The Col. W.P. Rogers story
Although his father, Timothy Rogers, was at the time living in Alabama, William Rogers was born in Georgia on December 27, 1819, while his parents were there on a visit. After a brief period, the family moved to Mississippi and settled on a large plantation near Aberdeen in Monroe County, and it was there that his youth was spent. Since he had one son who was a lawyer, Timothy Rogers decided that William, the second son, should be a physician and sent him accordingly to a medical college much against his son’s own inclination. He graduated before the age of 21 and his father arranged for an office to be provided for him in Pontotoc
in northeast Mississippi. After a short time, he sold out and began the study of law. This created a serious breach with his father which was not healed for many years.
William Rogers married Martha Halbert, of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on January 15, 1840.
To support himself while a student in law, Rogers edited a Whig newspaper in Aberdeen. The newspaper failed, but his law studies were a success, and he became a practicing attorney. When the war with Mexico erupted, William P. Rogers was a young lawyer of 2 years rapidly gaining prominence at the bar in Aberdeen. As soon as the call for volunteers was issued, he raised a company from among his friends and acquaintances in the neighborhood and offered to go to the front. This group, later known as Company K (the Tombigbee Guards), was a member of the famous First Mississippi Regiment. This regiment, known as the Mississippi Rifles, was commanded by Colonel Jefferson Davis and Lieutenant Colonel A.K. McClung, the noted duelist. Rogers was made captain and the unit was soon sent to the Rio Grande to become part of General Taylor’s army. Rogers quickly acquired a reputation for bravery and leadership in Mexico. He was first cited for bravery in the capture of Monterrey. With General Zachary Taylor observing, McClung and Rogers, in that order, were the first and second Americans to enter the Mexican Fort Teneria while under heavy enemy fire. In the battle of Buena Vista, the Mississippi Rifles formed one wing of the famous “V” which helped to break up the Mexican cavalry charge of General Minon and saved an Out numbered American army.
The young captain returned from the war quite taken with Mexico. On his return to Mississippi, Rogers was defeated in a campaign for the Chancery Court clerk ship in 1848. He next sought the marshals of Mississippi’s northern district and was a candidate for state auditor in 1849. At about that time he accepted a position as consul to Vera Craz, Mexico offered him by Taylor as soon as the latter became president. Rogers resigned in September of 1851 after an investigation of an alleged embezzlement by one of his agents. At the time he was appointed, consul Rogers would have taken his family to Mexico if his wife had not positively refused to move to a foreign land. She consented, however, to go as far as Texas; the autumn of 1851 found the small Rogers family on its way to that state.
The family — there were four children by this time —settled in Washington, Texas and Rogers resumed his law practice. Nearby was Independence, the location of Texas’ first institution of higher learning, Baylor University; Rogers lectured there once a week, on a voluntary basis, to law students. Six years later the growing importance of Houston caused him to move his law practice to that city, where he soon became one of the foremost attorneys of the state. Realizing the importance of the political situation in 1860, he be came a candidate for the legislature. He exerted great effort at the meeting in Austin to effect a peaceable settlement between Governor Sam Houston and the secessionists, for a strong personal friendship existed between the two men in spite of their political differences. Rogers had rapidly achieved fame as a defense attorney. He was a cousin of General Sam Houston’s wife and lifetime political supporter and personal friend of the General. Rogers felt that secession was not the answer to the problems of the South, but he also felt a deep loyalty to the Southern people, and accordingly cast his lot with the Confederacy. He was selected to the secession convention as a delegate from Harris County and voted for the secession ordinance. President Jefferson Davis offered Rogers the command of the First Texas Infantry, then a regiment in Virginia, but at his wife’s behest, Rogers refused this invitation and accepted the junior command of the Second Texas Infantry Regiment.
The War Department also named William D. Rogers as lieutenant colonel of the regiment.
In March, 1862 Colonel Moore received orders report General Van Dorn in Arkansas. Before departure the ladies of Houston in a festive ceremony, presented the regiment with a silk battle flag. On March 18, 1862 the regiment departed from Houston by railroad. It proceeded to Beaumont, Texas, then by steamboat up the Neches River to Weiss’s Bluff, followed by a march overland, east from there through the thickets and swamps to Alexandria, Louisiana. From Alexandria, travel continued by steamboat on the Red Rivertoits junction with the Mississippi River and thence up that river to Helena, Arkansas. At Helena, orders were received to report to Corinth, Mississippi. Again by steamboat, the regiment traveled the Mississippi from Helena to Memphis, Tenn., and completed the journey with a march overland to Corinth there on April 1, 1862 The regiment spent but one day at Corinth where it half rations. On April 3rd, the regiment
Joined the army and took up the march toward Pittsburg’s Landing on the Tennessee River north of Corinth, scene of the forthcoming battle of Shiloh. By Saturday morning, April 5th, the regiment’s rations were exhausted and many of the men were without shoes. Rain continued to fall as the soldiers of the Army of the Mississippi slogged into their assigned locations in the battle formation. The men of the Second Texas bedded down in a muddy cornfield without tents or a blanket for cover. From this corn field, the Second Texas was within three to four hundred yards of the Federal camps. The men were ordered to speak in whispers so as not to alert the unsuspecting Federal pickets.
When the battle of Shiloh opened on Sunday, April 6th, Bragg’s Second Corps, to which the Second Texas belonged, was situated on the Confederate left. The Second Division containing the Second Texas had been ordered to serve as a reserve unit for the attack. The spirits of the regiment were boosted as Commanding General Albert Sidney Johnston rode up, accompanied by Lieutenant Colonel Rogers. The regiment had left Rogers in Houston. Texas, seriously ill, when it departed for Corinth. Rogers, having partially regained his health, had rushed to join the regiment, finally overtaking it that morning. The men of the regiment began to cheer on seeing Rogers, but were silenced by the officers for fear alarm be spread to the Federal Camps.
The Rebel assault was unleashed on the unsuspecting Federal camps at daybreak or shortly thereafter. The Second Division was soon sent to fill a gap on the Confederate right flank bordering on Lick Creek. The Second Texas was heavily involved in the fighting all along the front from east to west This included the murderous fighting at the Hornets’ Nest, an area in the center of the battlefield characterized by pro longed and fierce fighting. The Second Texas Regiment played a significant role in forcing the collapse of General Hurlbut’s left flank of the Hornets’ Nest. Colonel Moore’s command captured more than 1,000 Federal troops with accompanying arms and sup plies. The Second Texas, which had been separated from Jackson’s Brigade, halted in an advanced position within the original Federal lines.
On Monday, April7th, the Second Texas, which had camped behind Federal lines during the night, moved south along the Tennessee River to Lick Creek. Colonel Moore received a battlefield promotion to brigadier general and relinquished command of the Second Texas to Lieutenant Colonel Rogers who was promoted to colonel. Moore, who had been promoted to brigade command, directed a brigade consisting of’ the Second Texas and the Nineteenth and Twenty- First Alabama Regiments.
However, battle-weary Texans were no match for General Buell’s fresh troops and were slowly repulsed, as was the entire Confederate battle line. General Beauregard broke off action with the Federals at about 3:00 p.m. and the withdrawal to Corinth began.
At Corinth beginning April 9, 1862 the Second Texas experienced marked depletion of its ranks from disease in addition to wounds sustained at Shiloh. One member stated, “Out of 850 brave healthy men who left Houston, only some 175 or 200 will be able to go into the fight. Many on the sick list will go into the fight.” The Second Texas was assigned to picket duty north of Corinth for a significant portion of the time it was located in that area. On May 8, 1862, Rogers and the Second Texas participated in the engagement at Farmington, eight miles east of Corinth.
The massive union army under General Hafleck, who had arrived to take command, slowly approached Corinth and by May 23rd his army faced the north western defenses of Corinth. Colonel Rogers reported that his horse was killed by a bombardment. General Beauregard in a surprise move evacuated Corinth on the night of May 29th. The 47,000 Confederates withdrew south to Tupelo, Mississippi; here the army was reorganized and reassigned. The Second Texas remained at Tupelo with the corps commanded by General Sterling Price. In the camps at Tupelo, Colonel Rogers resumed regimental drill, as did the other regiments of the army. Rogers worked diligently to re-recruit and resupply the regiment. His star was clearly on the rise. The leadership that he exhibited in battle at Shiloh and in the camps at Tupelo and Corinth had attracted the attention of his fellow officers. Rogers wrote to his wife at that time that the top officers of about twenty regiments from the states of Texas and Arkansas had written a letter to Richmond urging Rogers’s appointment as a major general to command the troops from their two states now on the east side of the Mississippi River.
At Iuka an ambush planned by Colonel Rogers was executed by the Second Texas Sharpshooters and contributed the Confederate offensive. For this action, the Second Texas and Colonel Rogers were cited by both General Price and General Maury in their official reports of the battle of Iuka he Second Texas, following the battle of luka, proceeded to Saltillo, Mississippi, a few miles north of Tupelo, to rendevous with Confederate General Van Dorn’s forces who were planning an attack on Corinth.
At 10:00 a.m. on October 3rd the Confederates formed a4 line arid the battle for Corinth commenced The Con- federates approached Corinth from the west, roughly along the line that parallels and is astride the Memphis & Charleston railroad bed. Maury’s Division formed the right flank of Price’s line of attack north of the railroad, with Moore’s Brigade flanking on the railroad. The Confederates pushed back the Federals some 300 yards to the old Beauregard Unit. Repeated charges led by the Second Texas forced back the Federal line further. The fighting lasted all day but the Confederate assault on the outer defenses of Corinth had been successful on all fronts. Darkness on October 3rd found the besieging Confederate Army drawn in a battle line outside the inner defenses of Corinth. Van Dorn telegraphed Richmond, “We have driven the enemy from every position. We are within3/4 of a mile of Corinth … Our loss, I’m afraid, is heavy. On October 4th, another scorching hot day, Van Dorn a sunrise attack. Upon awakening. Maury’s Division, which was to strike Stanley in the center, noted with dismay the formidable Federal defensive position that they must attack
With the premonition of the danger facing him, Colonel Rogers donned an armored vest and pinned a short note on his clothing on which was written his name, age, rank, command and the address of friends, acting apparently at the rank of brigadier general led the Second Texas, the Sixth Texas, the Ninth Texas, a portion of the Thirty-Fifth Mississippi, and a company of the Forty- Second Alabama against Battery Robinett, their objective
From their advanced positions within 400 or 500 hundred yards of Battery Robinett, Rogers’s Brigade
four columns of men. forming Colonel Rogers’s Brigade, appeared from the woods west of Battery Robinett and moved forward. Attention was now shifted to Rogers’s men and fire was concentrated on them The columns became disorganized the men scrambled through the complex abates. The Second Texas and other brigade units advanced within rifle range in the face of murderous rifle fire. The thinned ranks fell back out of range out of the withering fire. The colors of the Second Texas fell to the ground as the fourth color bearer of the day was shot to death; Colonel Rogers seized them and rode back to rally his troops for another assault. Waving the regimental colors from horseback, Colonel Rogers lead the column on horseback, gauged his pace to match the steps of his men and carried the colors aloft. The columns reached the ditch of the battery and Rogers jumped his horse over the ditch, dismounted, dashed up to the side of the battery where he p1àn the colors squarely upon the fort. Bitter hand-to-ha fighting ensued. Thirteen of the 36 men serving the guns of Battery Robinett were either killed or wounded in this desperate struggle. The Confederates took possession of Battery Robinett. Suddenly they caught the first sight of a massive sea of blue uniforms moving toward them in a counter-attack. Rea1izin the hopelessness of the situation, Rogers and Foster waved handkerchiefs to surrender their troops. Other Confederates about the fort, however, did not see the surrender sign and continued to fire into the mass of Union soldiers. Massive fire was returned on the Confederates at very close range, and Colonel Rogers fell dead with eleven wounds. The remainder of the attacking Confederates had to fall back bringing with them their most prized possession, the regimental flag.
An Iowa soldier at Battery Robinett later wrote, “General Rogers, with a flag in one hand and a revolver in the other, led them straight into one of the awful death-traps of the war.”
The remainder of Maury Division re-entered the woods west of Corinth and within a short time General Van Dorn terminated the Confederate attack on Corinth. Maury’s Division was cut to pieces; of the 4,000 men that formed the unit, over 2,000 were killed, wounded or missing. Of the 324 men of the Second Texas regiment that marched on Corinth, only 124 mustered for dress parade on October 18th. Newspaper correspondents at Corinth provided dramatic eye witness accounts to the daring Confederate assaults on Battery Robinett to both Northern and Southern newspapers with unanimous praise of the bravery of Colonel Rogers and the Second Texas Infantry. General Van Dorn praised the bravery of Colonel Rogers in his official report of the battle. The Confederate Army at approximately 1:00 p.m. was ordered to retreat from Corinth. It was not pursued by the Union Army that day.
The battle of Corinth was short, but bloody. The Federal loss was 355 killed; 1,841 wounded and 324 missing; the Confederacy, 473 killed; 1,977 wounded and 1,763 missing.
The body of Colonel Rogers was buried with military honors by order of General Rosecrans in a single grave near where he fell at Battery Robinett. The other brave Confederate soldiers involved in the attack were buried in a mass grave. An 1884 photograph showed Colonel Rogers’s grave in a field covered with weeds and surrounded by a sagging picket fence. However, an article in the Galveston Daily News; 1892, written by J.R Wiles, entitled, “A Neglected Texan’s Grave” stimulated the interest of Texas and by March 8, 1896 an association known as the Rogers Monument Association was created for the purpose of erecting and maintaining a monument to Colonel W.P. Rogers.

Col. W.P. Rogers monument
The monument was unveiled in Corinth on August 15, 1912 and the white marble shaft con- thins the following inscriptions:

East side facing the grave:
William P. Rogers,
A Native of Alabama
December 17, A.D. 1817
Captain of Mississippi Rifles, 1845-1847.
First Man to Mount Walls of Monterrey.
United States Consul to Mexico, 1849.
Signed Ordinance of Secession of Texas, Feb. 1, 1861.
Colonel 2d Texas Infantry.
Brevet Brigade Commander.

North side:
Fell Leading Moore’s Brigade, Fort Robinette,
October 4, 1862.
‘He was one of the bravest men that ever led a charge. Bury him with military honors,’
(Maj. Gen. W.S. Rosecrans, Commanding Army of the Cumberland, U.S.A.)

South side:
‘The gallantry which attracted the enemy at Corinth was in keeping with the character he acquired in the former service. (Jefferson Davis)
His last words were:
‘Men, save yourselves
or sell your lives dear as possible.’

West side:
‘Erected by the Texas Division, United Daughters
of the Confederacy, the surviving members of the
family, and admiring friends.
August 15, A.D. 1912.
At the same time that the Rogers’s monument was dedicated, a marker to the unknown dead of Colonel Rogers’s charge was also unveiled.

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