The Famous Terry Rangers Mr. Tom Burney Writes an Interesting Letter of His Four Years Experience with This Noted Texas Regiment Mr. Tom Burney has written a letter to his daughter reciting some of his experiences as a confederate soldier and of the exploits of the Rangers, and the part that famous regiment played in the Civil War. We obtained permission to print the letter for it gives some incidents that history does not record, and besides, of the number who left Springfield to join this regiment in Houston, Mr. Burney is the only survivor who lives in the County; in fact, there are but two more besides himself who are still with the living, namely, T.J. Oliver, of Dallas, and Mr. Wm. Owens of Elgin. The letter follows: My Dear Lucy:- You asked me in your last letter to write you a short history of my army experience, and I am going to do my best to tell you but it will be a very meager history, for it has been a long time ago and I have forgotten more than I can recollect so I will commence by telling you that we started from Old Springfield on the 8th of Sept. 1861 and landed in Houston a few days after, just in time to join the famous Terry's Rangers. We were fortunate enough to strike a company from Gonzales County which was not as full as they wished and we joined it, which was Company C, commanded by M.L. Evans, Capt., A.D. Shannon, 1st, John Baylor, 2nd, and Jim Dunn, 3rd Lieutenants. I believe, as well as I can remember, there were 27 men in my squad, whose names I have kept, and will give them to you before I finish this sketch. After we joined it, it made quite a good Company, numbering about 100 men. Well, we were sworn in for three years or during the war, and we were tied to stay whether we wanted to or not. When we joined, our destination was Richmond, Va., but General Sidney Johnston asked the war department for us and we were sent to him at Bowling Green, Ky., where we spent a very hard winter, not being used to such a cold climate, it caused a great many to be sick and a good deal of fatal sickness among our Regiment a good many were discharged and others got furloughs and come home to regain their health. The Regiment left was sent to Green River to do picket duty for the army and were stationed about six miles east of the Mammoth Cave (I think it was east). It was here that the boys had their first fight, and it was a bad one, too. Our Col. was killed and five or six others, several were badly wounded. I was down with the measles at that time and was sent to the hospital in Nashville, but I ran away and left the car at Franklin, Ky. I had some friends living there whom I stopped with until I was able to go and went back to my regiment but relapsed and came near dying so I went back to my friends in Franklin and was there when the army came along on its retreat to Corinth, and one of the boys brought me a horse and I again joined my company on the way to Shiloh. I believe we got to Corinth in January or February. I can't remember the dates but we stayed here until April 13th and marched out to meet Gens. Grant and Halleck and the fight opened up April 6th, 1862, on Sunday morning before daylight and continued about 3 days. I was on picket until 10 o'clock Sunday. I felt like I could whip four or five Yankees without any trouble, but soon found out better. I was on Owl Creek road and as we crossed the creek we began to see signs of the fight. There were all kinds of canned goods strewn along the road, lots of whiskey and some champagne, and thought I could walk on candy for half a mile, we were not allowed to dismount for anything, hardly let you fall if you were shot. It was about 12 or 1 o'clock before we were carried into the fight, and then I wanted to get out as bad as I wanted to get in, but was ashamed to run. The first ones to get into the real sport was when a call for a man from each company to volunteer to charge a battery. Uriah Posey was the man from our company. They took the battery without firing a gun. Gen. Hardee had ordered Wirt Adams' Regiment, of Mississippi cavalry, to charge this battery and they refused and he told them that he could pick 10 men from the Rangers and that they would take it and they did. I can remember that we had some hot fighting that evening, such as I don't care to do any more. We captured and I helped to capture about four thousand Yankees in less that one hour. I think it was Gen. Prentiss's brigade that we captured. We charged them in front and while we entertained them, there was a lot of infantry doubled quicked to the rear. So when we got enough and retired, all they had to do was to get on the other side of the logs they were lying behind and face that infantry. It seemed to paralyze them, and they hoisted a white flag quickly. We did not fight much more that evening on that part of the line but I could see it going on about any direction from us. We fought them back until we could see the whole of Grant's army in the bend of the river. Could see the gun-boats and transports. The seemed to be getting aboard, and shells that seemed a big as barrels were coming our way thick and fast, but not doing any very serious damage only by scaring people nearly as bad as they hurt them. About 4 o'clock or little later Gen. Johnston was killed which threw everything out of gear. Gen. Beauregard, being next in command, of course, took charge of the army and there was not much more fighting done that night, but next morning, it began again. It rained all night as we were a wet as water could make us, and shells were falling all around us and they were as big as a large pumpkin. I heard that one shell killed 60 horses, but can't vouch for the truth of it. On Monday we began to wend our way back to Corinth very slowly on account of bad roads caused from the terrible rain the night before; had to cut new roads for nearly every wagon train, horses would bog almost anywhere in the woods, so that our travels were very slow indeed, besides we would have to stop and fight the enemy back to keep them from getting the wagons and artillery, they didn't seem to be near so hostile as the were on Sunday. When we got nearly to Corinth they let us go in peace. So this is my experience at Shiloh. I stayed in Camps near Corinth a few days and we were sent to Tenn. under one Gen. Adams but we didn't stay long. We crossed the mountains and went to Chattanooga, and camped a few days and were sent back to Tenn. under Forrest. Then we did some fighting, destroyed a good many U.S. stores up and down the L. & N. R. R. We stayed in Tennessee until Mr. Bragg came along going to Kentucky and joined him at Sparta, and right here I got my hat, the one I gave you in the case. I wore it the balance of the unpleasantness and two years after and laid it away as a keep-sake. Now I have given you a very incomplete history of my army experience up to Sept., 1862 and I shall only name the most noted engagements that I was in after that, because I find that I am not a good historian. Bragg fought at Mumfordville on Green River and captured four thousand prisoners. I was there and took part in the fight. Perryville was next and was a hot and furious one while it lasted. I saw more dead men there than any fight I was ever in. You could almost step from one dead man to another for half a mile. We left there that night and from the way the Yankees yelled when they found that we were gone, I know they were glad. We left Kentucky by crossing the Cumberland mountains through the Cumberland Gap and camped at Knoxville a few days. From there we went to Murfreesboro, Tenn. I forgot, too, were in some kind of a fight every day after we left Perryville until we passed through the Gap. (Published in the Groesbeck Journal, Thursday, November 25, 1909)