Brothers, William L. & Thomas H. Langley
In spring of 1861 the Langley brothers joined the Marshall Guards in Harrison County, Texas, later organized as Company E of the 1st Texas Infantry after the regiment was formed in Richmond that summer. A college student before the war, Thomas enlisted as a sergeant. He came down with typhoid fever a year later and was discharged, though he enlisted again on May 3, 1863, as a private in the same company.
Brother William was spared from many of the major battles in 1862, having been hospitalized due to illness on a couple occasions and detailed for commissary duty in November 1862; however, he was in the ranks at Gettysburg. In Hood's advance on the afternoon of July 2, 1863, while the 1st Texas crossed Rose Run and ran up to the base of Houck's Ridge, William took a shot through the head, dying instantly. He fell into the arms of Pvt. James Bradfield, who carefully laid him down. Thomas made it out unscathed and fought on until Appomattox. He returned to Texas where he later married in 1885, dying in Marshall on March 4, 1914.
Here's Thomas's memorial on Find A Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/15592384/thomas-horace-langley
Excerpt from Pvt. James O. Bradfield's account of Gettysburg:
"About two o'clock in the afternoon, the order was given to advance all along the line. We moved quietly forward down the steep decline, gaining impetus as we reached the more level ground below. The enemy had already opened fire upon us, but we did not stop to return it. 'Forward—double quick,' rang out, and then Texas turned loose. Across the valley and over the stream that ran through it they swept, every man for himself. The first man down was my right-file man, William Langley, a noble, brave boy, with a mini-ball straight through the brain. I caught him as he fell against me, and laid him down, dead."
(Hood's Texas Brigade: Its Marches, Its Battles, Its Achievements by J.B. Polley, pp. 168-69.)
I posted this photo before in the recesses of another thread but I thought it would be a good addition to the Gettysburg forum. Its probably one of my favorite images of Hood's Texans. And I know the above information is brief but sometimes there is only so much out there on the enlisted men (at least that I could gather in this case); however, there was certainly more to their lives than the few bits mentioned here.
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