DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say — so take it for what it is, straight off the stone. Now, if you wanted to pick a fight with a Texan in 1861, there was one surefire way to do it. You could walk up to him, look him dead in the eye, and tell him to get off his horse.
There were 95,000 men of military age in Civil War Texas, and nearly every last one of them had grown up in the saddle. Walking was not something they considered a military virtue. So when the Confederacy came calling, 58,533 Texans joined the cavalry — riding their own horses, or ones donated by citizens' groups — because the cavalry was where the action was.
Scouting the enemy, screening troop movements, making lightning attacks. That was the work. That was the life.
But wars have a way of not caring what you prefer. Texas had around 325,000 horses, and many of them were being sent to other states. And for all the romance of mounted warfare, somebody still had to stand in a muddy field and hold the line on foot.
So the state set up camps of instruction — places specifically designed to teach Texans how to walk and fight. Just sit with that for a moment. Camps.
To teach men. To walk. By mid-1862, the need for infantry had grown so urgent that whole units were unhorsed under strong protest.
The 6th Texas Cavalry Battalion. The 13th, 16th, 18th, 22nd, 24th, 25th, and 28th Texas Cavalry regiments. Every one of them pulled off their horses and told to put one boot in front of the other.
And still it wasn't enough. On August 15th, 1863, part of A. W.
Terrell's Cavalry regiment, camped right here at Richmond, received orders to dismount and march to the defense of Galveston. That order they swallowed — barely. But then came September 11th.
A second order to dismount still more men. And that was the one that broke something. Ninety-one soldiers rode off.
Just rode away — north, toward homes on the Indian frontier, or to find other cavalry units where a man and his horse could stay together. You can call it desertion. The army called it mutiny.
Twenty-five of those men were eventually tried for it. Here's the part that tells you something about Texas juries, or Texas justice, or maybe just Texas: when the verdicts came down, only the officers were punished. The enlisted men came back to the regiment.
And they fought. By the 1864 Red River campaign, those same men who had mutinied over being told to walk were marching into action to prevent a Federal invasion of Texas — on foot, the way the army needed them. A Texas cavalryman would do just about anything for the cause.
He'd march, he'd fight, he'd even dismount. He just wasn't going to be happy about it.
What the marker says
The 95,000 men of military age in Civil War Texas, unaccustomed to walking, preferred the daring and mobility of the cavalry used to scout the enemy, screen troop movements and make lightning attacks. 58,533 Texans joined it, riding their own horses or ones donated by citizens' groups. Many of Texas' 325,000 horses were sent to other states. Yet footsoldiers were needed, too. The state set up camps of instruction, to teach Texans to walk and fight. By mid-1862 the need for infantry was so great that the following units were unhorsed under strong protest: 6th Texas Cavalry Battalion, 13th, 16th, 18th, 22nd, 24th, 25th and 28th Texas Cavalry regiments. On Aug. 15, 1863, a part of A. W. Terrell's Cavalry regiment at Richmond was ordered to dismount and march to the defense of Galveston. On Sept. 11, an order to dismount still more men caused mutiny, and 91 rode their prized horses north to homes on the Indian frontier or to join other cavalry units. When 25 were tried later, only the officers were punished. Enlisted men returned to the regiment, and fought in such actions as the 1864 Red River campaign to prevent a Federal invasion of Texas.