Felix Huston Robertson

Felix Huston Robertson (March 9, 1839 – April 20, 1928) was the only native-born Texan to serve as a general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. At the time of his death, he was the last surviving general of the Confederacy. He was noted for the controversial behavior of his troops at the Battle of Saltville, where scores of wounded black Union cavalrymen were killed in their beds.

Robertson was born in Washington-on-the-Brazos, Texas, to Mary (Cummins) and Jerome B. Robertson, who would also serve as a Confederate general. He attended Baylor University and went to West Point in 1857, but left before graduation to serve the Confederacy.

Commissioned initially as a second lieutenant in the artillery, Robertson went to Charleston, South Carolina, and participated in the shelling of Fort Sumter. He then went to Florida, where he served as a staff officer for Brig. Gen. A. H. Gladden at Pensacola.

In early 1862, Robertson became captain of an artillery battery from Alabama and fought at the Battle of Shiloh in May and again at Murfreesboro at the end of the year. He was promoted by Braxton Bragg to the rank of major and given command of the reserve artillery battalion of the Army of Tennessee, which he led at Chickamauga in September 1863.

Robertson was subsequently promoted to lieutenant colonel and reassigned to command the Confederate horse artillery under Joseph Wheeler. He participated in the 1864 Atlanta Campaign. Robertson's performance drew the attention of senior commanders, and on July 26, he was promoted to brigadier general. He became Wheeler's chief of staff. He married Sarah Davis while on a furlough.

Late in the year, Robertson was assigned a field command, leading first a brigade and later a division of cavalry. On October 3, 1864, a group of guerillas associated with Robertson's troops during the campaign slaughtered more than one hundred black Union soldiers who had been wounded in the previous day's fighting. One of his subordinate officers, Champ Ferguson, was executed by hanging after the war for his part in what the Northern press deemed the "Saltville Massacre." Robertson was severely wounded in a skirmish along Buckhead Creek near Augusta, Georgia, on November 29, 1864. He lived, but never resumed field duty.

After the war, Robertson returned to Texas and settled in Waco. He studied law, passed his bar exam, and established a profitable legal practice. He and his father speculated in real estate and invested in several local railroads. After the death of his wife, Robertson remarried in 1892. He became the commander of the local United Confederate Veterans in 1911.

He died in Waco and was buried in Oakwood Cemetery.

References

* Warner, Ezra J., "Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders", Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1959, ISBN 0-8071-0823-5.

External links

*findagrave|11064 Retrieved on 2008-02-13
* [http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/RR/fro26.html Handbook of Texas on-line]
* [http://www.generalsandbrevets.com/sgr/robertsonfh.htm Photo gallery]