Today in History (general history)/ On This Day In Confederate History/ Confederate General Birthdays, June 20.

Click 👉Today in History (general history) June 20. 

On This Day in Confederate History, June 20.

Pvt. Benjamin W. Varnell

Co. B, 1st Texas Cavalry Regiment

(Liljenquist Collection, Library of Congress)

1862:  A skirmish occurs between Confederate Col. Edwin Waller Jr.'s 13th Battalion Texas Cavalry and the 8th Vermont Infantry at Bayou des Allemands, La.

Col. Edwin Waller Jr.

13th Bn, Tex. Cav.

1863: The Battle of LaFourche Crossing takes place near Thibodaux, La., between the Confederate cavalry brigade of Brig. Gen. James P. Major and a Federal detachment of 838 men under Lt. Col. Albert Stickney. The Confederates drove Stickney's detachment out of Thibodaux and down Bayou Lafourche. They exchanged fire with the Federals before the Confederates returned to Thibodaux and feasted on the Northern food supplies they captured there. The skirmishing would continue the next day.

Click👉Randal's Texas Brigade

Fighting for Southern Independence

This is the history of one of the finest bodies of Confederate infantry in the War for Southern Independence. General Kirby Smith and Lieutenant General Richard Taylor considered Randal's Texas Brigade to be the best infantry brigade in the Trans-Mississippi West. The brigade was principally made up of the 11th Texas Infantry Regiment, 14th Texas Infantry Regiment, the 28th Texas Cavalry (Dismounted) and the 6th Battalion (Gould's) Texas Infantry. It fought in such major Trans-Mississippi Department battles, in all or part, as the battles of Bayou Bourbeau, Mansfield, Pleasant Hill, all in Louisiana, and Jenkins' Ferry in Arkansas. The men of Randal's Texas Brigade played a major roll in keeping Texas largely free of the destruction wrought on other Southern states in the war.

1864: Confederate Capt. James A. Ware of the First Texas Cavalry at Fort Duncan, Eagle Pass, Texas, reported on June 20, 1864, that on the day before, he had been attacked by 80 to 100 renegades (Federal recruits under U.S. officers) on the Texas side of the Rio Grande River. Ware said he had but 34 men guarding the post. He received some poorly armed reinforcements from Texas home guard units. When the enemy attacked the town, they were repulsed. He said he was briefly captured when trying to communicate with the town, but managed to escape. The enemy only managed to get away with a few horses. Ware said four men were severely wounded on the Confederate side. He said the enemy lost one man killed and six wounded. Ware noted that Mexican authorities had allowed the formation of the renegades on the Mexican side of the river. 

Confederate General Birthdays, June 20.

Brig. Gen. John Tyler Morgan was born in 1824 in Athens, Tennessee. A prewar lawyer in Alabama, Morgan was a presidential elector for John C. Breckinridge in the 1860 election. With the coming of war, Morgan served as a private in the 5th Alabama Infantry and fought in the First Battle of Manassas, Va. He received promotions to major and lieutenant Colonel but resigned in 1862 to raise his own regiment, the 51st Alabama Partisan Rangers. With that unit, Morgan served in Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest's cavalry in the Battle of Chickamauga, Ga., and the Knoxville Campaign. Morgan was promoted to brigadier general on November 16, 1863. He then served in the Atlanta Campaign and fought against Sherman's March to the Sea in 1864. Following the war, and was active in resisting the Reconstruction policies in the South, and was elected from Alabama to the U.S. Senate, where he served until he died in Washington, D.C. on March 4, 1907, and was buried in Live Oak Cemetery in Selma, Alabama.

Brig. Gen. John Tyler Morgan