Confederate dead outside the parapet of Battery Robinett on October 5. Col. William P. Rogers of the 2nd Texas lies in the left background-his dead horse is to the rightConfederate dead lay gathered at the bottom of the parapet of Battery Robinett on October 5. Col. William P. Rogers of the 2nd Texas lies in the left foreground
The regiment assaulted Battery Robinett, a redan protected by a five-foot ditch, sporting three 20-pounder Parrott rifles commanded by Lt. Henry Robinett. Colonel William P. Rogers, a Mexican–American War comrade of PresidentJefferson Davis, was among those killed in the charge.[3] Rogers seized his colors to keep them from falling again and jumped a five-foot ditch, leaving his dying horse and assaulted the ramparts of the battery. When canister shot killed him, he was the fifth bearer of his colors to fall that day.[4]
Siege of Vicksburg
Union assault at Vicksburg on May 22, 1863
The regiment was distinguished for its defense of a crescent-shaped fortification, which came to be known as the Second Texas Lunette. The fortification was located in the center of the Vicksburg line of defense constructed to guard the Baldwin Ferry Road. The lunette was the subject of tremendous artillery bombardment and repeated Union assaults directed against the lunette on May 22, 1863.[5]
^Welcher, pp. 556–57; Cozzens, pp. 253–63, 267; Woodworth, p. 233; Kennedy, p. 131; Korn, p. 41; Eicher, pp. 377–78; Lamers, pp. 151–54.
^Cozzens, p. 255. Eicher, p. 278, states that is one of only a very few Civil War photographs that show an important officer deceased on the field. It is sometimes erroneously reported that Rogers's second-in-command, Colonel Lawrence Sullivan Ross, lies beside him. In fact, Ross went on to become a general and later the governor of Texas. He died in 1898.
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