Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/702

 658 leadership, the Texans performed prodigies of valor and at the outset gained a reputation for hard fighting and reckless courage that grew with the progress of the war. His brigade was attached to the command of Gen. G. W. Smith at Williamsburg and Seven Pines. He checked General Franklin at Eltham's Landing near West Point, and at Gaines' Mill his brigade and that of General Law were at the front of Longstreet's attack, and the report of General Stonewall Jackson gives credit to the Fourth Texas, led by General Hood, as the first to pierce the Federal entrenchments on the left and capture the batteries. In this fight he was wounded and his gallantry won the brevet of major-general, a rank to which he was fully promoted in October following. Commanding a division composed of his old brigade and that of Law, with five batteries, in Longstreet s corps, he climbed over the mountains at Thoroughfare Gap and struck the enemy on the field of Second Manassas, with decisive results. During the Maryland campaign he took part with his division in the important and heroic delay of the Federal army at the passes of South Mountain, with his comrades holding Hooker's and Reno's corps at Fox's Gap. At Sharpsburg he held the left against Hooker on the 16th of September, and fought desperately about the Dunker church on the 17th. At Fredericksburg he commanded the right of Longstreet's line, and at Gettysburg, stationed on the extreme right of the Confederate army, he made a vigorous and successful attack on the second day against Little Round Top and the Devil's Den. Early in the engagement he received a wound which deprived him permanently of the use of one arm and caused his confinement for over two months. In September, 1863, his division was ordered with Longstreet's corps, in the reinforcement of Bragg in North Georgia, which he at once followed, notwithstanding his wound. He was distinguished in the action on the 19th and 20th of September, 1863, when he gained a brilliant success, crushing