Felix Huston Robertson Felix Huston Robertson ( March 9 , 1839 – April 20 , 1928 ) was the only native - born Texan to serve as a general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War . At the time of his death , he was the last surviving general of the Confederacy . He was noted for the controversial behavior of his troops at the Battle of Saltville , where scores of wounded black Union cavalrymen were killed in their beds . Early life . Robertson was born in Washington - on - the - Brazos , Texas , to Mary ( Cummins ) and Jerome B . Robertson , who would also serve as a Confederate general . He attended Baylor University and went to West Point in 1857 , but left before graduation to serve the Confederacy . Civil War . Commissioned initially as a second lieutenant in the artillery , Robertson went to Charleston , South Carolina , and participated in the shelling of Fort Sumter . He then went to Florida , where he served as a staff officer for Brig . Gen . A . H . Gladden at Pensacola . In early 1862 , Robertson became captain of an artillery battery from Alabama and fought at the Battle of Shiloh in May and again at Murfreesboro at the end of the year . He was promoted by Braxton Bragg to the rank of major and given command of the reserve artillery battalion of the Army of Tennessee , which he led at Chickamauga in September 1863 . Robertson was subsequently promoted to lieutenant colonel and reassigned to command the Confederate horse artillery under Joseph Wheeler . He participated in the 1864 Atlanta Campaign . Robertson ' s performance drew the attention of senior commanders , and on July 26 , he was promoted to brigadier general . He became Wheeler ' s chief of staff . He married Sarah Davis while on a furlough . Late in the year , Robertson was assigned a field command , leading first a brigade and later a division of cavalry . On October 3 , 1864 , a group of guerrillas associated with Robertson ' s troops during the campaign slaughtered more than one hundred black Union soldiers who had been wounded in the previous day ' s fighting . One of his subordinate officers , Champ Ferguson , was executed by hanging after the war for his part in what the Northern press deemed the " Saltville Massacre . " Historian William C . Davis , in his book " An Honorable Defeat . The Last Days of the Confederate Government , " reports that Robertson personally " join ( ed ) in the act of villainy " although he escaped prosecution . Robertson was severely wounded in a skirmish along Buckhead Creek near Augusta , Georgia , on November 29 , 1864 . He lived , but never resumed field duty . Postbellum career . After the war , Robertson returned to Texas and settled in Waco . He studied law , passed his bar exam , and established a profitable legal practice . He and his father speculated in real estate and invested in several local railroads . After the death of his wife , Robertson remarried in 1892 . Robertson attempted to enter local politics in 1902 as he ran for mayor of Waco in the Democratic primaries . However , he was defeated by incumbent J . W . Riggins . He became the commander of the local United Confederate Veterans in 1911 . In 1913 , Texas Governor Oscar B . Colquitt appointed him as the Texas Representative for the Battle of Gettysburg Commission , a national group that commemorated the battle ' s fiftieth anniversary in July 1913 . He died in Waco , Texas and was buried in Oakwood Cemetery .