9th Texas Cavalry Regiment, C.S.A.
The 9th Texas Cavalry Regiment was a mounted volunteer regiment in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. Organized in the late summer and early fall of 1861, it served in the Western Theater from Indian Territory through Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Georgia until the final surrender in May 1865.
Formation and Organization
The regiment was organized as a volunteer cavalry unit at Brogden’s Springs near Pottsboro in Grayson County, Texas, and was mustered into Confederate service on 2 October 1861. Colonel William B. Sims commanded the regiment at organization, with Lieutenant Colonel Nathan W. Townes and Major William Quayle as the other field officers. The regiment was often referred to in early sources as “Sims’s Regiment.”
Approximately 1,050 men were originally enrolled in ten companies, lettered A through K (omitting J in keeping with common practice). The companies were raised primarily from North and Northeast Texas counties:
- Company A – Tarrant County (“Tarrant County Volunteers”)
- Company B – Fannin County (“Red River Boys”)
- Company C – Grayson County
- Company D – Tarrant County
- Company E – Red River County
- Company F – From the Cypress Bayou region around Jefferson, Cass County (“Cypress Rangers”)
- Company G – Hopkins County
- Company H – Recruited from North Texas (mixed counties)
- Company I – Titus County
- Company K – Hopkins County
Key Companies: A, B, and F
Company A – Tarrant County Volunteers. Raised out of the frontier settlements of Tarrant County, Company A drew heavily from small farmers, stockmen, and frontiersmen living along the Cross Timbers and the approaches to what would become Fort Worth. Many of these men brought long experience in riding, hunting, and local defense into the regiment from the very beginning.
Company B – “Red River Boys.” Company B was recruited from Fannin County and the Red River country and is widely remembered under the nickname “Red River Boys.” Its membership reflected the mixed character of that region: river-bottom farmers, stockraisers, and traders whose livelihoods depended on the Red River corridor connecting North Texas to Arkansas and Indian Territory.
Company F – “Cypress Rangers.” Known as the “Cypress Rangers,” Company F was raised in the Cypress Bayou region centered on Jefferson in Cass County and surrounding Northeast Texas communities. Later memoirs and a dedicated regimental history identify this company as one of the most distinctively frontier in culture: woodsmen, stockmen, hunters, and small-town merchants accustomed to the swamps, bayous, and pine woods of that corner of Texas. Company F’s experiences have been preserved in detail in a postwar narrative devoted specifically to the Cypress Rangers.
Like many early-war Texas cavalry units, the men furnished their own horses and much of their equipment. The original armament was mixed—hunting rifles, shotguns, and revolvers—gradually supplemented and partially standardized by Confederate issues and captured Federal weapons as the war progressed.
Early Service: Indian Territory and Pea Ridge, 1861–1862
Within weeks of organization, the 9th Texas Cavalry crossed the Red River into Indian Territory. There it took part in operations against the pro-Union Native American coalition led by the Muscogee (Creek) leader Opothleyahola. The regiment was engaged at the Battle of Round Mountain (19 November 1861) and at the Battle of Chusto-Talasah on Bird Creek (9 December 1861). These early actions combined harsh winter conditions, irregular tactics, and scattered fighting, and they served as the regiment’s combat introduction.
In early 1862 the 9th Texas Cavalry became part of a cavalry brigade under Colonel James M. McIntosh in General Benjamin McCulloch’s division. At the Battle of Pea Ridge (Elkhorn Tavern), Arkansas, on 6–7 March 1862, the regiment took part in a large mounted charge that overran Federal guns and cavalry on the Ford Road and later stood under artillery fire while the Confederate command structure above it collapsed with the deaths of McCulloch and McIntosh. After the battle the regiment moved east of the Mississippi River with General Earl Van Dorn’s army.
Corinth, Hatchie’s Bridge, and Dismounted Service, 1862
Once transferred to Mississippi, the 9th Texas Cavalry served for a period dismounted as infantry. It took part in the operations around the Siege of Corinth in the spring of 1862 and was present, though not heavily engaged, at the Battle of Iuka in September.
During the Second Battle of Corinth (3–4 October 1862) the regiment fought on foot in Charles W. Phifer’s brigade. It helped capture a section of Federal artillery on the first day and took part in intense close-range combat near Battery Robinett on the second day, suffering significant casualties. Shortly afterward, at the Battle of Hatchie’s Bridge (5 October 1862), elements of the brigade—including the 9th Texas—helped cover Van Dorn’s retreat and held off pursuing Federal forces on the east bank of the Hatchie River.
Ross’s Texas Cavalry Brigade and the Vicksburg Campaign
On 23 October 1862 the 3rd, 6th, 9th, and 27th Texas Cavalry Regiments were grouped into a single Texas cavalry brigade under Colonel John W. Whitfield. As the war continued, command of the brigade passed to Lawrence Sullivan (“Sul”) Ross of the 6th Texas, and it became widely known as Ross’s Texas Cavalry Brigade. In this formation the 9th Texas Cavalry returned to mounted service.
In December 1862 the regiment rode with Van Dorn in the Holly Springs Raid, a deep strike against Union supply lines in Mississippi that resulted in the capture of the garrison at Holly Springs and the destruction of substantial Federal stores. In 1863 the 9th Texas served with General Joseph E. Johnston’s forces during the Vicksburg campaign, operating chiefly in outpost duty and frequent skirmishing rather than in large set-piece battles.
Atlanta Campaign and Late-War Operations, 1864–1865
In 1864 the regiment, still part of Ross’s Brigade, transferred with other elements of the Western Confederate forces to oppose Major General William T. Sherman’s advance on Atlanta. Serving in General W. H. Jackson’s cavalry division, the 9th Texas Cavalry took part in nearly continuous operations from mid-May through the fall of 1864, including screening, raiding, reconnaissance, and rear-guard actions during the Atlanta campaign. Contemporary and later accounts emphasize that Ross’s Brigade was under fire or in contact with the enemy for more than one hundred consecutive days during this period.
Later in 1864 the regiment participated in the Franklin–Nashville Campaign, including actions at the Battle of Franklin (30 November 1864) and the Third Battle of Murfreesboro (5–7 December 1864). It also helped cover the Confederate retreat following the Battle of Nashville.
Border-War Rivalry with the 6th Kansas Cavalry
Much of the 9th Texas Cavalry’s character was forged in the same border war that shaped the Union’s volunteer cavalry from Kansas. Federal forces such as the 6th Kansas Cavalry operated across Kansas, Arkansas, and Indian Territory, fighting at actions including Honey Springs, Fort Smith, Cabin Creek, and numerous raids and escorts along the Arkansas River line. Confederate mounted commands that included Texans from Ross’s Brigade and related cavalry forces frequently confronted these Kansas units in a series of raids, ambushes, and wagon-train attacks typical of the frontier theater.
While the 9th Texas and the 6th Kansas Cavalry did not face each other in a single, famous set-piece battle in the way Eastern units sometimes did, the record of campaigns in Indian Territory and western Arkansas shows them operating on opposing sides of the same ground and often against one another’s scouting parties, pickets, and mounted detachments. Both units earned reputations—on different sides of the line—as aggressive, hard-riding cavalry accustomed to long marches, difficult terrain, and sudden, close-range fighting on the frontier.
Surrender and Aftermath
By early 1865 the 9th Texas Cavalry was serving in the Department of Alabama, Mississippi, and East Louisiana, still associated with Ross’s Cavalry Brigade. The department surrendered to Federal forces on 4 May 1865, and surviving members of the regiment were paroled later that month. Over the course of the war the regiment had served under several field officers, including Colonels William B. Sims and Dudley W. Jones, and Lieutenant Colonels N. W. Townes and William Quayle.
The 9th Texas Cavalry’s service illustrates the character of Western-Theater mounted warfare: long marches, frequent skirmishes, raids against supply lines, and periods of dismounted fighting, all carried out by volunteers who had entered the war as frontier horsemen and adapted to the demands of a prolonged, large-scale conflict.
Selected Reference Works
- Ninth Texas Cavalry, Texas State Historical Association (Handbook of Texas)
- Official Records of the War of the Rebellion
- R. Nicholas Nelson, “Ninth Texas Cavalry,” Texas State Historical Association
- George L. Griscom, Fighting with Ross’ Texas Cavalry Brigade, C.S.A.
- James H. Davis, The Cypress Rangers in the Civil War