Although Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House in April, 1865,
some Confederates refused to abandon their cause. Fallen Guidon,
originally published in 1962 by Jack Rittenhouse's Stagecoach Press
in 1962, is the gripping story of one such group of men who, rather
than surrender, boldly decided to follow their cavalry flag or
guidon south and transplant their imperialistic vision in the
troubled soil of Mexico. This little-remembered episode of the
Trans-Mississippi Civil War was written as a popular history by the
late Edwin Adams Davis, a respected scholar of southern and Civil
War history. General Jo Shelby had led the Missouri Cavalry
Division through battles at Westport, Mine Creek, Newtonia, and
elsewhere. Shelby's men were all recruits rather than draftees,
fiercely loyal, and they followed the code of chivalry to a degree
unusual even in the old South. While preparing to march against the
Federals at Little Rock, they heard of Lee's surrender. In a
meeting at Marshall, Texas, Shelby announced, We will stand
together, we will keep our organization, our arms, our discipline,
our hatred of oppression . . . that this Missouri Cavalry Division
preferred exile to submission--death to dishonor. Having heard that
the U.S. government wanted the Habsburg emperor Maximilian out of
Mexico and that Lincoln liked the idea of ex-Confederates joining
forces with Benito Juarez to oust Maximilian and his French
military forces, Shelby formed his plan. Shelby believed he had
found a way to save their honor and at the same time spread their
lost southern empire to a new land, where riches and glory surely
awaited them. Shelby and his men marched through Texas, stopping in
Corsicana, Tyler, Waxahachie, Waco, Austin, Houston, and San
Antonio, declaring martial law and forcibly quelling local
outbreaks of looting and rioting where they found it. At the Rio
Grande, in a funereal memorial, they buried their Confederate
battle flag in the murky waters before heading into Mexico.
Shelby's men did not want to support Benito Juarez's liberal
guerrillas, however. Identifying themselves as imperialists, they
wanted to fight gloriously for Emperor Maximilian. In pitched
battles against the local Juaristas and isolated guerrillas and
bandits, they spilled blood from Piedras Negras to Mexico City and
even undertook the chivalrous and bloody rescue of a woman
imprisoned in a hacienda. Once in Mexico City, Shelby's Iron
Brigade discovered its march to have been futile, and in a
bittersweet final review, Shelby said good-bye.
General
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