A Force to Be Reckoned With

By the Spring of '63, the Texans who had been prisoners of war finally reentered service. The men must have believed the specter of prison life could not be exceeded. Soon, though, their service as a part of Granbury's Texas Infantry Brigade would surpass even the horrific cost they had paid as POWs…What began as a number of mediocre military organizations, through a costly series of trials, ultimately was transformed to become a premier brigade in perhaps the finest division of the Army of Tennessee. Somewhere close to ten and one thousand men from Texas enlisted in units that formed the bulk of Granbury's Infantry Brigade, yet by war's end, somewhat less than five hundred would survive to be surrendered. Not many units could point to a more illustrious record, or a greater loss ratio than they suffered in the war. The ones who lived through it straggled back to Texas that summer of 1865, though many more months would pass before virtually all made it home: among them would be those freed from far-off prison-camps, or from long tenures in hospitals that enabled them to at last recover. Yet, no matter how long it took them, for those who did come home, each brought tortured memories of his participation, mixed with a great sense of pride for knowing that they had, indeed, been A Force to be Reckoned With.