CUMBY, ROBERT H. (1825-?). Robert H. Cumby, Texas legislator and Confederate Army officer, was born on August 24, 1825, in Charlotte County, Virginia. In 1836 he moved with his family to Lafayette County, Mississippi. There he married and resided until 1849, when he moved to Rusk County, Texas. He became a prominent planter and one of the wealthiest men in the county; in 1860 he owned $22,600 in land and $38,000 in personal property, including thirty slaves. He was elected to the Eighth Texas Legislature in 1859 and served as a representative until 1861. At the outbreak of the Civil War he raised Company B of Col. Elkanah Greer's Third Texas Cavalry, also known as the South Kansas-Texas Regiment. The regiment was organized at Dallas on July 13, 1861, and after serving under Gen. Benjamin McCulloch in Arkansas and Missouri was transferred east of the Mississippi River and became part of Ross's Texas Brigadeqv. When the regiment's one-year enlistment period expired on May 8, 1862, new elections for officers were held, and Cumby was elected colonel. Other outstanding officers in this regiment included M. D. Ector, Walter P. Lane, Hinche P. Mabry, and George W. Chilton.qqv Because he was in poor health, however, Cumby could not assume command and deferred to Lane. He resigned from command of the regiment and in 1864 was appointed brigadier general, Fourth Division, Texas State Troops. After the war he moved to Dallas, where he served as a constable. Cumby, Texas, was named for him.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Samuel Barron, The Lone Star Defenders: A Chronicle of the Third Texas Cavalry, Ross' Brigade (New York: Neale, 1908; rpt., Waco: Morrison, 1964). Douglas Hale, "The Third Texas Cavalry: A Socioeconomic Profile of a Confederate Regiment," Military History of the Southwest 19 (Spring 1989). Marcus J. Wright, comp., and Harold B. Simpson, ed., Texas in the War, 1861-1865 (Hillsboro, Texas: Hill Junior College Press, 1965).
