On April 27, 1861, Dr. Ashbel Smith organized volunteers from Bayland (now Baytown) and Cedar Bayou in Harris County and Barbers Hill in Chambers County as the Bayland Guards. They drilled on Smith’s Evergreen Plantation and helped defend Galveston Bay locally before mustering into Confederate service on August 13, 1861, as Company C of the Galveston Infantry Regiment. In October the regiment was redesignated as the Second Texas Infantry Regiment, and in December it moved to Camp Bee in Houston. Among the Bayland Guards were Samuel Houston, Jr., Charles Elliot Jones, and Samuel Edward Jones, sons of Republic of Texas presidents Sam Houston and Anson Jones. With the rest of the regiment, the company fought at Shiloh, Corinth, and Hatchie Bridge in 1862, and at Shiloh half of Company C was wounded or killed. During the Vicksburg campaign in 1863, the Second Texas distinguished itself defending a crescent-shaped fortification in the center of the Confederate line through Union assaults and 46 days and nights of shelling and bombardment. The regiment and the other defenders were surrendered at Vicksburg on July 4, 1863, then promptly paroled to make their way back to Texas. Reorganized at Houston in the fall of 1863, the decimated regiment served for the rest of the war on the Texas coast from Matagorda to Galveston and helped deter General Banks’ attempt to invade Texas early in 1864. The regiment was surrendered on May 26, 1865, and after the war many Bayland Guards members became leaders and respected figures in their communities.