In 1855 the US Congress approved four new regiments. One, the Second United States Cavalry Regiment, was specifically organized for service on the Texas frontier. They arrived in Texas on December 15, 1855.

John Bell Hood and Albert Sydney Johnston

The officers of the Second Cavalry were hand-picked by Secretary of War Jefferson Davis. The elite regiment was therefore known as “Jeff Davis’ Own.” During their years in Texas, the regiment were involved in 40 or more skirmishes with Apache, Comanche and Kiowa along the western and northern frontiers as well as with Mexican marauders along the Rio Grande. Known for outstanding leadership, the regiment produced 16 generals in its 6 1/2 years of existence. Indeed, the Second supplied half of the full generals of the Confederate Army: Texans John Bell Hood and Albert Sidney Johnston as well as Edmund Kirby Smith and Robert E. Lee. The Second Cavalry was Lee’s last command in the United States Army. He and many other Southerners resigned their commissions at the outbreak of the Civil War.