15th Texas mindset -- Company A 15th TX. (pres. march) message board.

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Date Posted: 11:15:56 03/20/04 Sat
Author: Doug Cooper
Subject: 15th Texas mindset

Comrades I was able to score a copy of the disertation on the 15th Texas. Based on letters home and official reports, Barr's book on Polignac's Texas Brigade and various books on the campaign, it looks like we are a spring loaded band of brothers who cannot wait to get at the Yanks. We have been in the army two years with little to show except sick, dead and some wounded comrades whose bodies lay in graves or hospital from Texas to the Indian Territory to Arkansas, and up and down Louisiana. We have had several fights and have always done well.

We love Col Harrison but he is sick back in Texas and Major Daniel is in command at Mansfield. We have delevoped a grudging respect and even fondness for the little French Brigadier General Camille Armand Jules Marie Prince de Polignac who is our brigade commander, even if we cannot pronounce his name (we call him "Polecat"). Polignac is the son of the last Prime Minister of France under King Charles X and came to America to support Louisiana and the South. We ardently want Col Harrison to take command of the Brigade after Mansfield kills our beloved Division Commander Alfred Mouton and BG Polignac moves up.

We have been marching hither and yon from Texas to Arkansas, and the Indian Territory (Oklahoma) and have been tramping up and down Louisiana for a year desperately trying to get at the Yankees and drive them away from Texas and back across the Mississippi River. Of late our optimism for the war as a whole has waned a bit as the fortunes of the CSA beyond the River have suffered, but we still feel Texas may somehow be spared. It is 2 years since we were home and many of us are lying cold in death along our trail...not so much from Yankee bullets but from sickness and exposure...with some culpability on the part of former commanders of departments and such. One member of the 17th Texas consolidated said of our Brigade's first two years in the army "...our trail was one long graveyard." We don't suffer fools gladly.

We are less than impressed with some of the other regiments in the Brigade, several of whom do not share our loyalty to the cause, based on desertions and the areas they recruited from in North Texas. The brigade was formed under Polignac in Sept 63 and included us, the 17th Texas Consolidated Dismounted Cavalry, the 22nd, 31st and 34th Texas dismounted cavalry and the 11th Texas Battalion. The 22nd and 34th Texas dismounted, previously with the brigade under BG Speight (the 15th Texas founder and 1st Col), were termed "almost worthless" by the army in early 63 and were removed to be retrained, their officers replaced in part, those that did not resign. They rejoined the brigade in Sept when Polignac took over. We are likely not too trustful of them, preferring our sister regiments the 17th and 31st.

Back home in McClennan county and neighboring Limestone, Falls, Coryell and Burleson County, secessionist spirit was strong, esp. in the rural areas. The few towns, including Waco the largest, did hold some pockets of Unionist sentiment, including the mayor, but these have largely submerged. We have been spared the depredations of many areas in the south and the spirit of the homefolk remains strong, if ever more worried about their loved ones in harm's way as the bulwark against Banks and his army.

More later on our combat record up to now.

Doug

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