The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 89, July 1985 - April, 1986 Page: 224

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

novators, the southern women writers-the Texan Katherine Anne
Porter, the Mississippian Eudora Welty, the Tennessean Caroline
Gordon-to get their short stories published. All these and more were
sponsored by The Southern Review.
Using both printed and oral sources, Cutrer has told his story well,
with possibly too many anecdotes and not enough on the contents of
the magazine. He relates the account of Smith's being so badly dressed
that Huey Long gave him money to buy a new suit. This reviewer
doubts the story, as he has also heard it about Arthur ("Butcher")
Vidrine and "Red" Heard. It may be true, though, as we were all so
poor in those days that hardly anyone had a new suit.
University of Pennsylvania ARTHUR H. SCOUTEN
The Second Texas Infantry: From Shiloh to Vicksburg. By Joseph E. Chance.
(Austin: Eakin Press, 1984. Pp. xiv+216. Foreword, preface, ac-
knowledgments, photographs, appendix, endnotes, index. $13.95.)
From Corsicana to Appomattox: The Story of the Corsicana Invincibles and the
Navarro Rifles. By John Spencer. (Corsicana, Tex.: The Texas Press,
1984. Pp. viii+ 199. Preface, introduction, photographs, notes, ap-
pendix, glossary, bibliography, index. $12.95.)
Joseph E. Chance has given life to one of the outstanding Texas in-
fantry regiments in the Confederate army. Publication of a book on the
Second Texas Infantry is long overdue. The regiment, raised for the
most part in the Galveston-Houston area, was commanded by such
well-known Texans of the nineteenth century as William P. Rogers,
Ashbel Smith, and George W. L. Fly. Early in 1862 it crossed the Missis-
sippi and participated in the hard-fought battles of Iuka, Corinth,
Chickasaw Bluff (1862); Champion's Hill, Big Black River Bridge,
Vicksburg (1863); and Mansfield and Pleasant Hill (1864). No greater
heroism was shown during the War between the States than the charge
of the Second Texas Infantry at Corinth, when Colonel Rogers was
killed before Battery Robinette. The regiment was reorganized after
Vicksburg and, except for the two battles in Louisiana in the spring of
1864, spent the last two years of the war guarding the upper Texas
coast.
Chance uses his sources well and his text is very readable. His gener-
ous appendix contains, among other things, a complete roster of the
regiment, a valuable tool for the genealogist, and his collection of
photographs greatly enhances the text. A final chapter, "Reminis-

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