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Hood's Brindc 199
possible exertion to get them on for me. You must help us in this matter. With a few more regiments such as Hood now has, as an example of daring and bravery, I could feel more con- fident of the campaign."
ONLY DID TIIETK DUTY.
I have thus dwelt on some of the events of the campaign of 1862, in which the Texas Brigade participated, not for the pur- pose of unduly boasting nor of drawing a comparison between the achievements of these troops and those of other Confederate troops, or of other Texas troops who may have fought in John- ston's Army or on this side of the Mississippi. They only did their duty as soldiers ; and if this little band of Texans was more conspicuous or accomplished greater results than their brothers on other fields, it was doubtless because they were better dis- ciplined and better led. In other words, they were afforded a better opportunity to display their courage, and simply demon- strated what, under the same conditions, other Texans would have done. All no doubt did their best in the great struggle which taxed the courage and energies of the people of the South. And how near we came to achieving success in the mighty struggle, none but the God of Battles, who shapes the destinies of nations, can ever know. No doubt it was He who, on Shiloh's bloody field, directed the unconscious aim of the Federal soldier who fired the shot which struck down the great commander of the Western Army, Albert Sidney Johnston, and thus turned victory for our arms into defeat. Evidently it was the guiding hand of the great unseen Architect of Nations who brought the Monitor into the waters of the Chesapeake to grapple in deadly conflict with the Merrimac for the supremacy of the seas. And we concede that it was He who delayed Ewell's coming until the heights of Gettysburg were crowned with the Federal Army under General Meade, and thus pitted the im- pregnable mountains against the fierce assaults of the cohorts of Lee under the gallant and daring Pickett. It was never in- tended by the Divine Hand that this nation as a nation should perish from the earth. On the contrary, cemented by the blood of its bravest and best, it was foreordained that it should continue
