Moments in Texas History ~ 11.30.2011

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Texas general dies with his men in disastrous battle

November 30, 1864

On this day in 1864, Confederate general Hiram B. Granbury, commander of Granbury's Texas Brigade, was killed in the battle of Franklin, Tennessee. Granbury, a native of Mississippi, moved to Texas in the 1850s. He was chief justice of McLennan County from 1856 to 1858. At the outbreak of the Civil War he recruited the Waco Guards, which became a unit in the Seventh Texas Infantry. By 1864 he had commanded in turn a regiment and a brigade. After the fall of Atlanta, Granbury led his brigade in Hood's invasion of Tennessee. He was one of at least 1,750 Confederate soldiers killed in the frontal assault at Franklin, the highest total of rebel dead for any single-day battle of the war. A Texas captain wrote of the battle, "It can't be called anything else but cold blooded murder."

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Time magazine celebrates ecumenical "love in Corpus Christi"

November 30, 1935

In its issue dated on this day in 1936, Time magazine featured an account of an ecumenical service held in Corpus Christi. Rabbi Sidney Wolf had joined Rev. William Caper Munds of the Church of the Good Shepherd, Episcopal, to start a joint Thanksgiving service. At the time, such ecumenical events were newsworthy. Time labeled its photo of the two clergymen "Love in Corpus Christi." Wolf, musician and rabbi, had assumed the pulpit of the first Jewish congregation in Corpus Christi, Temple Beth El, in 1932. He held the post for forty years. He served in many other voluntary charitable offices and was a recognized authority on synagogue music. He helped organize the Corpus Christi Symphony Orchestra and in 1945 served as the first chairman of its board. He also chaired the city chapter of the American Guild of Organists. He spent countless hours giving musical performances in nursing homes. After his retirement in 1972 he taught music appreciation at Del Mar Junior College and the University of Corpus Christi. In 1940 Wolf was elected president of the Texas Kallah of Rabbis, and in 1959 he received an honorary doctorate from Hebrew Union. He was a member of the National Conference of Christians and Jews and was presented its Brotherhood and Humanitarian Award in 1974. The mayor of Corpus Christi, Luther Jones, proclaimed November 10, 1982, "Rabbi Sidney Wolf Day." Wolf died on February 18, 1983.

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Sam Houston welcomes Mobile Grays to Texas

November 30, 1835

On this day in 1835, Gen. Sam Houston welcomed David N. Burke's Mobile Grays to San Antonio, commending "the manly and liberal feelings which have been manifested by you in the tender of your services in behalf of Texas." The Grays, a company of about thirty volunteers, were organized in Mobile by James Butler Bonham, Albert C. Horton, and S. P. St. John and placed under Burke's command. In December, upon the army's reorganization for the Matamoros expedition of 1835-36, the group, enlarged by transfers from the New Orleans Greys, proceeded to Goliad and became part of the Second Battalion of the Provisional Regiment of Volunteers under James W. Fannin Jr. One member was killed in action on March 19. Three escaped, four were spared, and thirty were killed in the Goliad Massacre on March 27.

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Memoirist John H. Jenkins killed in gunfight

November 30, 1890

On this day in 1890, soldier and memoirist John Holland Jenkins was killed in a gunfight in Bastrop in an attempt to save his son, the sheriff, from an ambush. Jenkins, born in Alabama in 1822, was a man of little education but learned to write in a vigorous and cultivated style. He and his family came to Texas in 1828 or 1829 and settled near the site of present Bastrop in 1830. In 1833 Jenkins's father was murdered and young Jenkins became the ward of Edward Burleson. At age thirteen Jenkins joined Burleson's First Regiment, Texas Volunteers, and is thought to have been the youngest Texan to serve in the San Jacinto campaign. After the Texas revolution, Jenkins joined the Texas Rangers and fought at the battle of Plum Creek. During the Civil War he served as a private in Parsons's Brigade and later served as a captain in the Frontier Battalion. In 1884, with the aid of his daughter-in-law, Jenkins completed his memoirs for the Bastrop Advertiser. A typescript was preserved in the Barker Texas History Center at the University of Texas at Austin. It was edited by his great-great grandson, John H. Jenkins III, and published in 1958 by the University of Texas Press under the title Recollections of Early Texas.

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posted - 11.30.2011  -  The Texas State Historical Association