It was the first significant action for the 8th Texas Cavalry, and Colonel Benjamin F. Terry knew his troops were seriously outnumbered. A large force of Federal infantry was deployed "behind fences, haystacks and trees" beside the Green River near Woodsonville, Kentucky. It was December 17,1861, in the midst of a bitter winter, and "Terry's Texas Rangers" had been thinned by illness and detached duty and were down to 181 troops. Terry's orders were to drive the Yankees into the open so they could be attacked by the Confederate infantry. It was a challenging order:  take a small, untested body of cavalry and attack a much larger enemy force, barricaded in a fixed position and equipped with superior firepower.
Without hesitating, Terry divided his troops into two strike forces, took his position at the head of the column on the left, and ordered a charge. The hard-riding Texans spurred their mounts, screamed the Rebel yell and raced toward the enemy. The bold charge unnerved the opposing Federal force, and the assault lasted only four minutes. Like well-trained shock troops, Terry's Texas Rangers crashed through the Federal line, inflicted serious casualties, and dispersed the enemy as ordered.

"The Texas Rangers are quick as lightning," reported a Federal survivor of the engagement. "They ride like Arabs, shoot like Archers at a mark, and fight like devils." Federal losses at Woodsonville, or Rowlett's Station as it was called by Union forces, numbered more than one hundred. The 8th Texas Cavalry recorded 22 casualties, including Colonel Benjamin Terry, who was mortally wounded as he "charged headlong at the foe."
Confederate General William J. Hardee praised the 8th Texas Cavalry for its conduct at Woodsonville. "Colonel Terry was killed in the moment of victory," Hardee observed. "His regiment deplores the loss of a brave commander, the army one of its ablest officers."

Plans for the 8th Texas Cavalry originated during a stagecoach ride between Austin and Brenham, Texas in March of 1861. Aboard the stage, three delegates to the state secession convention — Benjamin F. Terry, Thomas S. Lubbock, and John A. Wharton — discussed the need for troops to defend Texas when the state seceded. Terry, an affluent sugar planter, and Lubbock, a Houston commission merchant, soon travelled to Montgomery to join the Confederate army. Meanwhile, Wharton, a lawyer and planter, raised a volunteer company of cavalry.
Terry and Lubbock served as aides at the Battle of First Manassas, then were dispatched back home to Texas to recruit a regiment of cavalry. Within 30 days, they organized 10 companies of skilled horsemen, including Wharton's company of volunteers who had entered Confederate service in Houston on September 9,1861 as the 8th Texas Cavalry. The regiment soon joined General Albert Sidney Johnston's army in Kentucky, where a regimental election made Terry colonel and Lubbock lieutenant colonel. When Terry was mortally wounded in the regiment's first major action at Woodsonville, Kentucky, Lubbock replaced him and Captain Wharton was made lieutenant colonel. Lubbock soon died of typhoid fever, and Wharton took command of the regiment. He remained regimental commander until promoted to brigadier general, and was replaced by Colonel Gustave Cook. The 8th Texas, which included a number of former Texas Rangers, adopted the name "Terry's Texas Rangers."

During the remaining three years of the War Between the States, the 8th Texas Cavalry earned a reputation as one of the hardest-riding, hardest-fighting cavalry regiments in Confederate service. The regiment fought under two of the most famous Southern cavalry commanders in the war's Western Theater — Generals Nathan Bedford Forrest and Joseph Wheeler — and ended the war with 224 men from its original 1,600. The regiment was engaged at Shiloh, Murfreesboro, Perryville, Knoxville, Chickamauga and Atlanta. They also fought against Sherman's troops on the March to the Sea and in the Carolinas Campaign, and made the last major cavalry charge of the war at Bentonville.
The regiment finally laid down its arms with General Joseph E. Johnston's Confederate army at Greensboro, North Carolina on April 28,1865. Proclaimed General Joseph Wheeler in a farewell address to the Texans: "During four years' struggle for liberty you have exhibited courage, fortitude, and devotion....You are heroes, veterans, patriots."
Perhaps the most fitting tribute to the 8th Texas Cavalry, however, came from an enemy — Federal General George Stoneman. Asked what enemy force had thrashed his troops that day, the famous Federal cavalry commander reportedly replied: "I don't know; either devils or Texas Rangers, from the way they rode and fought."