Two Confederate Officers Remember Gettysburg: Col. Robert M. Powell, 5th Texas Infantry, Hood's Texas Brigade & Capt. George Hillyer, 9th Georgia Infantry

Colonel Robert Michael Powell (1826 –1916) of the 5th Texas Infantry Regiment was born in Alabama but moved to Texas in 1849 to practice law. When the war broke out, he was commissioned a captain in Company D, 5th Texas Infantry and was promoted to colonel and command of the regiment in November 1862. The 5th Texas, part of Jerome Robertson’s Texas Brigade, played a prominent role on July 2, 1863, at Gettysburg, where the 37—year—old Powell led 409 men into the caldron and made repeated eff...