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Re: Attn. Hugh
In Response To: Re: Attn. Hugh ()

I see that Samuel A. Willson has a page in: The Handbook of Texas Online, and is also listed in: Find a Grave Memorial. Willson is likewise mentioned in: Recollections of A. C. (Alfred Cuthbert "Cub") Sims - a Private in Company F of the 1st Texas, which can be found in the Brake Collection at the Military History Institute in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Sims writes that before leaving the vicinity of Devil's Den (at Gettysburg) on the night of July 2, 1863, Captain Willson requested of Colonel Work that he, with help, be allowed to move captured cannon off the field. These were the three Parrotts belonging to Smith's 4th New York Battery; the fourth gun had fell off a precipice where it was stuck among some large rocks and could not be recovered. Sims goes on to relate that Captain Willson (he spells it Wilson) and Private T. D. Rock of Company F sat down just before the regiment met the enemy (Farnsworth's Cavalry) on July 3, and when the Yankees made the regiment, captured them. /// Willson was unlucky to be taken prisoner, as the Union cavalrymen got the worst of it by far on that occasion, Farnsworth himself being killed in their ill-fated charge that had been ordered by Kilpatrick late in the afternoon against the Confederate right flank west of Big Round Top. A good article on the 1st Texas' role in this charge was authored by Paul M. Shevchuk in issue no. 2 of The Gettysburg Magazine, In this article, a citation is made from Confederate Veteran Magazine, vol. 30, p. 185, in which Private Bradfield of Co. E mentions that Captain Wilson (wrongfully identified as from Co. D) was ordered by Major Bass to take a man from each company (12 in all) and go after water for the regiment from Plum Run. The available evidence suggests that it was this isolated water detail, led by Captain Willson, that was captured as the Union cavalrymen were riding around behind the Confederate lines.

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