Richard Montgomery Gano - Civil War

Civil War

He resigned his seat early in 1861 to enter Confederate service and on June 1 was elected captain of the "Grapevine Volunteers", a company of mounted riflemen he had raised. By early March 1862, he had reorganized his unit into a partial cavalry squadron of two companies, which was mustered into direct Confederate service and was assigned to Col. John Hunt Morgan's 2nd Kentucky Cavalry at Chattanooga, Tennessee. Capt. Gano, commanding Company G, took part in Morgan's first Kentucky raid in July 1862 as well as Morgan's raid on the Louisville & Nashville Railroad in August. During the latter campaign, he was promoted to major in command of a full cavalry squadron (his original two companies plus a third company raised in Tennessee), which he led at the Battle of Gallatin.

In September 1862, Gano's squadron became the nucleus of the new 7th Kentucky Cavalry Regiment and he was promoted to colonel in Gen. Morgan's new cavalry brigade. The regiment took part in all the actions of Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith's invasion of Kentucky in the fall of 1862, culminating in the Battle of Perryville on October 8, the Battle of Lexington on October 17, and the retreat into east Tennessee. The 7th Kentucky Cavalry subsequently took part in Morgan's second Kentucky raid, December 1862 to January 1863, and by February Gano (though still a colonel) was in command of the First Cavalry Brigade of Gen. Morgan's cavalry division. On April 3, the brigade was attacked at Snows Hill, Tennessee by some 8,000 Union infantry and cavalry and was forced to withdraw to McMinnville. Shortly after this, Morgan's forces were essentially destroyed during Morgan's Raid, and the remnants rejoined Gano's depleted brigade. On September 18, 1863, Col. Gano commanded both his own brigade and Morgan's survivors under Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest at the Battle of Chickamauga.

Gano left active service for a period because of illness, then was promoted to brigadier general (though he did not receive his "official" promotion until March 17, 1865) and took the eighty-odd survivors of his original Texas cavalry unit (now called the "Gano Guards") back to Bonham, Texas. There he assumed command, October 10, 1863, of all Texas cavalry operating in the Trans-Mississippi Department. On December 27, Gano's brigade captured and occupied Waldron, Arkansas, and in April 1864 he suffered an arm wound at a skirmish at Moscow, Arkansas. Two months later, he commanded the attack on Fort Smith, Arkansas, and on July 27, 1864 he led an attack on the 6th Kansas Cavalry at Massard Prairie, Arkansas.

A few weeks later, Gano's brigade, with accompanying artillery, moved to Indian Territory and on September 19 he commanded both the Fifth Texas Cavalry Brigade (made up of the 29th, 30th, and 31st Texas Cavalry and Howell's Artillery Battery) and Brig. Gen. Stand Watie's First Indian Brigade (consisting of Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole) at the second Battle of Cabin Creek. (His commission reportedly predated Stand Watie's by one month, putting him in command by seniority—but it also seems unlikely that his Texas troopers would have allowed themselves to be commanded by a Cherokee.) In this action, the general was wounded again but Confederate forces totalling about 2,000 captured a federal supply train of some three hundred wagons and 750 mules, valued at more than two million dollars. In a congratulatory telegram, Gen. Kirby Smith called this "one of the most brilliant raids of the entire war".

In January 1865, as part of a last reorganization of troops west of the Mississippi by Kirby Smith, the brigade was ordered to Nacogdoches, but on May 26, the Army of the Trans-Mississippi surrendered to federal forces. Gano had been recommended for promotion to major general but the war ended before this could be acted upon.