Histories

Texas

     An essay on Military Adventures beyond the Mississippi from vol. 30 of Harper's Magazine (Dec. 1864-May 1865), found on-line at Cornell University's Making of America project, follows on from the two articles on "Heroic Deeds of Heroic Men" (about Vicksburg and Port Hudson) which appear above under Louisiana ancestry. This article tells of the Opelousas, Texas, and Red River expeditions by General Banks' Federal troops during 1863 and 1864. Capts. Hutchison and Tomlinson fought against Banks during this campaign in battles described in this article, including Mansfield and Pleasant Hill. (19 pages)

Charles H. Brossman served as a drummer and a private in Company C of Waul's Texas Legion; he also appears in Timmon's Regiment, Texas Infantry (Co. K), which comprised the infantry portion of Waul's Legion after Vicksburg.

Col. William Oscar Hutchison served in Company A of the 32nd Texas Cavalry (also called the 36th, or Wood's Regiment), which saw action in the Red River Campaign. Several of his brothers fought for Virginia.

John Coleman Roberts lost an arm fighting in John Bell Hood's Texas brigade at the battle of Gaines' Mill, married a Quaker woman from Pennsylvania whom he met in the hospital, and eventually became a large landowner in Robertson Co., Texas.

Friench Simpson's family was from Loudoun Co., Virginia, but his parents moved to Texas, where he served as a private in Company A of the 13th CSA Volunteer Infantry.

Ferdinand Arthur Rogers was a second cousin to Friench; his mother was Polly Simpson. She and her husband Hugh Rogers moved to Cooper Co., Missouri before the war, and their son Ferdinand is said to have served for the Confederacy, perhaps from Missouri.

Capt. Augustus Austere Tomlinson served in, among other units, the 35th Regiment of the Texas Cavalry (under Gen. Likens), which engaged in action mostly in Louisiana, including the Red River Campaign west of the Mississippi. Before this, he also served at Shiloh in April of 1862 as part of an Alabama cavalry unit (for some reason, some histories say that he died in this unit, which is untrue; he was transferred. Here are two sets of documents from the Official Records documenting some of his service:

Capt. Augustus Tomlinson at Shiloh. McDonald's biography refers to action by Tomlinson in mid-April of 1962, but he apparently mis-read or mis-copied some dates. The action which McDonald describes in General Ruggles' division on 18 April 1862 in fact took place on 6-7 April, at the Battle of Shiloh. These selections from the Official Records (Series 1, vol. 10.1) contain descriptions of Capt. Tomlinson's role in the battle; he was in charge of one of several cavalry companies (Company I, Mathew's Rangers) acting in support of Ruggles' artillery units. The reports gathered here are by Gen. Ruggles, Capt. Ketchum (one of his artillery commanders), three other cavalry captains acting with Tomlinson (Capts. Jenkins, Cox, and Robins), and Capt. Tomlinson himself. (being updated)

Authorization to raise Partisan Rangers. McDonald also refers in his essay (p. 4) to orders by Governor Thomas Moore of Louisiana to create partisan companies west of the Mississippi in late April of 1862. These are the pages from the Official Records which describe the formation of these companies. "A.A. Tomlinson" is included as the Captain of one. (4 pages).

Five von Rosenbergs, all of whom had been born in Germany, served in Texas during the War:

Carl Wilhelm and Johannes Carl, sons of Peter Carl and his first wife, Johanna Froelich, served as engineers in East Texas.

Three of the sons of Peter Carl and Amanda Fallier enlisted together. Carl Alexander and Carl August Walter enlisted in "Creutzbauer's Company of the Wellhausen Battery under Captain Brickaus," according to Vol. 1 of the von Rosenberg family history (96, 133, 135). Carl Alexander was an artillery sergeant, and died of typhoid fever during the war. Carl August Walter was a corporal, fighting in skirmishes in East Texas and Louisiana. Carl Eugen became a sergeant in Company E of Waul's Texas Legion, and was at the seige of Vicksburg; he was captured there and paroled.

Waul's Legion, and Liken's cavalry in which Capt. Tomlinson served, were both under the command of Gen. P.N. Luckett. See this note describing the "Organization of the Commands" of the relevant Texas Regiments, taken from the massive compendium the War of the Rebellion.