James Fiske (Doc) Matthews: A Confederate Officer's Legacy (1840–1881)
By: Thomas W. Cutrer
Revised by: Brett J. Derbes
Published: 1952
Updated: September 7, 2025
James Fiske (Doc) Matthews, Confederate army officer, was born in Winston County, Mississippi, on October 20, 1840, to Rev. Jacob W. and Mary Ann (May) Matthews. By 1850 the family resided in Madison, Mississippi, where Jacob was a Methodist clergyman. It is unknown when the family arrived in Washington County, Texas, where they settled on Caney Creek, near Chapell Hill. Four of the Matthews brothers served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. James and his older brother Joseph Weir Matthews both enlisted in Company K of the Eighth Texas Cavalry, more popularly known as Terry's Texas Rangers, in Houston on September 4, 1861, for the duration of the war. Their brothers John F. and Benjamin E. Matthews followed them in April 1862 by enlisting in Company D of the Twenty-fourth Texas Cavalry. John was captured at the battle of Arkansas Post on January 11, 1863, and forwarded to City Point, Virginia, for exchange in April 1863. Meanwhile, James was elected second lieutenant of Company K in August 1863. On October 7, 1864, he was promoted to captain of the unit. According to fellow ranger Leonidas B. Giles, "by the bullets of the enemy which brought down his superiors." At the battle of Bentonville, North Carolina, on March 21, 1865, Matthews, as the senior regimental officer on the field, commanded the remnant of the Terry Rangers. According to ranger Henry W. Graber, Lt. Gen. William J. Hardee, fearful that Maj. Gen. Joseph A. Mower's Union corps would capture the bridge that was the only Confederate route of retreat, ordered the Eighth Texas Cavalry to hold the federal advance until the bridge could be secured. "Lieutenant," demanded Hardee, "can you hold those people in check until I can bring up the infantry and artillery?" Matthews responded, "General, we are the boys that can try! Come on!" The rangers' charge not only checked but repulsed Mower's attack and saved the Army of Tennessee from being surrounded. This was the last charge delivered by a Confederate unit east of the Mississippi River. After the battle of Bentonville, Hardee informed Matthews that the Army of Tennessee would probably be surrendered soon. Hoping the Confederacy might still be saved, he urged Matthews to withdraw with his regiment and join Gen. Richard Taylor's army at Mobile, Alabama. Matthews relayed Hardee's words to his unit, then asked each company to decide its own course of action, saying that he was too young to assume such a responsibility. Throughout the course of the war he received seven wounds. Miraculously, all four of the Matthews brothers survived the conflict.
After the Civil War, James Fiske Matthews returned to Chappell Hill, where he worked as a farmer and became a prominent dealer of horses and cattle. He was a member of the Methodist Church and supported the Democratic party. He married Martha Walker Browning on July 4, 1867, and the couple had five children. He died on December 7, 1881, and was buried in Atkinson Cemetery, a mile southwest of Chappell Hill, Texas.
Bibliography:
James Knox Polk Blackburn, "Reminiscences of the Terry Rangers," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 22 (July, October 1918). Stephen Chicoine, The Confederates of Chappell Hill, Texas: Prosperity, Civil War and Decline (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2011). Thomas W. Cutrer, ed., "`We Are Stern and Resolved': The Civil War Letters of John Wesley Rabb, Terry's Texas Rangers," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 91 (October 1987). Leonidas B. Giles, Terry's Texas Rangers (Austin: Von Boeckmann-Jones, 1911). H. W. Graber, The Life Record of H. W. Graber, A Terry Texas Ranger, 1861–1865 (1916; facsimile, A Terry Texas Ranger, Austin: State House, 1987). Frank W. Johnson, A History of Texas and Texans, Volume IV (Chicago: American Historical Society, 1916). Terry's Texas Rangers Papers, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin.
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The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry.
Thomas W. Cutrer Revised by Brett J. Derbes, “Matthews, James Fiske,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed March 09, 2026, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/mathews-james-f.
Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
TID:
FMA75
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- 1952
- September 7, 2025
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