DUANE
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Duane's take
The way the marker tells it, here's the story of Colonel C. M. Winkler, and I'll give it to you straight from the official record.
Now, the name Winkler means something out here in West Texas, and behind that name there's a man worth knowing. He was a native of North Carolina, Colonel C. M.
Winkler, and when the Civil War got started, he didn't sit still for long. He organized a company of one hundred and fifty men and led them to Virginia to join the Confederate army. One hundred and fifty men.
He gathered them up and marched them toward a war that would define a generation. That company was folded into the 4th Texas Infantry, part of what history would come to call Hood's Brigade, famed, the marker says, and it doesn't use that word lightly. Winkler rose through the ranks, climbing to lieutenant colonel, commanding the regiment.
And then came the fighting. Virginia. Maryland.
Pennsylvania. Tennessee. Hood's Brigade didn't sit in one spot.
They were carried across the map of a nation tearing itself apart, and Winkler was with them through all of it. He distinguished himself at Second Manassas. That matters.
Then came Gettysburg, and at Gettysburg, he was wounded. The kind of fight that leaves a mark. And then, at the end of it all, Appomattox.
He surrendered there, with General Robert E. Lee. That's how it ended for Colonel C.
M. Winkler, one hundred and fifty men after it began, standing at the close of the whole terrible thing. Some stories end with a victory.
Some end with a surrender. This one ends with a man who saw it through to the last.
What the marker says
Native North Carolina. Start of Civil War, organized and took company 150 men to join Confederate army in Virginia. Unit made part 4th Texas Infantry of famed Hood's Brigade. Rose to command regiment as lt. colonel. Fought with famous unit in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Tennessee. Distinguished himself second Manassas, wounded at Gettysburg. Surrendered with General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox. (1963)