Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 24.djvu/52

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partment, which he would not even consider. The concluding words of the address were : " We are not whipped, and no matter what may transpire elsewhere, recollect we never will be whipped."

Slender as were the grounds for hope, it was not wholly abandoned while the fate of Johnston's army and the other forces across the Mississippi was unknown. The idea of continuing the war in this State was prevalent, and by many believed practicable, and strongly advocated during the few weeks which preceded the final dissolution of the Confederate forces in Texas.

General E. Kirby Smith, commanding the department, issued an address from Shreveport, La., to the soldiers, on April 22d, saying in reference to -Lee's surrender at Appomattox : " His army was but a small portion of our forces in Virginia. The armies of Johnston and Beauregard, tripling that under General Lee, are still in the field presenting an unterrified front to the enemy."

On the same day, nearly three hundred miles away, the officers, from colonels to lieutenants, in the regiments known as Pyron's, El- more' s, De Bray's, Cook's Heavy Artillery, the Second Texas Cav- alry, and others, signed a stirring appeal to the troops, which by a coincidence embodied the same sentiments as those at the same time promulgated by the commanding general. They asserted that John- ston and Beauregard "still present an unbroken front to the invad- ing foe," and declared, " we still will meet the foe upon the threshold of our State with fire and sword, nerved by the unanswering and un- alterable determination never to yield." To the same effect were the resolutions passed in mass-meeting by Harrison's brigade. On May iyth was published the following order of Major T. M. Har- wood, commanding the cavalry battalion, Waul's Legion : " Mem- bers of this command will rendezvous at Brenham, Washington county, May a8th, prepared to march immediately to brigade head- quarters east of the Mississippi river." About that date General Majors addressed his brigade, exhorting them "to stand by the flag." Such were the spontaneous expressions of the commanders, the army and the citizens when the first authentic news of Lee's sur- render reached Texas, and before they realized that other and final disasters could occur in such quick succession. There were no tele- graphs beyond the State lines; only one railroad, the Houston and Texas Central, penetrated the interior of the State to a distance of eighty-one miles from Houston, and the Texas and New Orleans railroad paralelled the coast only from Beaumont to Houston. Com- munication was cut off by way of the Mississippi, every harbor was