Lone Star
The 1st Texas Infantry of Hood's Texas Brigade charges into Miller's Cornfield at Antietam, mad as hell, having been interrupted while eating their first breakfast in days to be sent into battle. They first slammed into the Iron Brigade, driving them through the cornfield. They kept going until they reached the northern edge of the field, where Anderson's brigade of Meade's division was posted. There the 1st Texas was caught in a cross fire from several Pennsylvania regiments to their front and Campbell's Battery to their left. Though they fought like hell, 186 of their 226 men engaged were killed or wounded; the entire color guard was also shot down and both of their colors lost in the cornfield. The 1st Texas's loss of 82.3% was reportedly the highest casualty rate suffered by any Confederate regiment in the war.
Rock of Erin
The Irish 69th Pennsylvania Volunteers of the Philadelphia Brigade, holding Cemetery Ridge on July 3rd.
Patrick Cleburne
At the Battle of Franklin, Nov. 30, 1864, Maj. Gen. Patrick R. Cleburne leads his Division in the assault upon the earthworks built around Franklin, TN, by the Army of the Ohio. Cleburne, in his last moments before the attack, would tell Brig. Gen. Daniel C. Govan, "Well, Govan, if we are to die, let us die like men." Cleburne would be killed in the attack, shot through the chest while cheering his men forward on foot, after having two horses shot out from under him during the charge.
The First Minnesota
On July 2, 1863, at Gettysburg, Brig. Gen. Camdus Wilcox's Brigade had broken through Sickles’ position on Cemetery Ridge. With a failed attempt at rallying Sickles’ men, Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock had ordered the 1st Minnesota, held in reserve nearby, to counterattack and fill the gap in the Union line until reinforcements could arrive. They attacked a force three times their own strength and successfully drove them from their position. Out of the 262 men that took part in the attack, 215 were killed, wounded, or missing.
Major John Pelham, with his light horse artillery consisting of two guns - a 12-pounder Napoleon and a Blakely - holds up the left flank of Brig. Gen. Abner Doubleday's 1st Division, I Corps at Fredericksburg.
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