Terry Texas Ranger Trilogy

The ten companies of the Terry Texas Rangers were officially activated into the Confederate Army as the 8th Texas Cavalry Regiment, but throughout the Civil War they were known by the name of their first commander, Col. Benjamin F. Terry, who fell at the battle of Woodsonville. In over 200 battles including Shiloh, Bardstown, Perryville, Murfreesboro, Chichamauga and Knoxville, they gave credence to Gen. John B. Hood's remark that there was "no body of cavalry superior." When the South finally surrendered, there were scarcely enough men left to form one company. This volume of vivid descriptions, of the first-hand experiences of men in the ranks throughout the duration of the war, makes available three of the rarest pieces of Texana concerning the Terry Texas Rangers' role in the Civil War.<br>

In September of 1861 ten companies of one hundred or more men each, mustered in Houston in response to Benjamin F. Terry and Thomas S. Lubbock's call for volunteers to fight in Virginia. In Kentucky they were formally activated into the Confederate Army as the 8th Texas Cavalry Regiment, but they continued to be known as Terry's Texas Rangers during their over 200 battles including Shiloh, Bardstown, Perryville, Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, and Knoxville. By the time they received their farewell orders from General Joseph Wheeler on 28 April 1865, there were scarcely enough men left to form one company to surrender. Here, in one volume, are three of the best memoirs of the Terry Texas Rangers: Blackburn's "Reminiscences of the Terry Rangers (1919); Giles' "Terry's Texas Rangers (1911); and "The Diary of Ephraim Shelby Dodd" (1914), this last opens in Tennessee in December 1862 and concludes just before he was hanged as a spy in Knoxville in January 1864. Also included is an addendum of March 1864 by an eyewitness of Dodd's hanging. With an introduction and extensive historical overview of the Terry Texas Rangers by Thomas Cutrer, Terry Texas Ranger Trilogy with its vivid descriptions of first-hand experience will fascinate general readers and Civil War historians alike. -- Midwest Book Review