Treasures of the Texas Collection

William P. Rogers

Hi, I’m Robert Darden, an associate professor of Journalism at Baylor University and welcome to the Treasures of the Texas Collection.

The Battle of Corinth does not rank in the Civil War’s pantheon of most celebrated engagements, yet historians consider it both unusually deadly and unusually distinguished by remarkable valor and bravery. Corinth left some 7,500 soldiers, about five thousand of them Confederates, dead, wounded, missing or captured. And the bravest man there that Saturday was a 44-year old Houston lawyer and former Baylor University law professor, William Peleg Rogers. Rogers’ valiant death actually caught the attention of a nation growing inured to battlefield heroism. His exploits even drew rare tributes from his enemies. A towering stone monument at Corinth commemorates his death in that small Mississippi town.

Today we pause to recount his story, pulled from the files of the Texas Collection by novelist and screenwriter Mark Andrew Olsen. Welcome, Mark.

Actually, Bill Rogers probably was Texas’ greatest military hero of the Civil War, next to Albert Sidney Johnston. The two were actually killed six months and twenty miles apart. Johnson had bled to death from a leg wound in April 1862, at “Bloody Shiloh,” the greatest battle on the American continent to that date.

Perhaps one reason why Rogers’ stature as one of Texas’ all-time military heroes is not better known since, unlike Johnston’s, his body was never returned to the Lone Star State. Rogers is buried where he fell, at the edge of a strong point in Corinth’s defenses known as Battery Robinette. But Rogers stands out not only for what he did from a pure military point of view, but the absolutely fearless and gallant way in which he did it.

Let’s start the story with Rogers’ background and early life.

Rogers was an unusual man, a man of contradictions, any way you looked at him. Three states claimed him as a native. Sources in Mississippi insist he was born in Monroe County, a few miles south of Aberdeen, the son of a prosperous landowner and slaveholder. A Texas descendant who edited his diary and letters declares, in the April 1929 Southwestern Historical Quarterly, that Rogers was born in Georgia on December 27, 1819, while his family was visiting there. His monument at Corinth says he was born in Alabama. (One of his daughters always listed Georgia as his birthplace, and that is generally accepted.) William Rogers married Martha Halbert, of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in 1840.

Rogers’ older brother had become a lawyer, so his father decided Bill should be the physician in the family. This was “against his inclination,” but Bill dutifully obtained a medical degree and practiced medicine briefly in Pontotoc, Mississippi. But he too had wanted to be a lawyer. He sold his medical practice and studied law, to the displeasure, for a while, of his father. He became a lawyer at about 22 years of age.

Rogers obviously also had a patriotic zeal for fighting.

Right – whenever war was declared, he was there. When the war with Mexico erupted, William P. Rogers was a young lawyer of two years’ standing, rapidly gaining prominence at the bar in Aberdeen. As soon as the call for volunteers was issued, he raised a company from among his friends and acquaintances in the neighborhood and offered to go to the front. This group, later known as Company K (the Tombigbee Guards), was a member of the famous First Mississippi Regiment.

The regiment, known as the Mississippi Rifles, was commanded by Colonel Jefferson Davis and Lieutenant Colonel A.K. McClung, the noted duelist. Rogers was made captain and the unit was soon sent to the Rio Grande to become part of General Taylor’s army. Rogers quickly acquired a reputation for bravery and leadership in Mexico. He was first cited for bravery in the capture of Monterrey. With General Zachary Taylor observing, McClung and Rogers, in that order, were the first and second Americans to enter the Mexican Fort Teneria while under heavy enemy fire. In the battle of Buena Vista, the Mississippi Rifles formed one wing of the famous “V” which helped to break up the Mexican cavalry charge of General Minon and saved an out-numbered American army.

Rogers promptly caught the attention of both Davis and Taylor. Shortly after Taylor became President of the United States, in 1848, he named Rogers as consul to Vera Cruz, where he served from 1849 to 1851. Rogers resigned in September of 1851 after an investigation of an alleged embezzlement by one of his agents. At the time he was appointed, consul Rogers would have taken his family to Mexico if his wife had not positively refused to move to a foreign land. She consented, however, to go as far as Texas; the autumn of 1851 found the small Rogers family on its way to that state.

Transportation being what it was back then, when did Rogers actually move to Texas?

There are conflicting accounts, but it appears that somewhere around 1853, Rogers opened a law office in Washington-on-the-Brazos, of course the birthplace of Texas, and in those days a busy and influential town.

And it was somewhere during this period that Rogers’ began his long relationship with Baylor University.

While at Washington, Rogers became active in the affairs of growing young Baylor University which was still located in nearby Independence. A staunch believer in female education, he sent his three daughters to Baylor’s Female Department. His three sons also attended Baylor. Baylor’s minutes record that on June 10, 1852, Captain Rogers delivered a, quote, “able and eloquent address on the important and interesting theme of Female Education.” The trustees were so impressed that they allocated forty dollars of their scarce resources to have the talk printed for distribution.

When Baylor’s trustees started a Law Department in 1857, they named as professors R.T. Wheeler, a member and later Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court; Judge Baylor himself; and one William P. Rogers.

Tell us a little more about Rogers’ relationship with Sam Houston.

In 1856, or 59, Rogers moved to the booming town of Houston, where he became one of the leading criminal lawyers in the state, as well as a popular speaker. In the process, Rogers also turned into a confidant of Sam Houston’s. Rogers is listed, in conflicting versions, as being a cousin of either Houston or his wife. Rogers named one of his daughtersMargaret Houston Rogers. Likewise, Houston later named his seventh child and third son William Rogers Houston in his honor. Sadly, William also died in the line of duty. But Houston was more than a relative; as I said, he quickly became a confidant as well as a law client. In fact, Houston named him as one of two executors of his final will.

Did the two think alike about the major issues of their time?

Actually, they eventually became badly split. Like Houston, Rogers was dismayed at the idea of Texas’ seceding when the prospect of a war between the states became inevitable. But unlike Houston, and like Robert E. Lee, he decided that if his state went to war he would do his part. Of course, Houston famously resigned as governor rather than join the Confederacy, later redeeming his place in history by also turning down an offer of a Union generalship. Rogers, however, had no such misgivings. He was a Harris County delegate to the Texas Secession Convention in January, 1861, and cast a reluctant vote for the Confederacy.

He didn’t have to march back to Mississippi to prove his bravery and die. When the war began, his former commander Jeff Davis offered him the command of a Texas regiment in Virginia. Instead, supposedly at the urging of his wife, he became the lieutenant colonel of the 2nd Texas Regiment.

Delayed by a spell of illness, Rogers joined his outfit on the eve of Shiloh. There he distinguished himself again, and was elevated to colonel. He had command of the 2nd Texas “Sharp Shooters” when fate made Corinth a crucial pawn in the war.

This dusty village set back in the forest, just below the Mississippi-Tennessee border, suddenly became important because it was a junction of two of the railroads which were so strategic in that pre-highway, horse-and-wagon era.

Why don’t you set the stage for that pivotal moment in the Civil War?

Well, even as Robert E. Lee was giving the Yankees painful lessons in military strategy in the east, U.S. Grant was wreaking havoc with the Confederacy in the west. He was aiming at gaining control of the Mississippi River and severing the Confederacy in half.

Albert Sidney Johnston had used Corinth, which one war-weary rebel had called “the worst place I have ever seen,” as his base for the ill-fated assaults at Shiloh. After that bloody setback where Johnston himself died, the battered Confederates fell back to Corinth.

In May 1862, a Yankee Army numbering about ten-thousand headed for Corinth, and the feisty but outnumbered Southern General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard withdrew southward to Tupelo. Jeff Davis and his government were appalled. Now Memphis and other Southern strongholds were doomed, and the Mississippi was open to the Union all the way to Vicksburg.

The Confederacy badly needed little Corinth back, and General Earl Van Dorn went out to regain it. He was opposed there by a West Point classmate, General William S. Rosecrans, the man who would later bear witness and pay tribute to the valiant heroics of the 2nd Texas and their incredible colonel.

And this is where things get sticky.

Exactly. Van Dorn had attempted a feinting flank maneuver, heading northward a few miles west of Corinth, ostensibly to fool Rosecrans into believing their real destination was Jackson, Tennessee, Grant’s headquarters. The idea was to make a quick turn toward Corinth and surprise the Union forces with an assault from the North.

The plot failed. Yankee scouts and advance pickets discovered and harassed the approaching Rebels. On Friday, October 3, Van Dorn’s troops did manage to shove the Corinth defenders back onto a line of last-ditch fighting along the inner defenses at the town’s edge, stout positions which, ironically, the Southerners had painstakingly fashioned months earlier.

When does Rogers’ part in the battle come into play?

I’d like to start that with a story that emerged much later, in May of 1912. That is when a Corsicana man who survived the Corinth bloodbath added a poignant note to the Rogers story. He wrote to one of the colonel’s relatives, “… a gentleman rode up to me shortly before the Saturday assault. As fine a looking man I thought as I ever saw, dressed in a colonel’s uniform… He got down off his horse and sat down and talked to us. He told me he was Colonel Rogers, commanding the Second Texas. That he dreaded going into the fight that day for he had a presentiment the night before that he would be killed that day in battle and he was.”

What do we know about Colonel Rogers’ actual death?

As usual, the details of Rogers’ death are hard to pin down, but a composite of the accounts of witnesses on both sides provides this story:

The Federals had a seven-mile, half-moon defense perimeter, with several artillery units behind earthen parapets protected by plenty of infantry. The strongest point in the line was Fort Battery Robinette. Its earthworks were six feet thick and five feet high, with three openings for its heavy cannons. In a wide area in front, dozens of big trees had been cut, their tops pointing toward the attackers and their branches trimmed into sharp obstacles. A deep ditch lay at the base of the parapets.

This was the deadly setting for the charge of the 2nd Texas, Dabney H. Maury’s Division, J.C. Moore’s Brigade. The brigade was badly under-manned: decimated by disease, Shiloh, and Friday’s fight. Its ragged remnant of soldiers were hungry and thirsty, and short on ammunition. They lined up grimly at about ten a.m. that unusually hot October morning, knowing they would suffer in another type of heat, the heat of battle, before the day was over.

One of Robinette’s defenders wrote, “Suddenly, we saw a magnificent brigade emerge in our front; they came in perfect order, a grand but terrible sight. At their head rode their commander, a man of fine physique, in the prime of life, quiet and cool as though on a drill. The artillery opened and the infantry followed; notwithstanding the slaughter, they were closer and closer.

It was Rogers.

It was a holocaust. Rogers’ men clawed and scrambled over the fallen trees, artillery and rifle lead flying so thickly it could almost be seen. One of his men, taking cover under a tree trunk, recalled, “I could have raised my fist and grabbed a dozen bullets.”

Waving the regimental colors from horseback, Colonel Rogers led the column on horseback, gauged his pace to match the steps of his men and carried the colors aloft. The columns reached the ditch of the battery and Rogers jumped his horse over the ditch, dismounted, dashed up to the side of the battery where he p1anted the colors squarely upon the fort. Bitter hand-to-hand fighting ensued. Thirteen of the 36 men serving the guns of Battery Robinette were either killed or wounded in this desperate struggle. The Confederates took possession of Battery Robinette.

But just that quickly, the tide turned against them.

That’s right: it turned – with a vengeance. Rogers’ men then caught the first sight of a massive sea of blue uniforms moving toward them in a counter-attack.

Rea1izing the hopelessness of the situation, Rogers and Foster waved handkerchiefs to surrender their troops. Other Confederates about the fort, however, did not see the surrender sign and continued to fire into the mass of Union soldiers. Massive fire was returned on the Confederates at very close range, and Colonel Rogers fell dead with eleven wounds. The remainder of the attacking Confederates fell back, bringing with them their most prized possession, the regimental flag.

Rogers, trying to save his men’s lives, waved a handkerchief in surrender, but it was ignored by the enemy. Whereupon he either said, “We fought our way in here, men, let’s fight our way out,” or “They won’t let us surrender––let’s sell our lives dearly!”

Historian Bruce Catton, in his landmark work Grant Moves South, records, “A Union officer watched, fascinated, as a Texas colonel led his men straight up to the battery. He looked neither right nor left, neither at his men or at mine, but with his eyes partly closed, like one in a hailstorm, was marching slowly and steadily upon us. This Texas colonel got clear into the battery, and died amidst the guns.”

Powerful writing for a powerful image.

Most accounts say Rogers was riddled by rifle bullets, although General Rosencrans reported that he was shot “by one of our drummer-boys, who with pistol in hand, was helping defend Robinette.” Half of the battery’s 26 gunners were killed by Rogers and his attackers.

When the flag fell,Rogers somehow stood up, grabbed the fallen regimental flag from the fourth flag-bearer to be killed that day, and, pistol in hand, scrambled atop the parapet to plant the colors. An Iowa soldier at Battery Robinette later wrote, “General Rogers, with a flag in one hand and a revolver in the other, led them straight into one of the awful death-traps of the war.” He and a few followers actually had brief control of the battery, but enemy reinforcements quickly closed in. A misty photograph shows Rogers’ horse lying dead near the earthworks.

I’m curious to hear about the reactions from Colonel Rogers’ foes.

One version says an admiring Yankee officer supposedly exclaimed, pointing at Rogers just before his death, “That man is too brave to die. Don’t kill him.” If so, nobody heeded him.

The veteran warrior Rosencrans wrote, “It was about as good fighting on the part of the Confederates as I ever saw.” He ordered that Rogers be given full military burial at the spot. By the way, Waco’s Sul Ross lived through the battle, as did one of Rogers’ sons, Halbert, an eventual Baylor graduate.

What happened to Rogers’ family and descendants?

The Rogers family shared in the suffering of the war and the reconstruction days. They moved to Houston. One night, some drunken Yankee soldiers broke into their home and robbed them. It was a very traumatic experience. While one soldier held a pistol at Mrs. Rogers’ heart the other one searched the house, taking everything of value that they wanted. As they became more violent Amy, one of the former slaves, called out that she would lead them to where they would find a “chest full of gold”. They quickly followed her to a neighbor’s house where there were several men. A shooting followed and the two Yankee were killed. Some of the jewelry they had stolen from the Rogers’ home was found on the body of one of the dead men, and this jewelry is still in possession of members of the family.