Sculpted by Gary Casteel
 
1863 Signed and Numbered Limited Edition Monument Replicas
 
Texas provided a small contingent of 1,250 to the Army of Northern Virginia, but these men were justifiably considered the shock troops of the Confederacy.  Their 420 casualties at Gettysburg (the monument’s figure of 597 men for the brigade includes casualties from the 3rd Arkansas) totaled over one third of their number.  Not included in this tally was another prominent Texan, their division commander, John Bell Hood, who was badly wounded at the beginning of the attack on July 2, 1863, losing the use of his arm.
 
Texas citizens voted to secede from the Union on February 23, 1861, and on March 5, the secession convention voted to join the Confederacy.  Up to 60,000 Texans served in the rebel armies.  The most famous Lone Star unit at Gettysburg was Hood’s Texas Brigade, under the command of Maj. Gen. Jerome B. Robertson (Like Hood, a native of Kentucky).  The states monument, dedicated in 1964, is identical to those placed on ten other Civil War battlefields.  The Texas Brigade consisted of three Texas regiments, the 1st Texas Infantry, the 4th Texas Infantry, 5th Texas Infantry, as well as one Arkansas regiment, the 3rd Arkansas Infantry.
 
The monument consists of Texas Red Granite simply adorned with the lone star of Texas.  It is one of eleven identical monuments placed at battlefields around the country, showing that the sacrifice of Texas’ soldiers was equally honored on each battlefield.
 
The monument is located on South Confederate Avenue just past Emmitsburg Road and was dedicated in September of 1964.