2nd Texas Infantry Regiment

The 2nd Regiment, Texas Infantry was an infantry regiment from Texas that served with Confederate States Army in the American Civil War. The regiment was organized by the then Captain John Creed Moore, who would become the regiment's 1st Colonel. Many of the men were from Houston and Galveston.^[1]

Following the ratification of Texas' Ordinance of Secession on February 20, 1861, militia companies from across the state started forming to protect the new Confederacy. Once these independent companies were formed, they were ordered to Galveston to defend the Texas coast. By September of 1861, the regiment was brought to full strength, and the Confederate government in Richmond was notified. The Confederate War Department accepted Moore's Regiment as the First Texas Infantry Regiment. However, due to the political influence of Texas Senator Louis T. Wigfall, his battalion of Texas companies, which independently moved to Richmond, received the honor of being named First Texas. Thus, Moore's regimental designation was changed to Second Texas.^[2]

Notable battles that the regiment has been involved in include the Battle of Shiloh, the Second Battle of Corinth, and the Siege of Vicksburg.^[3]

The regiment assaulted Battery Robinett, a redan protected by a five-foot ditch, sporting three 20-pounder Parrott rifles commanded by Lt. Henry Robinett. Colonel William P. Rogers, a Mexican–American War comrade of President Jefferson Davis, was among those killed in the charge.^{[4][5][6][7][8][9][10]} Rogers seized his colors to keep them from falling again and jumped a five-foot ditch, leaving his dying horse and assaulted the ramparts of the battery. When canister shot killed him, he was the fifth bearer of his colors to fall that day.^[11][a]

The regiment was distinguished for its defense of a crescent-shaped fortification, which came to be known as the Second Texas Lunette. The fortification was located in the center of the Vicksburg line of defense constructed to guard the Baldwin Ferry Road. The lunette was the subject of tremendous artillery bombardment and repeated Union assaults directed against the lunette on May 22, 1863.^[13]

• Chance, Joseph E. (1984). The Second Texas Infantry: From Shiloh to Vicksburg. Austin, Texas: Eakin Press. ISBN 978-0-89015-435-9.
• Cozzens, Peter (1997). The Darkest Days of the War: The Battles of Iuka and Corinth. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-2320-0.
• Eicher, David J. (2001). The Longest Night: A Military History of the Civil War. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-684-84944-7.
• Korn, Jerry (1985). War on the Mississippi: Grant's Vicksburg Campaign. The Civil War. Vol. 12. Alexandria, Virginia: Time-Life Books. ISBN 978-0-8094-4744-2.
• Lamers, William M. (1999) [1961]. The Edge of Glory: A Biography of General William S. Rosecrans, U.S.A. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. ISBN 978-0-8071-2396-6.
• Reaves, George A. III (1998). "Corinth, Mississippi (MS002), Alcorn County and Corinth, October 3–4, 1862". In Kennedy, Frances H. (ed.). The Civil War Battlefield Guide (2nd ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0-395-74012-5.
• Welcher, Frank J. (1993). The Union Army, 1861–1865: Organization and Operations. Vol. 2, The Western Theater. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-36454-8.
• Woodworth, Steven E. (2005). Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861–1865. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-375-41218-9.

• Texas Civil War Confederate Units
• Texas in the American Civil War

• 2nd Texas Infantry Regiment
• 2nd Texas Lunette at Vicksburg