoulder wound from Gaines' Mill and a groin
wound from Second Manassas, collapsed along the way while leading the
Fifth Texas Infantry.Yet Lee pressed northward and engaged a much larger Federal army on the morning of September 17, 1862, near the town of
Sharpsburg on Antietam Creek."9
John Bell Hood led the advance of his division, which included his old
Texan Brigade, at 7 A.M.The Confederates rushed out of the woods,
crossed Hagerstown Turnpike and poured into the Cornfield, routing the
Union troops in position there. The Fifth Texas was among several regiments that turned and advanced into the East Woods in pursuit of retreating Union troops. Hood's Texans fought, lost, and re-took the same
ground several times in the course of the bloodiest single day of the war.
The Army of Northern Virginia suffered 40 percent casualties. John Bell
Hood's division suffered 6o percent casualties! Hood, upon being asked
after the fighting where his division was, was said to have replied, "Dead
on the field."'o
Felder wrote of Antietam:
We had a veryhardfought battleat Sharpsburgbeforewe left M. [Maryland].The
enemy greatlyoutnumberedus. The battle raged furiouslythe whole day commencing early in the morning & ceasing only at night. The slaughteron both
sides was terrible;there was verylittle ground gained on either side. Both sides
were too exhaustedto renew the fight next day & a flag of truce was agreed to
bury the dead. This occupied all day & that night our forces fell back acrossthe
river.Next morning the Yankees thinking we were retreating crossed over a
brigadewhichwasimmediatelyattacked& the whole except abouta hundredwas
killed & taken...21
"1Daniell, Personnel of the Texas State Government,341-342.
19 Felder letter, Sept. 23, 1862 (1st quotation); Felder letter, Oct. 1, 1862 (2nd quotation);
Simpson (ed.), Touched With Valor, 12.
20
Stephen Sears, Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam (New York: Ticknor & Fields,
1983), 197-199, 202;J. M. Priest, Antietam, The Soldiers'Battle (Shippensburg, Penn.: White Mane
Publishing, 1989), 60-7o, 308.
21 Felder letter, Oct. 1, 1862.
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NeverTo Go in AnotherFight"
"... Willing
583
By the time of his letter of October Ist, following the Battle of Antietam, the letters of Rufus King were becoming a long litany of the death
or wounding of neighbors and friends with whom he had served. He
wrote of the deaths of bothers Jim and Julian Hutchinson at Antietam,
emoting, "What a shock it will be to the family, two sons in one fight."
The wear of the war on his heart and soul was more clear further in the
letter:
Yousaidin yourlastletter thatyou hoped the Texiansthirstfor Yankeeblood had
been partlyquenched. I can speakfor the three reg. in Va. [Virginia].Their thirst
has not only been partiallyquenched, they havebeen in so manyfights and have
sufferedso much theywould be willingnever to go in anotherfight.22
But the war had only just gotten underway. The years 1863 and 1864
would be marked by a number of colossal battles and terrible loss of life.
America was caught in the vortex of war and there was no way out for volunteers like Rufus King Felder.
Lee retreated across the Potomac River,his men in need of warm clothing and boots for the coming winter. In November 1862, Jerome Robertson assumed command of the Texas Brigade, succeedingJohn Bell Hood.
Winter camp for 1862-1863 was a welcome relief for the men from the
bloody fighting. Rufus King asked his sister to "GiveMiss Bell my compliments and thank her in the most affectionate manner of the gloves & tell
her when I am doing my accustomed round of guard duty, the gift will
add greatly to my comfort & the memory of the kind donor and cheer my
heart with the hope of once more returning & enjoying the pleasant
smiles of our beautiful girls."23
A heavy snow covered northern Virginia in late January 1863 with a
foot of snow. Felder wrote home: "The boys had a fine time yesterday,
fighting battles with snowballs." The First and Fourth Texas regiments
started the fray by attacking Rufus King and his comrades in the Fifth
Texas. "[T]he storm of battle raged with the utmost fury for two hours
S.both
parties having become perfectly exhausted." The three regi.
ments joined together and swept over the Third Arkansas of their
brigade. The process continued until half of their division had joined together to march against the next division camped two miles away.Felder
continued:
When we got in sight they had the long roll sounded and their officers leading
them out in force. We did not succeed in effectuallysubduingthem but held our
ground.It is indeed a grandsight to see severalthousandmen drawnup in line of
battlefightingwith snow& with as much earnestnessas if the fate of our country
22
Ibid.
23Felder letter, Jan. 30, 1863.
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depended on the contest.... It is more interestingto look at these battlesthan a
real one as there are no live lost & but little blood shed.24
Rufus King became ill and was admitted to Chimborazo Hospital in
Richmond on March 18, 1863. He was transferred to the Confederate
General Hospital in Danville on April 21, a month later, and was still under care when he wrote home in early May on the eve of the 1863 campaign:
Never before has returningspringbroughtwith it such feelings of sorrow& regret. Regretbecausea winterso suitablefor makingpeace should havepassedand
nothing done & sorrowat the thoughts of so many bloody battles this coming
springwe'll be calledupon to witness,and the manyfamilycirclesthatwillhaveto
mourn the loss of one or perhapsmore of its members.25
Private Felder returned to his regiment for Robert E. Lee's grand invasion of Pennsylvania in June 1863. Advance elements of both armies
made contact at the little town of Gettysburg on July 1, 1863. Additional
units moved quickly to support and the situation escalated into one of the
major battles of the entire war. Hood's Division, including the Texas
Brigade, arrived on the field of battle on the morning ofJuly 2. Lee's plan
was to roll up the left flank of the entrenched Federal line. But as the
Confederates prepared to attack, they realized that the Federal line extended further south than they had expected. Felder wrote: ". . . Meade
... took possession of a high mountain & that night & next day made it
impregnable. ... Lee attempted to carry the heights by storm. ... It
seemed like madness in Lee to have attempted to storm such a position."
John Bell Hood agreed and urged Longstreet, his corps commander,
three times to reconsider the attack, but Longstreet insisted, "We must
obey the orders of General Lee." Hood filed a formal protest for the only
time in his career. Felder would later write of Lee's order: "He came very
near losing his whole army by it. .. ."John Bell Hood took his place at the
head of the Texas Brigade, rose up in his stirrups and yelled out: "Fixbayonets, my brave Texans. Forward and take those heights!" Rufus King
Felder and his gallant comrades surged across the open field towards the
northern slope of Round Top. The Union artillery was raining down
shells on the arrayed Confederates. Their advance had just begun when
an artillery shell exploded above Hood and ripped his arm to shreds. He
was taken to the rear in shock.26
A key position on the southern end of the Union line at Gettysburg was
ajumble of rocks known as Devil's Den from which Federal sharpshooters
24Ibid.
25
Felder letter, May2, 1863.
26 Samuel W. FlocaJr., "Hood's Protest," ConfederateVeteran,6 (1995),
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"... WillingNeverTo Go in AnotherFight"
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poured a deadly fire into the advancing Confederate ranks. While elements of Laws's Division attacked Devil's Den, the rest of the division,
along with the Fourth and Fifth Texas Regiments, crossed over the northern shoulder of Round Top just south of Devil's Den and pressed on
through thick woods and boulders to the saddle between the Round Top
and Little Round Top. Historian Harry Pfanz wrote that the Confederates
" ..... must have been staggered by the sight in front of them. Little Round
Top's steep and rocky slope ... artillery pieces arriving singly on the top
of the hill . .. the blue line was half concealed by rocks and bushes .. ."
The Confederates moved up the steep slope of Little Round Top against
four Federal regiments entrenched along the crest. The attackers were
forced to break ranks and file between large boulders. The Confederates
withered under the intense fire from above them. First, Colonel Powell,
commanding the Fifth Texas, was wounded and then Lt. Col. King Bryan,
who assumed Powell's command, was also wounded. The Fourth and
Fifth Texas and the Fourth Alabama withdrew to the slopes of Round Top
to recover. They resumed the attack soon after and again advanced with
determination into the face of death before pulling back a second time.
The attackers, though exhausted, attempted a third and final assault on
Little Round Top. By this time, the Union line had been reinforced with
fresh troops. Pfanz reported that Company K of the Fifth Texas Regiment
"worked its way to within about twenty yards of the Union line and could
go no farther." The Union line repulsed this attack as well and darkness
fell over the dead and dying.27
The long afternoon ofJuly 2, 1863, bled the gallant Texas Brigade and
other units in Longstreet's Corps, which pressed forward to take Little
Round Top. Felder wrote home shortly after the battle.
The slaughteron both sideswasterrible.... Wewere on the extremeright & had
the highest portion of the peak to charge.We chargeda mile at double quickup
an almost perpendicularpeak at the top of which the enemy had fortified to
make it impossibleto take had the enemy only been armedwith rocks.Our regiment sufferedseverelyhavingchargedup within thirtyyardsof the enemy four
successfultimes & having to fall back as many times two hundred yards from
the enemy'sworks.... All those not able to walk out fell into the hands of the
enemy ...
Private Felder, while wounded, managed to withdraw from the battlefield.28
The Texas Brigade suffered six hundred casualties at Gettysburg. The
GalvestonDaily Newswould refer to Devil's Den on the fiftieth anniversary
27Harry W. Pfanz, Gettysburg-The SecondDay (Chappell Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
1987), 216, 2 19 (1st quotation), 220, 236 (2nd quotation).
2" Felder letter, July 9, 1863 (quotation); Johnson, A History of Texas and Texans, 1618.
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of the battle as "a dismal mausoleum of glory-crowned Texas heroes" and
recall of Gettysburg, "there the sunburnt veteran from the verdure clad
steppes of the Brazos and the pale faced boy from the frozen lakes of
Minnesota make one common funeral pile." The Fifth Texas Infantry suffered over two hundred casualties, including twenty-three killed. General
Robertson and every colonel and lieutenant colonel in the brigade but
one were among the wounded. Col. Robert Powell, commanding the
Fifth Texas Infantry, was wounded and captured. He recalled many years
later of Gettysburg: "for the first time in its history the Fifth Texas recoiled
in the slaughter pen and yielded the field." The famed Confederate
charge with its fearsome rebel yell was taking its toll, bleeding the army.A
man's allegiance became centered on his comrades-in-arms in his regiment. After months of combat experience, a man did not run because he
owed it to the man next to him to stand with him. Everyone imagined going home someday, but the bluebonnets of Chappell Hill were becoming
a distant memory for Rufus King Felder.Y'
Rufus King had learned before marching into Pennsylvania that the
men of the Twenty-Fourth Texas Cavalry were in Virginia. Col. George
Washington Carter, former president of Chappell Hill's Soule University,
raised the Twenty-Fourthand Twenty-FifthTexas Cavalryat Chappell Hill,
Texas, in late 1861. Company D of the Twenty-Fourthincluded a number
of men from prominent Chappell Hill families. Among these wereJohn F.
Matthews, brothers William and Walstein Keesee, Patrick Henry Swearingen, and Thomas A. Elliott. Elliott was married to Rufus King's sister, Emma. Unfortunately, the Twenty-FourthTexas was taken prisoner when the
Union Army took Arkansas Post in January 1863. When Felder wrote Emma on May 2, 1863, the prisoners had been exchanged and returned.
The ArkansasPostprisonersare at Petersburg... I willtryto stop and see Thomas
and the rest of my acquaintancesif theyare living.Theysufferedverymuch while
in prison and I understandthat they lost three hundred by death. I have not
heard about Thomas,but I feel confident that the manyferventprayersof his pious wife will not be unheeded by ajust God & that he will eventuallybe returned
to the bosom of his devotedfamily.... And now dear sisterI must close praying
that our livesmaybe spared& we mayall be permittedto meet once more & enjoy the pleasureof a happypeace. I remainyour affectionatebrother,Rufus.
But the Texas Brigade moved out for Pennsylvania on May 4 and Felder
was unable to see his brother-in-law.30
29Dr. John O. Scott, "The Texans at Gettysburg,"GalvestonDaily News (from Rosenberg Library), July 1913 (1st-3rd quotations); "The Fifth Confederate Regiment," www.cba.uh.edu/
-parks/tex/irgoo5o.html
(accessed Oct. 19, 1999); Floca, "Hood's Protest," 36.
0 Files of the Chappell Hill HistoricalSociety (Chappell Hill, Tex.); Felder letter, May2, 1863
(quotation).
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There was no rest for the Texas Brigade upon returning to Virginia in
the aftermath of Gettysburg. Lee was confident that Meade would not be
threatening Richmond and turned his attention to the west to the Federal threat to Chattanooga. He sent Longstreet's entire command, including the Texas Brigade, by train to Georgia to augment Bragg's force in
Chattanooga. The train passed through the Carolinas en route to Georgia. Felder obtained a pass to visit family and friends at the old Felder
hometown of Orangeburg, South Carolina, while his comrades moved
on. Among those Rufus saw was Dr. Elliott, the father of his brother-inlaw, Thomas Elliott. Rufus reported to his mother:
I wasproud to see the reception given us by the ladies as the carsstopped.They
had gatheredat the depot in numbers& showeredthe potatoesand breadin the
carswhich was very acceptableto our hungryboys. They all say if they ever get
woundedtheywill go to Orangeburg.The firstone I met aftergetting off the car
wasJoePooser.He carriedme to townand the firstone I sawtherewasDr.Elliott.
I recognizedhim as soon as I sawhim acrossthe street.He has growngrayerand
his health is quite feeble, but he still keeps up a large practice.. ."
Rufus King discovered that the war had ravaged Orangeburg and its
townspeople, as it had so many other hamlets across America.
Thingshad changed so much in the familyit did not seem natural.CousinsJohn
and Sam are no more and cousinsEugene and Adella have moved off, and Ed is
in the service.I did not see any of the familyexcept cousin Lou ... I sawa great
many of your old acquaintanceswho made numerous inquiriesof you & yours
... I did not forgetto payour old place a visit.Mrs.Love,the ladylivingtherewas
verykind & offered to takeme all over the place & showme everything.I went to
the backdoor & looked out. Everythinglooked so natural.I did not wish to carry
my inspectionanyfarther.. .32
While Rufus King Felder was visiting family and friends in Orangeburg,
his regiment was charging into an inferno in the woods along Chickamauga Creek. The Battle of Chickamauga, fought on September 19-2o,
1863, was mayhem. Men became lost in the thick woods and deep ravines,
and confusion reigned amid the thick smoke from the discharge of thousands of weapons. Longstreet's corps arrived at Chickamauga early on the
morning of the 2oth. While Cleburne's and Breckinridge's divisions were
hurling themselves into the Federal left with little success, Longstreet attacked the Federal right. At about noon, over twenty thousand yelling
Confederate soldiers, the Texans among them, rushed through the
woods in closely arrayed columns. While the advance broke the Federal
right, the Federal left held. Fierce fighting continued until dark, when
31
Felder letter, Oct. 12, 1863.
32 Ibid.
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the battle finally ended. The losses on both sides were horrific-eighteen
thousand Confederate casualties and over sixteen thousand Federal. Rufus King Felder had missed one of the great battles of the war. He wrote
home to Chappell Hill:
AfterI left OrangeburgI heard of the battlethatwasragingat Chicamauga.Having seen that our divisionwas seriouslyengaged, my curiositywas excited to the
highest pitch to knowwho of our devotedbandwere made victimsto the ruthless
invaders.I met thousandsof woundedbetweenAtlanta& Ringold ..
Deshler's Brigade, which included the men of Chappell Hill in the
Twenty-Fourth Texas Cavalrylost fifty-two men killed and 366 wounded.
Among the dead was Thomas Elliot, Rufus King Felder's brother-in-law in
the Twenty-FourthTexas Cavalry.Rufus wrote his mother:
I receiveda letter from Dr.Elliottsayinghe would come or send in a few daysfor
the remainsof Thomas.He seems to take his death veryhard. How did poor Sister E. [Emma]takehis death?It must havebeen a terribleblowto her,she wasso
loving and devoted.Youmust all staywith her as much as possible& try to divert
her mind & keep her naturallyquiet mind from becoming too disponding [despondent]. Wouldto God thathe could havesparedher,but in His allwise power
He has decreed otherwise,& it is for us to subjectto his command.34
The dense woods along Chickamauga Creek hid bodies for years, some
forever. Thomas Elliott's body was never recovered. The family honored
Thomas's memory with a cenotaph in the cemetery at Chappell Hill.
John Bell Hood, former commanding officer of the Texas Brigade, lost
his right leg in the Battle of Chickamauga. Felder wrote home in October
1863, "Our three Texas reg. are raising money to buy Hood a calk leg. We
intend raising $3000." In fact, the brigade raised $3100 in one day with a
twenty-dollar limit on individual contributions and bought their former
commanding officer an artificial cork leg. John Bell Hood defiantly returned to battle, strapped to his horse, with one good arm and one good
leg, the epitome of the resolute warrior.35
In the aftermath of Chickamauga, the Federals regrouped in Chattanooga. The Confederates under Bragg controlled Lookout Mountain
and Missionary Ridge overlooking Chattanooga. Bragg, confident in his
entrenched heights, detached Longstreet's corps, supported by five thousand cavalrymen, into eastern Tennessee towards Knoxville. The Federals
consolidated within the fortifications at Knoxville to await reinforce" Peter
Cozzens, This TerribleSound: The Battle of Chickamauga (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 1992), 407-412; Felder letter, Oct. 12, 1863 (quotation).
14Jame, M. McCaffrey, This Band oflHeroes:Granbury'sTexas Brigade (Austin: Eakin Press, 1985),
79; Felder letter, Oct. 12, 1863 (quotation).
5 Felder letter, Oct. 12, 1863 (quotation); McMurry, John Bell Hood and the Warfor Southern Independence,83-
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ments. Longstreet ordered an all-out assault on Knoxville. Rufus King
and the men of the Texas brigade charged bravely up the icy slopes in
front of the massive fortifications of Knoxville, only to be slaughtered in
repeated assaults. The Confederates were forced to withdraw. Knoxville
and eastern Tennessee remained in Union control for the remainder of
the war. Perhaps more serious was Bragg's gamble in diverting Longstreet's veteran corps from Chattanooga to Knoxville. The Confederates'
seemingly impregnable position on Missionary Ridge overlooking Chattanooga was overrun on November 25, 1863. The Federal victory left
Atlanta open to invasion.
Rufus King Felder and his comrades were back in Virginia with Robert
E. Lee prior to the spring campaign of 1864. The Texas Brigade was under the command of Texan John Gregg. The Federals under Ulysses
Grant pressed southward into Virginia in what became known as the
Overland Campaign. The first battle was The Wilderness on May 5-7, said
by some to be the finest hour for the Texas Brigade. Felder wrote home:
"I am sorry to say that I was not in the great fight of the wilderness. I was
quite sick with the fever at the time in the hospital at Lynchburg." The
Brigade's unsupported charge stopped the attack of two Federal corps
and restored the army's right flank, but the price paid was high. Five hundred and sixty-five of the eight hundred Texans were killed or wounded.
The Fifth Texas Regiment lost its commanding officer, all of its officers,
and nearly two-thirds of its infantrymen. Corps commander Gen. James
Longstreet was seriously wounded. Felder's illness may have saved his life.
He returned to take part in the Battles of Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor,
which would be Lee's final victory of the war. Grant swung south and proceeded to lay siege to Petersburg. The next ten months would cost thousands of lives on both sides.36
Rufus King Felder wrote from Petersburg on July 14 that he received
six letters that week, the first correspondence he had received for
months. He wrote, "It affordes me great pleasure to know that, though I
have been so long absent from home & negligent about writing, that my
dear mother and sisters have not so far forgotten me as to cease writing altogether." He offered the latest details of the fighting, writing:
We are in strong entrenchmentshere. The breastworksof the enemy are in 75
yardsof ours in some places. Our brigadewasrelievedlast night to rest twodays.
We have been in entrenchmentssix dayswithout relief, sharpshootingwith the
enemy.... There were only eight or ten killed or wounded. McPhersonof our
companywaswounded in the waist...
Gordon Rhea, The Battle of the Wilderness,May 5-6,
36 Felder letter, July 14, 1864 (quotation);
1864 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1994), 302-303.
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Felder tried to maintain optimism, adding, "The news is incouraging.
Rebels in two miles of Baltimore. Grant defeated & the Dixie Blues in fine
spirits." In reality, it was only a matter of time before Petersburg and Richmond fell."7
The Texans were homesick. Felder wrote on August 13, 1864:
The carrier came in a few minutes ago with a large Texas mail. Everyone was anxious to get a letter & read the news from home & none more so than your worthy
brother. You can imagine the surprise & merriment it created when we all opened
our letters & read the news ... one nearly fourteen months on the way. I suppose
the mail was sent to us while we were lost in the wilderness of East Tenn. & being
cut of from all communication it was stopped in Georgia. It matters not how old
your letters are ... though a year old gave me the greatest deal of pleasure. It carried my mind back to my dear home (which I almost forgot I had) & the memory of its dear loved ones always produce within me feelings of the most pleasant
nature.. .38
Rufus King's sister Emma was still grieving over the loss her husband,
Thomas Elliott. Rufus addressed the fate of Tom's brother George.
I suppose you have heard of the death of George Elliott. He was killed in one of
the battles before Petersburg. I understand that Dr. Elliott takes his death very
hard. The old man's recent bereavements must be almost insupportable in his declining years. Oh! When will this dreadful contest end & put a stop to our troubles
& suffering ...39
Confederate forces were spread thin to defend Richmond and extend
down to Petersburg as the more numerous Union forces enveloped the
Confederate capital. Felder wrote on September 18:
We are still on the north side of the James. . . . We have only three skeleton
brigades on this side of the river.The consequence is our picket duty is very hard.
We are on duty every other night & some times every day. Rutters Negro division
is on our front. There is scarcely a day but some of them come over & ask to be
sent back to their masters. The slaughter pen they were forced into at Petersburg
quite demoralized them. They say they don't think they have anything to do with
this fuss. This white folks fight. The white soldiers are also deserting in large numbers & claiming protection. ... It is very humiliating to know that we have to fight
& expose our lives to this mixed horde of black & white demons. Autumn is upon
us, but still the campaign goes on, nor do I see any probability of its ever coming
to an end until the friendly snows of winter shall come & drop its shroud on the
thousands of departed heroes, whose bones & bodys yet scarced decayed are still
exposed to the gaze of man & at the sight of which the very angels weep.. .40
7 Felder letter, July 14, 1864.
3"Felder letter, Aug. 13, 1864.
39Ibid.
40Felder letter, Sept. 18, 1864.
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The Texas Brigade and two other units, a total of two thousand soldiers,
were assigned to hold a key position at New Market Heights, southeast of
Richmond. The Union Third Division of XVIII Corps, including a number of U.S. Colored Troops (USCT), assaulted the Confederate position
on New Market Heights on the morning of September 29. They advanced
over three hundred yards of open ground through defensive works in the
face of withering Confederate fire. The first attack failed with serious loss.
The second attack met the same fate until the Confederates began to
withdraw to support another point in the line. Fourteen African American soldiers were decorated with the Medal of Honor that day. Only two
other African Americans were so honored in the Civil War.41
The long travail of war did not callous the soldiers. Felder related one
of many incidents that made an indelible impression upon him:
I witnessedquite an affectingscene the other day.While we were sharpshooting
with the enemy,one of the regimentat my side receiveda fatalshot through the
breast.He seemed to not think of himself or the agony he suffered,but prayed
to God to spare his life that he may defend his beloved country & avenge himself on dastardfoe. Such exhibitionsof patriotismfrom an humble privateis of
dailyoccurance& makesone proud to know he belongs to such an army& feels
confident that when he goes into battle he has comrades that will not desert
him ...
The incident caused Rufus King Felder to share with family:
Youhave perhapswonderedwhyyourbrotherhas not obtainedsome positionof
rank & honor, which so many are so eagerly seeking after. I acknowledge that
some positionsafforda greatmanyadvantagesfor ease & pleasurethan a private
has, but it will be to the private that the honor will be given, so if our independ-
ence is achieved.... All that I wanton this earth to make me happyis independence & a safe returnto our once happyhome, but this fainthope growsstill more
glowing.. .42
There was fierce fighting on October 7, 1864, at Darbytown when Lee
attempted a major offensive against the Union right flank. The attack was
unsuccessful and losses were heavy. Confederate Gen. John Gregg, commanding the Texas brigade, was among the dead. Rufus Felder wrote on
December 18 of two comrades, wounded at Darbytown, who were heading home:
Capt.Baber&FrankEldridgehaveboth been retired&willstarthome tomorrow.
Theywillbe the bearersof manylettersfrom absent&loved ones to anxious& expectantfriends& relatives.. wheneverany of you write,you are sure to saythat
4John Brinsfield, "The Battle of New Market Heights," www.army.mil/soldiers/feb96/p50.html
(accessedJan. 4, 2003).
42Felder letter, Sept. 18, 1864.
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the last time you heard from me, was in the hospital.... As a general thing my
health has been much better since I have been in the service than at home. It is
true I have been unfortunate in having several very sick spells, but during the long
periods that I have been in the army, I have not been absent from the front more
than three or four months out of forty one. ... My chances are good to live at least
until the grass rises. We have been using every exertion in our power to have the
brigade transferred or furloughed to Texas this winter. We have drawn up a memorial to that effect, signed by all the officers & men of the brigade and presented it to the President. Many are confident that we will go home this winter, but I
must confess that I think our chances are very slim. I could conceive of no event
(except the establishment of our independence) that would create so much joy in
the brigade than such a change ...43
But the Army of Northern Virginia held on and the war did not end that
winter.
Felder wrote from near Richmond on February 23, 1865:
You are aware by this time all communication south cut & the man who carries
this will have to walk a long ways to get around Shearman's [Sherman's] army.Yes,
my dear sister, the insolvent foe have dared to march through the very heart of
South Carolina & I have no doubt committed depridations on the property, if not
on the persons of our dear, but unfortunate relatives. God grant that they may
have been spared and that the scenes of our childhood of our noble ancesters not
of our brutal enemy ...
desecrated by the
Reality was setting in. Private Felder added, "Our cause looks gloomy inHe shared his own perspective on a major development affectdeed..."
ing the Confederacy:
You must all prepare your minds to see your Negroes freed, at least a portion of
them. Congress is preparing a bill to make soldiers of them. I have no doubt but
... pass & make them ... they will have to be freed ... people & all the soldiers
are in favor of it.
Rufus King closed the letter by saying that he must be "off in the rain to
watch for the infernal Yankees."44
Grant's army broke through the Confederate lines at Petersburg in
April 1865, forcing Lee to evacuate Petersburg and Richmond and withdraw his army to the west. The once-mighty Army of Northern Virginia
consisted of less than thirty thousand exhausted men. The Texas Brigade,
so often looked to by Lee as his shock troops in the attack, served as Lee's
rearguard in the retreat-a role to which they were unaccustomed. The
men were "ragged, starved and exhausted," not having eaten for three
" Felder letter, Dec. 18, 1864.
44Felder letter, Feb. 23, 1865.
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days. On the afternoon of April 9, Lee met Grant in Appomattox, where
they reached agreement as to terms of surrender.45
Longstreet and others, including the men of the Texas Brigade, were
ready to continue the fight. A committee of representatives from all four
regiments had met just a few months earlier and resolved to fight to the
end. When word of Lee's surrender reached the Fifth Texas Infantry,
many bent the barrels of their muskets in the fork of a tree or smashed
them on rocks, determined that they would not surrender a workable
weapon. These weapons had become almost an extension of their personal selves, having been in their arms constantly for four years. Captain
Hill, commanding the Fifth, cautioned the men that the terms of parole
required a "good gun."46
The formal surrender for the soldiers was held early on the morning of
April 12. Many Confederates were hobbled by sickness and injuries and
all were weak with hunger. Federal troops lined the road along which the
Confederates marched. It was nearly 4 o'clock before all of the Confederates surrendered their arms. Of an estimated fifty-three hundred men,
who served in the three Texas regiments in Hood's Brigade, only 617 remained on April 12. Thirteen officers and 148 enlisted men of the Fifth
Texas were present at the surrender. Rufus King Felder was among these.
He received his official parole, allowing him "permission to go to his
home, and there remain undisturbed." The men of the regiment had
marched together through the choking clouds of dust for months. They
had shared countless meals and experienced hunger together. They had
slept together, often huddled against one another in the cold winter
nights. They had stood side by side to face death many times. They shook
hands, embraced, and bid farewell, not knowing if they would ever again
see their comrades with whom they had shared so much.47
Rufus King Felder walked with a few comrades down the James River
to Fortress Monroe, where they bought passage on a steamboat for
Galveston. A week later, Felder finally found himself back in Texas. He
took the train to Courtney in Grimes County, the closest station to his
home in adjacent Washington County. He returned to a quiet life in
Chappell Hill that paled in comparison to the adrenaline rush of battle.
Despite the grim realities of war, the soldiers had thrilled in the camaraderie, the excitement of battle and the euphoria of victory. At first,
15
Harold B. Simpson, "Hood's Texas Brigade at Appomattox," in Ralph A. Wooster (ed.), Lone
Star Blue and Gray: Essays on Texas in the Civil War (Austin: Texas State Historical Association,
1995), 339.
46 Simpson (ed.), Touched with Valor, 102, 103 (quotation), 10447N. A. Trudeau, Out of the Storm: TheEnd of the Civil War,April-June 1865 (Boston: Little, Brown
and Co., 1994), 149; Simpson, "Hood's Texas Brigade at Appomattox," 344; Rufus King Felder
military service record (quotation), (National Archives, Washington, D.C.).
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ii
Twenty-eighth annual reunion of Hood's Texas Brigade, June 27-28, 1900, held at Fort
Houston (Palestine, Texas). Photographcourtesyof the Hood's Texas Brigade Collection,Hill
CollegeHaroldB. SimpsonHistoryCenter,Hillsboro,Texas.
Rufus King managed and worked on his mother's plantation. He married
in 1867 to Margaret Matthews, daughter of the local Methodist minister.
Felder acquired his own land just outside Chappell Hill in 1871 and
raised cotton, corn and cattle.
In time, veterans began to assemble at annual reunions. Rufus King was
among those gathered at Livingston, Texas, in 1891, when an official history of the Texas Brigade was approved. Throughout the 189os, annual
gatherings of the United Confederate Veterans regularly attracted tens of
thousands of veterans and an even larger number of nonveteran participants. The membership of the United Confederate Veterans peaked in
1903 with eighty thousand members-nearly a third of all living veterans.
The group could boast 1,565 camps in 75 percent of the counties of the
states of the former Confederacy. There were more UCV groups in Texas
than in any other state.48
The 1895 reunion of the United Confederate Veterans was held in
Houston on May 2 2-24 in the new Winnie Davis Auditorium, named for
the youngest daughter of Jefferson Davis. Washington Camp No. 239 of
48 Mrs. A. V. Winkler, The Confederate
Capitaland Hood'sTexasBrigade(Austin:E. Von Boeckmann, 1894), ix, 285.
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the United Confederate Veterans met the week before. The BrenhamBannerreported Rufus King Felder of Chappell Hill and Bolling Eldridge of
Brenham, both formerly of the Fifth Texas Infantry, among ten delegates
elected by the Washington Camp to the Texas Division and declared,
"Houston is entertaining the largest crowd ever assembled in Texas, if not
the South." Seven of the Confederacy's generals attended the Houston
UCV gathering.49
Rufus King Felder was present at the annual Hood's Texas Brigade Association reunion in Austin on May 2, 1899, that acknowledged Miers
Felder as one of "our heroes who have crossed over the river."Miers died
that year on March 11 at Chappell Hill, having lived with an arm and foot
disabled in the war and minus a hand lost in 1876 to a cotton-gin saw. He
served as an alderman in Chappell Hill for many years, president of the
Board of Trustees of Chappell Hill Female College, and a state representative in the Texas Legislature in 1889 and 1891.50
Cities, states, and organizations erected Confederate monuments
across the South in the early twentieth century. The monuments honored
the bravery of those who served. The Federal government realized and acknowledged that the South needed its heroes as part of the nation's healing process. The comrades and friends of Hood's Texas Brigade erected a
monument to their celebrated unit on the Capitol grounds in Austin in
1910. Rufus King Felder was among those surviving veterans who contributed money. He had achieved some success in cattle, played a role in
establishing Farmers State Bank of Chappell Hill, and expanded his interests into the lumber and hardware business under the name R. K.
Felder & Sons. Felder made the short trip from Chappell Hill to Austin,
joining 125 former comrades for the October 26-27 dedication. The
thirty-five-footmarble shaft of the monument to Hood's Texas Brigade is
topped by the bronze figure of a Confederate infantryman. Among the
quotes set into the stone was that of Robert E. Lee: "No Brigade has done
nobler service or gained more honor for its State than Hood's Texas
Brigade.""51
Chappell Hill never recovered from the war and the emancipation of
the slaves. An epidemic of yellow fever just after the war claimed far
more lives of townspeople than the war had. The town became known as
" Brenham Banner, May 19, 21 (quotation), 1895; Sponsorsouvenir album: history & reunion, 1895
(Austin: Terry Engraving, 1895), 31.
50 "Austin, May 2, 1899," Minutes of Hood's Texas
Brigade Association Meetings, 1895-1905,
Hood's Texas Brigade Collection (Harold B. Simpson Confederate Research Center, Hill College,
Hillsboro, Tex.), 1 13 (quotation); Brenham Daily Banner, Oct. 19, 1876; Daniell, Personnel of the
Texas State Government, 341-342.
51 Frank B. Chilton, Unveiling and Dedication of Monument to Hood's Texas Brigade on the Capitol
Grounds at Austin, Texas, Thursday, October27, i9zo (Houston: F. B. Chilton, 1911), 19.
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Rufus King Felder, Henry C. Brandt, andJames E. Landes with the old copper box from the
cornerstone of Soule University. Photographcourtesyof the ChappellHill HistoricalSociety,Chappell Hill, Texas.
an unhealthy place to live. Soule University relocated to Georgetown,
where it flourishes today as Southwestern University. The people of Chappell Hill gathered on June 14, 1911, to pay respects to the ruins of Soule
University before they were removed. The event became a reunion "reviving memories of Chappell Hill in the halcyon days when it was not only the center of Methodism in Texas but of population and influence in
that section of the state." Before the barbecued pig was served, the northeast corner of the main building-all that remained standing-was torn
down and the cornerstone opened. Rufus King Felder, who was present
when the cornerstone was laid on November 2, 1858, was among those
present for the opening of it fifty-three years later. Felder was photographed with two other Chappell Hill Confederate veterans, Henry
Brandt andJames Landes. Felder made a few remarks, but the words have
been lost to history. Officials opened the copper box within the cornerstone to find that the papers inside had disintegrated into dust. A piece of
the Atlantic cable, a three-cent piece, a quarter, a half dollar, and a gold
dollar were all that remained.52
52J.D. Campbell,"Vale,Soule University,"copy of undated article, likely 1911, from the files of
Chappell Hill HistoricalSociety.
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2003
". . WillingNeverTo Go in AnotherFight"
597
Rufus King Felder of Chappell Hill was unable to join fifty thousand
veterans, from both sides, who attended the golden anniversary of the
epic struggle at Gettysburg in 1913-perhaps the crowning moment of
the Blue & Gray reunions. His thirty-five-year-oldson, Rufie, passed away
on June 26th, just a week before the event after a prolonged stay in an
Austin hospital.
The decline of cotton in the period after the First World War had a serious impact on the region. Agrarian Washington County became backcountry as Texas assumed a new image, that of big oil. Rufus King Felder
passed away in 1922 and was laid to rest in Atkinson Cemetery, just outside of town. Lt. Bolling Eldridge of nearby Brenham and also a veteran
of the Fifth Texas died on October 28, 1938, the last surviving member of
Hood's Texas Brigade. The last Confederate veteran in America died in
1959.53
"
Simpson, Hood'sTexasBrigade:A Compendium,
562.
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Rufus King Felder survived numerous battles with Hood's Texas Brigade in Robert E. Lee's
Army of Northern Virginia and returned home to live out his life as a successful businessman and gentleman in Chappell Hill, Texas. Photographcourtesyof Hill CollegeHaroldB. Simpson HistoryCenter,Hillsboro,Texas.
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