Confederate wizards of the saddle /

by Bennett H. Young

POSTSCRIPT

Roy Stuart Cluke was born in Clark County, Kentucky, in 1824. His mother died when he was only three weeks of age and he was reared by the family of his grandfather, James Stuart. This grandfather had served in the Revolutionary War under Washington. Allotted a large tract of land for his revolutionary services, he settled in Clark County and had for his homestead a thousand acre farm near the junction of Clark, Bourbon and Montgomery Counties, by the side of a great spring, known as “Stuart Spring.” In the early days of Kentucky, water was even more valuable than rich land.

James Stuart had four sons, and all were soldiers from Kentucky in the War of 1812.

After such education as the local schools of his period could give, he was sent to a military school at Bardstown, Kentucky. Shortly after attaining his majority he volunteered for service in the Mexican war, and went with a company of Kentucky cavalry commanded by John Stuart Williams, his cousin, afterwards brigadier general in the Confederate army and United States Senator from Kentucky. The company made a most enviable record in Mexico. Briefly before the commencement of the Civil War, he organized and trained a company of cavalry which was attached to the State Guard. This company was noted for its thorough drill, its magnificent mounts, its splendid equipment and its dashing riders. When General Bragg invaded the State in 1862 he organized a regiment of cavalry composed largely of men from the Bluegrass counties. More than eight hundred men enlisted in this regiment, which was called the 8th Kentucky. When only a portion of his regiment had been enlisted, he was sent to harass General George W. Morgan, the Federal officer who was making his masterly retreat from Cumberland Gap, through the mountains of Kentucky. The 8th Kentucky subsequently became a part of General John H. Morgan’s command. His regiment was actively engaged in service from August, 1862, until his capture, July 26th, 1863. He was at Hartsville on December 6th, 1862, on the Christmas raid, and led an independent expedition into Kentucky in February and March, 1863. He was captured on the 26th of July, 1863, with General Morgan, at Salineville, Columbiana County, Ohio, and was conveyed to the Ohio penitentiary with the other officers of the command, and kept there for some months and subsequently removed to Johnson’s Island, Sandusky, Ohio. He loved the excitement and din of war. He chafed under his confinement in the penitentiary and at Johnson’s Island. It was reported that he had been poisoned in prison. This, however, was denied and later was discredited. He died under distressing circumstances in December, 1863. There was an epidemic of diphtheria among the Confederate officers at Johnson’s Island about the time of Colonel Cluke’s death. A man of marvelously prepossessing physique, he enjoyed the friendship of the officers of the prison. He had been allowed to visit the office and read the newspapers. While thus employed one morning, with his strong, silvery voice, with military calmness, he said, “Gentlemen, I will be dead in a few minutes. I have only one request to make of you as soldiers and gentlemen. Leave my arms folded across my bosom like a warrior and tell them to place my Mexican War sabre by my side. Telegraph my cousin and foster brother, Samuel G. Stuart, of Winchester, Kentucky; request him to come for my body and bury me next to my mother in the old Stuart graveyard at home.” He folded his arms, the paper fell from his now nerveless grasp, his head drooped on his breast. Even his enemies were impressed at his calmness and courage in the presence of the great enemy. They rushed to his side. The prison physician felt his pulse and lifting his head from his chest, where he was listening for the heart beats, he turned his face to those aside and said, “He is dead.” The drama was ended and in pathetic gloom the curtain fell on the brilliant and gallant soldier.

Six feet, four inches tall, splendidly proportioned, with a magnificent suit of brown hair and whiskers, graceful as any man who ever rode to war, as brave as the bravest, calm, cool, fierce in danger, his presence was always an inspiration to his followers. He was idolized by his men. He had won the confidence and admiration of General Morgan and all who were associated with him in the division. Had he escaped on the Ohio raid, he would have been made a brigadier general. There was universal sorrow that so splendid a life should go out with such darkened surroundings. His remains were brought to his native State and deposited first where he asked, in the old Stuart graveyard, and then later removed to the Lexington cemetery. In this wondrously beautiful “City of the Dead” he rests close to his great leader, Morgan, within a stone’s throw of the grave of General John C. Breckinridge, just across the way a little bit from General Roger W. Hanson and Colonel W. C. P. Breckinridge, and under the shadow of Kentucky’s memorial to Henry Clay.

Those who loved and followed him have built a simple granite monument on which is inscribed:

“Roy Stuart Cluke. 1824-1863.
Colonel of the 8th Kentucky Cavalry, C.S.A.
Erected by his Comrades.”

Chapter IX
SHELBY’S MISSOURI RAID, SEPTEMBER, 1863

Certain parts of Missouri were settled, almost entirely, by Kentuckians. In the earlier days there had been a tremendous emigration from Kentucky to Indiana and Illinois, and when these States had received a large quota of inhabitants from Kentucky, the overflow from that State then turned to Missouri. Its counties and towns were designated by Kentucky names which were brought over by these new people from their home State. In and around 1850 this tide of emigration flowed with a deep and wide current. Among those who left their homes to find an abiding place in the new State, marvelous accounts of the fertility and splendor of which were constantly being carried back to Kentucky, was Joseph O. Shelby. He was born at Lexington in 1831, and when only nineteen years of age joined in the great march westward and found a home on the Missouri River at Berlin, one hundred and fifty miles west of St. Louis. These Missouri-Kentuckians carried with them one of the important manufacturies of the State,—hemp, which for many years was chiefly a Kentucky product. In the rich, loamy lands of Missouri, this staple grew with great luxuriousness, and the introduction of hemp seed from China both improved the quality and increased the production per acre. Not only did the fertile land and the salubrious climate turn these people westward, but a love of change also aroused this spirit of emigration.

Young Shelby was fairly well educated. He was a born leader, and no braver heart ever beat in human bosom. Warrior blood coursed through his veins. His grandfather was a brother of Isaac Shelby. This guaranteed patriotism and valor. He had great dash, a spirit of unlimited enterprise, willing and ready to work, with a vigorous body and a brave soul, he became a Missourian and was an ideal immigrant. He had come from the very center of hemp manufacture in Kentucky. This product was made into bagging and bound with hemp ropes. The cotton country of the South was largely dependent upon Kentucky and Missouri for these two things so essential in marketing cotton. It was a most profitable and remunerative manufacture and was largely carried on by the use of negro labor. Modern machinery had not then been invented for the use of weaving the bagging or of twisting the ropes. To produce these products so important in cotton growing, it was necessary to rely upon the crudest implements.

Sixty miles east of Kansas City, Shelby selected a location at Waverly, Lafayette County, and there began his operations as a bagging and rope manufacturer. It was easy to ship the product down the Mississippi and from thence to scatter it throughout the cotton districts by the waterways over Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Alabama. Shelby was successful from the very inception of his new enterprise. He was hardly well settled in his new home before the difficulties in Kansas began. Strongly believing in slavery, his views as well as his interests and his proximity to the Kansas line intensified his opinions. Loving adventure, brave in war, he returned to Kentucky to recruit there for the Kansas imbroglio. In these days it was not difficult to find in Shelby’s native State men who loved adventure, who were always ready for war, and were overjoyed at the chance to get into a fight. With Clark, Atchison and Greene, Shelby did his full share in the Kansas fighting. It gave him experience that was valuable to him a few years later in the great war. He won reputation with his Kentucky fighters, and when the truce was patched up he went back to the peaceful surroundings of his rope walk in Waverly. This place was noted for its uncompromising Southern sentiments. The anti-slavery settlers who went by it, ascending the Missouri River, always steered away from it. They knew there was neither comfort to be obtained nor security to be assured when they passed this point. They could not buy anything they wanted there, and they were likely to find trouble.

When the troubles of 1860 began to develop, no one was more enthusiastic for the South or more willing to fight for its rights than Joseph O. Shelby. There was no section, even in Confederate States, more loyal to the South than the immediate territory about Waverly. With sentiments fixed and embittered by the Kansas War, the young men of that portion of Missouri were not only brave and ambitious, but they were anxious to go to war. With his prejudices quickened and enlarged by his nearness to Kansas, which was even then a bitter State, in so far as slavery was concerned, Shelby organized and equipped a company of cavalry at Waverly. It was easy to fill up its ranks with enthusiastic, dashing young fellows who were only too happy in taking the chances of battle, and they were charmed to find a leader of Shelby’s experience, of his enthusiasm, and of his intrepidity.

Independence, Missouri, the county seat of Jackson County, was only twelve miles from Kansas City. A vast majority of its people were intensely southern, and when Independence was threatened with the presence of Federal dragoons, Shelby and his company lost no time in marching forty miles from Lafayette County to see that their friends and sympathizers at Independence had a square deal from the Union soldiers. It soon was spread abroad that if the dragoons did come there was trouble ahead and they stayed away. Shelby, now in for the war, rode to join Governor Jackson and General Price in defense of Missouri.

GENERAL J. O. SHELBY

In these days it did not take long for fighting men in Missouri to find people who were willing to fight them. The southern part of the State was much divided in political sentiment, and the bitterness of a civil war found full development in that territory. At the Battle of Carthage, July 5th, 1861, Shelby and his men did splendid service, and their excellent discipline, their superb courage, did a great deal, not only to create, but to intensify the spirit and steady the arms of the entire Missouri contingent. Beginning as a captain, rising to brigadier-general in three years, Shelby had an activity and experience that few enjoy. He fought in the Army of the Tennessee, and he fought in the Trans-Mississippi Department, and he was never more delighted than when fighting.

Wilson’s Creek, one of the sanguinary battles of the war, was fought on the tenth day of August, 1861, and there Shelby again demonstrated that the only thing necessary to make a reputation and fame as a great cavalryman was the opportunity.

General John H. Morgan, in Kentucky, and Shelby were close friends. They began their careers in much the same way. Morgan had his company of Kentucky riflemen: Shelby his company of Missouri cavalrymen. Morgan died in the struggle: Shelby lived thirty-six years after the close and died in 1897. These two soldiers had grown up in Lexington, and while Morgan was five years Shelby’s senior, they were intimates. Shelby’s career did not close until May, 1865. At the end, unwilling to accept the results of the war, he marched into Mexico with five hundred of his followers and undertook to found an American colony. This project soon failed. The wounds of the war began to heal, and Shelby and his colonists were glad to come back and live under the flag they had so bravely and tenaciously fought. No man in the Confederate army marched more miles, and, with the possible exception of General Joe Wheeler, fought more battles. His activities were ceaseless as the seasons, and his capacity for riding and fighting had no limit. The Trans-Mississippi Department had more difficulties to face than any other part of the Confederacy. They were styled “The Orphans.” They were the step-children in supplies of provisions and munitions of war, and, but for the trade in cotton which was arranged through Mexico, its conditions would have been difficult and well-nigh hopeless. Far removed from Richmond, the seat of the government, it was the scene of jealousies and disputes as to the rank of officers. Covering a territory greater than the remainder of the Confederate States, separated by the Mississippi River from the armies of the East, assailable by the ocean on the south, pierced by many navigable streams, with few manufactories, and with contentions caused by conflicting claims, it was the theatre of much mismanagement; but, through all, its soldiers were brave, loyal and patriotic, and lose nothing in comparison with the best the Confederacy produced. Considering the means at hand, the men in Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana and Indian Territory did much to win the garlands with which fame crowned the brows of those who immortalized the gray.

In 1862 and the beginning of 1863, when the call became more urgent from the East, Shelby was among the Missourians and other soldiers from the Trans-Mississippi who crossed the Mississippi River. Leaving their own territory unprotected, these thousands of Arkansas, Missouri and Texas men cheerfully and bravely took their lives in their hands and went over to help their brethren in Mississippi and Tennessee who stood with hands uplifted, crying, “Come over and help us.” Shelby, with his company, gladly crossed the stream. They left their horses behind them and went to aid Beauregard and Bragg, Hardee, Van Dorn and Polk, who, with their armies, were so sorely pressed by the descending avalanche, which, coming down through Kentucky and Tennessee and along the Mississippi and up the Tennessee River, was surely and quietly destroying the life of the Confederacy. The pressure, in the absence of these men who had been transferred into Mississippi and Tennessee, became so tense in Missouri, Arkansas, Texas and Northern Louisiana, that additional measures were taken to enlist soldiers who would prevent the occupation of the western bank of the Mississippi, and among the men commissioned to raise regiments, Shelby was the first named. It was not much to do for a man to tell him that he might raise a regiment when he was a thousand miles away from anybody he could hope to enlist. He had a hundred trained, disciplined and gallant men, and with these, hope made the future attractive. Difficulties in those days did not discourage Shelby, and so, taking his one hundred men—whose terms of enlistment had expired, they found their way by railway and on foot to the Mississippi River, at a point opposite Helena, Arkansas. At this time, that part of the Mississippi River was under control of the Federals, except Vicksburg and Port Hudson. It required an unusual man to meet the conditions that now faced Shelby. He was a wonderful man, and by January, 1863, he had entered the State of Missouri, then within the grip of Federal forces, and almost entirely under Federal control with garrisons in every center over the State. With fifty thousand Federal soldiers controlling that Commonwealth, he passed through all these; he safely evaded the enemies in the southern part of the State, carrying his one hundred men for two hundred and seventy-five miles through territory thoroughly occupied by his enemies, In a very brief while, he was not only able to get together a regiment, but a brigade. He was unwilling to take any more chances on twelve months’ enlistments, and he swore his recruits in for the war. The men who had been with him gave him the best possible credentials among the young men along the Missouri River. Threatened Federal conscription and persecution by their foes had made them desperate, and they were only too glad to find a leader who had come from Corinth, Mississippi, with fame in battle, to organize and lead them. It was splendid material, and Shelby’s success was not only surprising to him but to all the commanders further south in Arkansas. Such an experience was an unusual one in the life of any man, and only one of great resources and iron will could have succeeded when going into the enemy’s country garrisoned on every hand and made liable to arrest and even death, and secure three regiments of a thousand men each and march them three hundred miles into friendly territory. Having no arms, except such as they could find at home, consisting of shotguns and revolvers, they furnished their own mounts and gladly went where Shelby asked them to go.

MAP OF SHELBY’S MISSOURI RAID

Only a man who had the essential qualities of a cavalry leader could have won in the face of such difficulties. Shelby improved every opportunity that came his way. There were constant jealousies which opposed his promotion. After he had organized and disciplined his brigade, it was nearly twelve months before his commission as brigadier-general came. This he was to win by his raid into Missouri in September, 1863, but he got it later. Waverly, the most northerly point which Shelby was to reach on this raid, was, as the crow flies, two hundred and seventy-five miles from the Arkansas line. From Arkadelphia, where Shelby started, it was two hundred and fifty miles to the Arkansas line. He had been long teasing his superiors to let him make a raid. There were many inducements for him to take the chances of such an expedition. He felt sure in the first place he could carry his men in and safely bring them out. He felt extremely confident that he could enlist a large number of recruits, and he was not devoid of ambition, so he longed to demonstrate his power and his capacity as a leader. He had been a colonel for nearly two years. He had self-confidence, he had marvelous resources, and he always won the admiration of his associates. General Schofield was in command of the department of Missouri. The State covered an area of sixty thousand square miles. To defend this, he had fifty thousand soldiers, and Missouri herself had enlisted many of these, which, while in the employ of the State, were subject to Federal jurisdiction.

On the 10th of September, 1863, Little Rock had been evacuated and a few days later taken possession of by the Federals. This was a great blow to the men of the Confederacy. Fort Smith also had fallen, and these two towns on the Arkansas River gave control to the Federals of one-half of the State. Through the White and Arkansas Rivers it opened up means for transporting men and supplies four hundred miles south of St. Louis. To Arkansas the loss of the Arkansas River was what the loss of the Mississippi River was to the Confederacy. It was yet, however, a great task for the Federals to move supplies from the White River or the Mississippi River when the stages of the Arkansas River prevented the passage of boats along its waters. The loss of Little Rock and Fort Smith and the shutting off of the Confederate troops from easy access to Missouri had done much to depress the spirit of the men who, west of the Mississippi, were struggling for Southern independence. For months Shelby had entertained the idea that if he were but turned loose with one thousand men he could ride to the banks of the Missouri River, do much damage to the property of the Federals, and bring out a large number of recruits. In Missouri the conditions had rendered it unsafe for men who sympathized with the South to express their sentiments, and anxious again to turn his face towards his adopted home and meet his friends and family, and longing for the glory which he felt would come to the successful prosecution of such an expedition, he pleaded with Generals Holmes and Price and Governor Reynolds and the other officials in the Trans-Mississippi to give him this permission. The Confederate authorities looked at the thing more calmly than the young military enthusiast. He assured them that recruits would be abundant and that he could fill up his ranks, dismay his enemies, and inflict severe loss in every way upon his foes. They felt that he was taking a tremendous risk to make such an expedition. Some suggested that he was hot-headed, that he lacked the experience as well as the poise for so grave an undertaking. He had been a colonel for twenty-two months. None could deny that he was courageous, that he had faith in himself, that he was possessed of unlimited enthusiasm. These were a splendid equipment for the work he essayed to do. Shelby’s persistence at last availed, and on September 10th, 1863, consent was given for him to make the attempt to carry out his plans. He was allowed eight hundred men, twelve ammunition wagons, and two pieces of artillery. Only six hundred of his men started with him from Arkadelphia, two hundred recruits he was to pick up later further north. Arkadelphia, in Clark County, Arkansas, was one hundred and fifteen miles south of Ozark, at which point Shelby had determined to cross the Arkansas River. From Fort Smith, as well as from Little Rock, scouting parties had gone sixty miles south of Ozark, so that in fifty miles from where Shelby started it was certain he would meet opposition, and that the Federals would attempt to thwart his plans. Once permission was given, there was nothing short of death could stop Shelby’s march. He had pleaded to go, and no dangers, no opposition, could deter him from his purpose. It was true that gloom and doubt had settled in the hearts and minds of many of the leaders who at that time were gathered in and about Arkadelphia, but this spirit, either of hesitation or fear, never touched the soul of Shelby. The people who permitted Shelby to go had forebodings of the outcome, and permission was only granted when it became apparent that nothing would satisfy Shelby but an opportunity to work out his plans. The limited number of soldiers allowed him showed that the Confederate leaders were not willing to risk very much on his undertaking. Marmaduke, always ready to take risks, assented, but he gravely doubted the result. The men who were to go with Shelby were as enthusiastic as he. It was “Home-going,” it was an opportunity to try out chances with the militia over in Missouri, whom Shelby and his men hated with greatest bitterness. The autumn sun was shining brightly when Shelby aligned his small force, placed himself at their head, and waved adieu to Governor Reynolds. The other troops, watching the departure of these gallant and dashing raiders, experienced deepest sorrow when they realized that they were to be left behind. There was no man among the thousands who witnessed the going of these brave boys who would not have willingly taken chances with them. There were no fears of what the future would bring forth. One man in every six of those who rode away would not come back, when at the end of thirty-six days Shelby would return.

Two hundred men taken each from four regiments lacked in some respects homogeneity, but all shouted and waved their hats and guns as the command to march passed down the line. From that moment they became brothers with a common purpose and common courage. The fact of going had by some subtle telepathy, which always marked cavalrymen, gone out among the entire brigade, and from that moment there was universal eagerness to ride with Shelby, and when the assignments were made and the columns formed there were two thousand disappointed men who felt most keenly the dealings of fate which deprived them of a place in the moving column. If the selection had been left to Shelby he would most likely have taken his entire regiment. These had become with him so dependable, and between themselves and Shelby there had grown up not only affection but completest trust. They believed in him and he believed in them, and they felt that no emergency could arise and that he would make no call upon them that was not demanded by duty. As these six hundred brave men mounted into their saddles and the column started, cheer after cheer greeted each company as it passed by. Governor Reynolds and General Price forgot the formality of military etiquette, and with those who went and those who stayed they joined in vociferous cheers. Benedictions came from every heart as out into the unknown dangers and experiences of the expedition these men rode, souls all aglow with patriotism, joy and soldierly valor. When Shelby held the hand of Governor Reynolds, the expatriated governor prayed him to be cautious, begged him to save as far as possible the lives of the young heroes under him and to be watchful even unto death. As this kindly admonition ended the governor pulled the leader close to him and whispered into his ear, “Joe, if you get through safely, this will bring you a brigadier-general’s commission.”

An ugly wound received eighty days before at the assault upon Helena, July 4th, still gave Shelby intense suffering. It was unhealed and suppurating. A minie ball had struck his arm and passed longitudinally through the part from the elbow down. It was still bandaged and supported with a sling. With his free hand he gathered up the reins of his bridle and ignoring pain and danger, he looked more the hero, as thus maimed and yet courageous he started on so long a ride and so perilous a campaign. With his great physical handicap, the admiration was all the more intense, for the spirit and the grit of the man who was undertaking one of the most dangerous and difficult expeditions of the war. Shelby’s body was subordinated to the beckonings of glory and the splendor of the opportunity which had now come in obedience to his pleadings to serve his State, his cause, his country. Other men, less brave or determined, would have hesitated. Some men, possibly equally chivalrous, would have taken a furlough rather than have sought new dangers and more difficult service.

None of these boys marching away cared to peer into the future. Along the roads and the paths of the ride and in the midst of battles they were to fight, one in six was to find a soldier’s grave, or, struck down by wounds or disease, might meet death under the most distressing circumstances at the hands of the bushwhackers and home guards who then filled the garrisons of Missouri towns. The joy of home-going eliminated all thought of misery of the future. These men were to ride two hundred and twenty-five miles to the Arkansas State line and two hundred and fifty miles from the Arkansas State line through Missouri to Waverly, in all four hundred and seventy-five miles. The return made nine hundred and fifty miles, even if they marched by an air line.

A little way out on his journey Shelby met Colonel David Hunter with a hundred and fifty men, recruits who were coming out from Missouri to join the Confederates in Arkansas. Hunter and Shelby were kindred spirits. The persecution of some of Hunter’s family had rendered him an intense fighter. He was considered one of the rising infantry officers, but cavalry work suited him better, and so he gave up his rank of colonel with a regiment of infantry in order to take the chances of recruiting a cavalry command. Hunter was bringing out with him several hundred women and children who had been driven from their Missouri homes. Turning these over to a portion of his command, he chose the more promising of his followers and fell into line with Shelby. At Caddo Gap, on the fourteenth day, it was learned that a company of Confederate deserters and Union jayhawkers were in the mountains close by. With a horror and deepest hatred born of the crimes of these men, outlaws from both armies, it was resolved that the first work of the raid should be their extermination. Major Elliott, commanding one of the battalions under Shelby, discovered the lair of these men later in the afternoon, and as soon as it was dark he attacked them with great vigor. Seventy-nine of them were killed and thirty-four captured. Their leader was as brave as any soldier in either army. Puritan blood coursed through his veins. Condemned to death for his crimes, he was left with Major Elliott while the remainder of the force marched forward. The captain of the firing party with a small squad was left to finish up reckonings of justice with this bloody robber and murderer. There had been no court martial. These men were to be killed by common consent. They had been taken in the act, and their crimes were known. The captain in charge of the execution thought it would not be unreasonable to allow any of those who were to be put to death a brief time for prayer. Lifting up his voice, so that all his captors and executioners could hear, the condemned captain prayed—“God bless the Union and all its loyal defenders. Bless the poor ignorant rebels; bless Mrs. McGinnins and her children; bless the Constitution which has been so wrongly misinterpreted, and eradicate slavery from the earth.” The increasing distance between the command induced the captain to cry out, “Hurry up, hurry up, old man, the command has been gone an hour and I will never catch up,” to which the captain, so soon to die, responded, “I am ready, and may Heaven have mercy upon your soul.” The order was given, and the death of twenty old men who had been murdered by this man in the immediate neighborhood shortly before, was avenged, in so far as human law could mete out punishment for horrible crimes. Both sides hated these outlaws, and Federal reports are full of similar condign punishment inflicted upon this class of marauders, who plundered and killed without the least regard for the laws of God or man.

When near Roseville, a short distance south of the Arkansas River, Shelby encountered the 1st Arkansas Federal Cavalry. In northern Arkansas, by the summer of 1863, Union generals had been able to induce enlistments among the residents of that part of the State, and naturally the feeling between these so-called renegades and the Missouri and Arkansas Confederates was extremely bitter, and whenever they faced each other in battle there was no great desire to hear the cries or calls of surrender. These Federal Arkansians and a battalion of the 3rd Illinois Regiment undertook to dispute Shelby’s right of way. They were speedily ridden over and the road cleared of this impediment. The river was forded near Ozark, and here again Shelby found some old acquaintances of the 6th Kansas Cavalry. This regiment had seen much service in southwest Missouri and northern Arkansas. It had hunted Shelby and Shelby had hunted it, and neither avoided an opportunity to measure swords with the other. Shelby disposed of this new menace in short order. He had now gotten far up among the mountains, and he traveled a hundred and forty miles, with two fights to his credit, and concluded to give his men one day’s rest.

On the 21st of September, Shelby received authority to make the expedition, and on the 22nd he promptly started on this tremendous march of fifteen hundred miles. Cutting the telegraph wires north of the Arkansas River, Shelby planned to enter the Boston Mountains, from which, northwardly, no intelligence of his coming could be disseminated. It did not take Shelby long to find Federal forces. Within four days from the time he left Arkadelphia, he had learned that his advance would be fiercely contested. His chief concern was to pass the Arkansas River. He found it fordable, but treacherous, and by the 29th, seven days after starting, reached Bentonville, Arkansas. By the 4th of October, Shelby had marched two hundred and fifty-five miles to Neosho, Missouri, where there were three hundred Federal cavalry. These were quickly surrounded and forced to surrender. Their equipment was tremendously valuable, but their horses were a real godsend.

So soon as Shelby passed Neosho, his enemies were fully aware not only of his presence but of his plans. They argued reasonably that he would seek to reach his own home at Waverly and that he would not diverge from a straight line more than twenty or thirty miles. The Federal forces then in Missouri were concentrated at points between Neosho and Waverly over a space twenty or thirty miles wide. By this time, the passions of the war had been fully aroused. Life became no longer a certain thing, the law having been suspended and the southern part of Missouri having been greatly divided; hates had been aroused, excesses committed, men killed, families driven from their homes. McNeil’s disgraceful order for the deportment of Southern sympathizers from a large portion of the State had been savagely enforced, and so, on reaching Bower’s Mills, a place where the militia had been particularly offensive, the town was sacked and then burned. Along the route Shelby traveled the next day, after leaving Bower’s Mills, every house belonging to a Southern family had been burned and, in many instances, the inhabitants put to death. On the 7th of October Shelby captured Warsaw in Benton County, far up towards the point he was attempting to reach. Here, too, Federal forces attempted to dispute his passage of the Osage River. By this time a spirit of highest enthusiasm had taken deepest hold upon the men. Nothing could chill their spirits. Soldiers dashed into and across the river. Neither nature nor man could stay their progress. At Warsaw vast quantities of all kinds of stores and supplies, including horses, had been concentrated and these all fell prey to the hungry raiders, and what they could not use were turned over to the remorseless touch of the flames.

By the 10th of October, Tipton was reached. On an air line, this left Shelby only fifty miles from Waverly, to which place, the abode of his dearest friends, he purposed in his heart to go. From Tipton for thirty miles in every direction rails were torn up, bridges destroyed, wires cut, and cattle guards and water tanks obliterated. When leaving Tipton, Shelby found opposed to him Colonel T. T. Crittenden, a Kentuckian, whom Shelby had known in earlier days, and who had a thousand well-armed and well-drilled mounted men. Shelby had two reasons for destroying Crittenden: first, he hated him, because he was a renegade Kentuckian, according to Shelby’s standard; second, because he stood across his pathway to Booneville. The artillery was brought into line with the cavalry, and Shelby’s whole command, with his artillery in the center, made a galloping charge at Crittenden’s regiment. The Federal regiment melted away, leaving the killed and wounded behind and a few prisoners as hostages.

Booneville, on the south side of the Missouri River, had been a place from which many expeditions had been sent out and from which many orders had been issued for the persecution of the Southern people. The town authorities, pleading for mercy, gladly surrendered. It looked as if Shelby had disregarded all prudence and brought himself into a trap from which it would be impossible for him to escape.

Hardly had Booneville been passed when General Brown, a Federal commander, with four thousand men, came up. Brown was a vigilant general, an impetuous fighter and a soldier of both renown and courage. He was not afraid of Shelby. In this respect he was better off than some of his associates. Game, ambitious and enterprising, he thought it would be a splendid stroke to bag Shelby in his territory and take him a prisoner to Jefferson City—Missouri’s capital. To accomplish these ends, he carefully laid his plans and bent his utmost energies. He well understood this meant real fighting. He lost no time in assailing Shelby’s pickets. He resolved to push his foes at every point, and fight whenever he could find a Confederate.

Shelby had broken an axle of his rifled gun. This he felt would be extremely useful to him later on. He ordered Colonel Hunter to hold the enemy in check until he made the necessary repairs on his cannon. By ten o’clock at night, stores had been removed and the gun repaired. The night before had been one of a great downpour of rain. This prevented much sleep. Shelby, not unmindful of the tremendous work that was immediately before him, determined to give his troopers a night’s rest, so that they might be better prepared for the strenuous experiences that the morrow and the next three days had in store for them. General Brown was fiercely persistent and assailed Shelby’s rear furiously and incessantly. The Federal authorities were clamoring for Shelby’s destruction or his capture. At the crossing of the Lamine River, Shelby ambushed the Federals and inflicted serious loss and routed the assailants; but only momentarily, and then they came back more savagely. To reach Waverly, it was necessary to pass through Marshall, and, as Shelby approached that place, he found four thousand more Federal soldiers under General Ewing, drawn up ready for the gage of battle. With Brown in the rear and Ewing in the front, it looked gloomy for the Confederates. Shelby was now five hundred miles from any real hope of succor. General Sterling Price and Governor Reynolds at Arkadelphia, Arkansas, however much they might desire to help the dashing raider, could do naught for his rescue. A few scattered companies far down in Missouri had neither the will nor the chance to help him. He was four hundred miles inside the enemy’s lines, and these enemies were hunting him with extremest vigor. His capture meant fame for the captor, and his destruction meant temporary peace in war-torn Missouri. Every available man was being thrown across Shelby’s pathway, and every possible obstacle put along the road he was of necessity compelled to travel. His march from Marshall and Waverly, from a military standpoint, was both audacious and reckless, and appeared to be the act of a man trifling with fate. To his enemies, it seemed that Shelby’s impetuosity and the longing for home-going had destroyed all sense of safety, and they were congratulating themselves that he had gone into places from which escape was impossible. Measured by the ordinary standards of military prudence and foresight, Shelby had pursued a most unwise course, and the omens were bad for him and his small brigade. Shelby conceived the idea of destroying Ewing before Brown could come up in his rear, and then take his chances with Brown, and so, with his twelve hundred cavalry he attacked four thousand infantry. In a short while Ewing had been roughly handled, and his rout was inevitable. Fate seemed propitious, and hope rose high in Shelby’s breast. The battle with Ewing was almost won, and with him out of the way, with shouts of victory on their lips, Shelby would, he believed, make short work of Brown. An evil destiny now intervened. Brown had overwhelmed Shanks’ two hundred and fifty men left to delay his crossing the Lamine River, and he had rushed on to help Ewing at the moment when Shelby’s genius and vigorous attack had nearly completed victory. Shelby needed no interpreter to tell him that; the firing in his rear demonstrated that he had miscalculated the rate of Brown’s approach and that six pieces of artillery and four thousand fresh troops were upon him.

In such an emergency there was only one course left open and that was to retreat. Shelby had left a valiant lieutenant to dispute the crossing of the Lamine River with Brown, and to hold him while he whipped Ewing. Well did this gallant soldier, Colonel Shanks, perform this task. He stood the test as only a brave man could, but the storm he faced was more than any two hundred and fifty men could withstand. There was nothing left for Shelby but to cut his way through the lines of Ewing. This was a dangerous undertaking. Even to so brave a man as Shelby, it was a hazardous task. He looked and saw a weak place in the Federal line. Only instantaneous action could save him. A Federal regiment stationed in a corn field with skirmishers well to the front, and safely ensconced behind corn shocks, seemed to be the best chance for a hard drive and successful onslaught. He was too far from his base to give up his ammunition. He hated to abandon his meagre supply of cannon. If he stood still between the two advancing Federal armies of four thousand men each, annihilation or surrender was the only fate that could befall him and his men, however brave they might be. The flash of the eye and the resolve of a practiced warrior decided the course he would follow. Escape he would or die in the attempt. Widening the front of regiments and placing a rider on each horse of the ammunition wagons and artillery, he dashed furiously at the Federal forces. The Federals met the shock with courage and stout resistance, but the fierce riding Confederates were too much: they yielded sufficiently to allow Shelby to pass through with his wagons and his cannon. Hunter’s regiment, becoming entangled in the thick woods, did not keep well closed in, and the Federals rallied and cut off Hunter while Shelby rode triumphantly away. Hunter, true to the necessities of the occasion, turned squarely to the right and galloped through another part of the Federal line and made his escape. Shelby’s force was now divided, but it had left the enemy behind. It was impossible for any troops to out-march them. Shelby, hoping against hope, waited two hours for his separated forces to join him. Prudence told him longer waiting meant destruction, and he retreated to Waverly. For eight miles the Federals pressed his rear with relentless zeal. By three o’clock in the morning Shelby passed through his home town. The desire of his heart was gratified. A few moments were spent in greeting, and now he was ready to find his own again, and so, turning squarely south, he started on his long and ever-lengthening march to the place from whence he had come.

A little way from Waverly, at Hawkins’ Mills, Shelby concluded that his wagons and his artillery would be troublesome, and so he sunk them in the Missouri River and reduced everything to the lightest possible weight. It was of the highest importance that he should safely pass the Osage River. It was a long march from Waverly to this river. Sleep and rest were out of the question. The tired beasts were allowed to feed a little and the men took an hour or two for repose. Even an hour’s delay might bring disaster. Nature pleaded for repose and rest, but safety pointed her finger forward, and fate, willing to extricate the bold horseman, bade him stay not his hand nor speed. Leaving Waverly, on the morning of the 14th, to the evening of the 16th, he had marched more than one hundred miles. He had gone through from the Missouri to the Osage River in two days. This was a tremendous spurt. Nothing now, short of bad management, could prevent Shelby’s escape, and so he began to move somewhat more leisurely. Along by the road at Warrensville, there were two thousand Federals waiting to hold him up; but he passed a few miles west without alarming them, and proceeded on to Johnson County, to which point they pursued him. One of the Federal commanders reported that Shelby’s men were “running like wild hogs,” and another, that, bareheaded and demoralized, they were making their escape in detached parties through the woods, thickets and byways. Even though hard pressed, and with no time to spare, Shelby could not refrain from one effort to punish those who had so vigorously and so sorely pressed upon him. He ordered a dash at his foes, and they, quickly realizing that it was not wise to press Shelby, even if he was running, fled at his coming. On the 17th, 18th and 19th of October, men and horses were put to the utmost limit. The Federals were loth to permit Shelby’s escape, and they hung on to the Confederate rear with the grip of death. With such odds in their favor, they held it a great misfortune to let him get away, and they judged that all sorts of inquiries and criticisms would follow, if, with fifty thousand Federal soldiers in Missouri, even so resourceful and dashing a cavalryman as Shelby could march nearly through the entire State in the face of so many pursuers, and then safely ride away. Energies were redoubled, orders of concentration kept the wires warm; but warm wires, circulating orders and relentless pursuit could not stop the mad speed and the ceaseless tramp of Shelby and his men. They had better reason to urge them escape than those who were following had to run them down. On the 20th of October, he was safely on the Little Osage River in Arkansas, and there, to Shelby’s gratification and surprise, he found the remainder of his command under Colonels Hunter, Hooper and Shanks. Reunited, their spirits rose to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. They had been battered and hammered and pursued, but they were all safe. One hundred and fifty of the eight hundred men who started were either wounded or dead along the line of march; but the expedition was completed, and the apparently impossible was accomplished.

Fate dealt more generously with Hunter and Hooper and Shanks than with Shelby. At Florence and Humansville and Duroc, on the Osage, they had had their troubles with the First Arkansas cavalry. They had a fight with McNeil’s two thousand men at Humansville, but he was held in check. The Federal forces were fierce in their attacks, and they marched with the greatest strenuosity to block the way these men were taking to avoid capture. Artillery with cavalry in a forced march is never a thing to be desired. Guns and caissons make heavy pulling, and no horses can for many miles keep pace with horsemen who are pushed to their highest speed. The help of the cannon had now lost much of its value and as it might retard the speed in some slight degree, it was destroyed and abandoned and the last of Shelby’s battery went down before the aggressive pursuers. It was abandoned at Humansville, and the fleeing horsemen were glad to get rid of such a grievous burden.

The greatest sufferers on the tremendous march had been the horses. They were goaded, tired and driven to the greatest effort. Half starved, with reduced flesh, their speed was ever-decreasing. Mercy was so incessant and so insistent in her appeals that the beasts were given three days’ rest. Not a single soldier was willing to scout except when absolutely necessary to keep in touch with the movements of the enemy. The Federals, under John Cloud, hearing that Shelby had escaped from Missouri, left Fayetteville and went out to hunt him, but Cloud was not very anxious to find Shelby. He followed slowly and at a safe distance and pursued Shelby to Clarksville on the Arkansas River where Shelby crossed the stream twelve miles east of Ozark, where he had passed thirty days before.

A great march was ended, and Shelby, in his reports, claimed that he had in the thirty days killed and wounded six hundred Federals; he had taken and paroled as many more; he had captured and destroyed ten forts, about eight hundred thousand dollars’ worth of property and he had captured six hundred rifles, forty stand of colors, three hundred wagons, six thousand horses and mules, and destroyed a million dollars’ worth of supplies. At one place in Arkansas he had dispersed eight hundred recruits and destroyed fifty thousand dollars’ worth of ordnance. At the time Shelby left Arkadelphia, Rosecrans was calling for help, and one day after Shelby started, the Battle of Chickamauga had been finished and Rosecrans, with his army driven back and discouraged, was at Chattanooga, crying for help. Ten thousand men were kept from reinforcing Rosecrans. All this was accomplished by eight hundred men. Shelby’s superiors had led him to believe that this was a forlorn hope. The young Confederate colonel had shown them they were mistaken in their estimate of him and that he was worthy of the wreath on his collar which would make him a brigadier-general.

Chapter X
BATTLE AND CAPTURE OF HARTSVILLE
BY GENERAL JOHN H. MORGAN,
DECEMBER 7th, 1863

In October, 1862, General Braxton Bragg, after the campaign in Kentucky, had brought his army out by Cumberland Gap, and, resting a brief while in East Tennessee, moved his forces to Murfreesboro, thirty miles southeast of Nashville. During General Bragg’s absence on his Kentucky campaign, the Federals had a large garrison at Nashville. General John C. Breckinridge, too late to enter Kentucky, with General Bragg, had been stationed at Murfreesboro with a small Confederate force to watch and hold this Nashville Federal contingent in check. By the 12th of November, General Bragg had brought his soldiers through from Knoxville to Murfreesboro. It then became apparent that somewhere in and around Murfreesboro, or between that place and Nashville, a decisive battle would be fought. The Nashville garrison, reinforced by the return of General Buell’s army, would be ready for aggressive warfare south of that city, and as Bragg’s army now intervened between these Federals and their advance southward, it required no wise military student to predict that a great struggle would soon be on. At that time few understood how great that struggle would be, or that when it was ended and the losses counted, it would rank as amongst the most sanguinary battles of the war, with a loss of two hundred and sixty men per thousand, making it, in ratio of losses, according to reports, the second bloodiest field of the Civil War. Forty days later this expected conflict took place at Murfreesboro in the Valley of Stone River.

Perryville, Kentucky, where, on the 8th of October, 1862, a battle had raged with such fierceness, had also proved a memorable conflict to the men of the Army of the Tennessee. There the Confederate loss was three thousand, two hundred and twelve, the Federal loss four thousand, two hundred and forty-one. For the number of men engaged, in proportion to the time the battle lasted, it stands in the very forefront of mortalities. General McCook, of the Federal Army, referring to it, said: “It is the bloodiest battle of modern times for the number of troops engaged on our side.” On the Confederate side one hundred and ninety-six in every thousand were killed or wounded.

On the 20th of November, 1862, the army of Tennessee was organized with General Braxton Bragg as commander. The three army corps were officered respectively by Generals E. Kirby Smith, Leonidas Polk and William J. Hardee. General Don Carlos Buell, on the Federal side, on October 30th, 1862, had been relieved, and General W. S. Rosecrans had been put in his place.

At this period of the history of the war in Tennessee, Sumner County, of which Gallatin was the county seat, was one of the richest and most productive of the agricultural districts of the State. Gallatin was thirty-five miles from Nashville, northeast. Sumner County adjoined Davidson County, of which Nashville was the county seat. East of Gallatin, some fifteen miles, was Hartsville, a small town, now the capital of Trousdale County, one and one-half miles north of the Cumberland River. Lebanon, Tennessee, the county seat of Wilson County, was due east of Nashville. A line drawn from Murfreesboro a little east of north would pass through Hartsville a distance of thirty-eight miles. Bragg’s army extended from Murfreesboro in the direction of Lebanon. A portion of his infantry was at Baird’s Mills, a village twenty miles away. Castalian Springs was between Gallatin and Hartsville, nine miles from Hartsville and six miles from Gallatin. At Castalian Springs, the Federals, under John M. Harlan, had a force numbering six thousand men. At Hartsville was Dumont’s Brigade, the 39th in the Army of the Cumberland, consisting of two thousand one hundred men.

General Morgan always maintained a very warm love of Sumner County. Some of the happiest hours of his military life were passed there. He was ever glad of an opportunity to return to Gallatin. Quite a number of his followers were residents of the county. His opportunities for scouting and getting information in that section were most excellent. He learned that the Federals had about thirteen hundred troops at Hartsville, and he calculated that their capture was not only possible, but easy, by a bold, quick dash. On August 17th, 1862, he had captured Gallatin, and with it two hundred prisoners, including Colonel Boone and the other commanding officers of the 28th Kentucky Federal Regiment. He had another remarkable experience there, of which he wrote: “... thus ended an action in which my command, not exceeding seven hundred men (one whole company being in the rear with prisoners), succeeded in defeating a brigade of twelve hundred chosen cavalry sent by General Buell to take me or drive me out of Tennessee, killing and wounding some one hundred and eighty and taking two hundred prisoners, including the brigadier-general commanding and most of the regimental officers.”

The Federal generals were justified in the belief that it was unreasonable for the Confederate troops to march northward from Murfreesboro to Hartsville when there was a full garrison at Nashville, as such a force would be exposed to a flank and rear attack from that place. John H. Morgan, though not yet having a commission of brigadier-general, was in command of a brigade composed of five regiments and two battalions. He conferred with General Bragg and mapped out a plan by which he assured General Bragg that with a force of cavalry and infantry not exceeding eighteen hundred men, it was practicable to cross the Cumberland River, attack Hartsville and capture it before the Federal Army at Castalian Springs, which was three times as strong as the force Morgan proposed to take with him, could reach Hartsville and succor the garrison there. After some discussion and prolonged consideration General Morgan’s enthusiasm overcame not only the fears but the objections of the Confederate commander, who did not fully appreciate the rapidity of cavalry movements under leaders like Forrest, Morgan and Wheeler. General Morgan devised the plan and assumed the responsibility for its success. He was willing to stake his reputation and risk his life on the outcome. He requested permission to select the force which should accompany him, and for the infantry he chose the 2nd and 9th Kentucky. These were part of what was known as the “Orphan Brigade,” at that time under command of General Roger W. Hanson, who twenty-four days later, was to die from wounds received on the battlefield of Murfreesboro, where, with his last breath, he pathetically exclaimed, “It is sweet and pleasant to die for one’s country.” Colonel Thomas H. Hunt, who had made a splendid reputation for his regiment at Shiloh, Corinth and Baton Rouge, was designated commander of the infantry. The 2nd Kentucky, under Major James W. Hewett, on this occasion carried into battle three hundred and seventy-five men, and Captain James T. Morehead led the 9th Kentucky with three hundred and twenty men, making the infantry all told six hundred and ninety-five men. The cavalry consisted of Gano’s, the 3rd Kentucky, Bennett’s, the 9th Tennessee, and Cluke’s, the 8th Kentucky, and part of Chenault’s, the 11th. Together they counted close to fifteen hundred. Two Ellsworth rifled guns and two brass howitzers comprised the artillery outfit.

At Hartsville was stationed the 104th Illinois infantry, the 2nd Indiana cavalry, the 12th Indiana battery, Company E of the 11th Kentucky cavalry, and the 106th and 108th Ohio infantry. The brigade was commanded by Captain Absalom B. Moore, of the 10th Illinois, who had come to Hartsville on the 2nd of December to relieve his predecessor, Colonel Scott, of the 19th Illinois.

General Hanson’s brigade, from which parts of the two Confederate regiments had been taken, was then at Baird’s Mills, twenty-three miles from Hartsville.

Prior to this time the infantry and cavalry which composed this expedition had not seen much of each other. At Baird’s Mills, on December 6th, for the first time, they came in real contact. The infantry looked a little askant at the cavalry. None of the horsemen going with the infantry had seen very extended service. Cluke’s, Chenault’s and Gano’s regiments and Stoner’s battalion were new and had been largely recruited in August and September in Kentucky, and Bennett’s regiment was not much better, but it was worse off so far as discipline was concerned. Early in the morning of December 6th, the cavalry regiments were marched to Baird’s Mills, arriving there at eleven o’clock. There was a macadam road from Lebanon to Hartsville. The ground was covered with snow, and the temperature was low. It was not a good day for infantry to march, and it was not favorable weather for cavalry to ride. At eleven o’clock these organizations, after a short rest, began the march out of Lebanon for Hartsville. The cavalry rode in the van with celerity, but it required three hours for the infantry to cover the eleven miles to Lebanon. By way of encouragement to the infantry, they were told that an arrangement had been made by which with the “ride and tie” system, they would be mounted half the way. Under this method the cavalry would ride five or six miles forward and leave their horses and then march five or six miles on foot. In the meantime, the infantry would come up on foot and mount the cavalry horses and then ride forward several miles and leave the horses to await the coming of their owners. Theoretically this seemed a reasonable proposition. At least it looked fair. A short distance from Lebanon the infantry felt the time had come for them to change their method of transportation. They had patiently trudged along through the wet snow, and they were sure if they could get out of the slush that the tread of the infantry and the wheels of the artillery and the tramp of the horses had created, they would be happier—at least more contented. The swap was made. The shoes of the infantry were thoroughly soaked and the freezing cold after they were mounted, benumbed their limbs. This was particularly hard on their wet feet. Unaccustomed to the methods of cavalry, they did not know how to keep warm, and in a little while they declared they would rather walk. The cavalry had gotten their feet wet while they were playing the infantry act, and slipping and sliding in the slushy material which covered the pike, they were glad to remount, but the same biting cold which so severely punished the infantry seriously troubled them. To make matters worse, the horses got mixed, and this set their owners to cursing and abusing everybody connected with the expedition. The cavalry cussed the infantry, and the infantry cussed the cavalry, and between them they cussed everybody they knew anything about. The situation was so extremely ridiculous that after awhile everybody lapsed into good humor. It was a gloomy opening for so glorious a campaign. Nature, unpropitious, appeared implacable, but the purpose and plans of the expedition soon leaked out and the entire command became at once enthused with the prospect of a fight and victory. In a brief while, with all the discomforts which surrounded them, the horsemen and the “footmen” made up, jollied each other, and swore they were glad they had come. They were assured that with Morgan, Hunt, Duke, Chenault, Cluke, Gano, Bennett and Stoner as their leaders, something really great was about to be achieved, and triumph, glory and renown were in their grasp.

General Morgan had calculated to assault at daylight. He estimated that his fighting force would be considerably larger than that of the enemy he was to attack and attempt their capture, and as they might be intrenched, he must not only take advantage of strategy, but also of the opportunities which would come from sudden and vigorous onslaught in the dark upon unprepared soldiers.

In marching the artillerymen had much the best of it, but when the fighting began they got much the worst of it. The drivers were riding, and the gunners, perched on the caissons, were removed from all contact with the slush, and by rubbing and stamping they kept their feet and hands warm enough to prevent them from getting down to walk. They looked with complacency upon their less fortunate fellows who were trudging the pike.

The Cumberland River in this locality was the dividing line between the Federal and Confederate territory. General Morgan, through his scouts, had managed to procure a few small leaky flatboats at Puryear’s Ferry, several miles below Hartsville. Around ten o’clock at night the advance guard and artillery reached the river. The infantry, beginning their marching at eleven o’clock in the morning, now, after eleven hours, had covered seventeen miles. They could almost see the lights of the camp fires at Hartsville.

From the time of the reconnaissance of Morgan’s scouts, the Cumberland River had made a material rise, and to put across the artillery between ten o’clock and three o’clock, five hours, with the inadequate equipment, was no light task. General Morgan was in immediate command of the infantry and artillery, and Colonel Basil W. Duke in charge of the cavalry. There was of necessity a great rush to get over the river in order to enable the infantry to march five miles quickly enough to strike Hartsville at daybreak, and every energy was bent to accomplish this herculean task. Finally this was safely accomplished and the infantry and artillery, full of hope, and though naturally wearied from a long, difficult march of over twenty-one miles, were inspired to new efforts when they realized that only a short distance away was the game in search of which they had come, and for the bagging of which they were undergoing such severe physical punishment.

After recovering their horses as far as possible, the cavalry left the pike and marched through the country to a ford several miles below the ferry, where the infantry and artillery had been put over. Haste and complete co-operation were equally essential in the successful issue of this perilous undertaking. Generals Morgan and Duke had calculated that the stream would be fordable, but fate again seemed to intervene to protect the Federals, quietly sleeping in their tents on the heights about Hartsville. The darkness, the severe cold, the rapid currents and the leaky, inferior boats, the difficult landings and still more difficult fords, all combined to try out the courage and metal of the men now going upon one of the most hazardous enterprises of the war. These obstacles did not shake the determination of General Morgan or the patience or courage of his men. They had come to win glory and punish their enemies. Prudence may have suggested to turn back. Morgan, believing in his destiny and relying upon the valor of his followers, resolved to go on and succeed or meet direful defeat.

In this perplexing and uncertain hour, General Morgan measured up to the highest standard of a great cavalry leader. Calm, fearless, confident, undaunted, he supervised the troublesome crossing. With Colonel Hunt of the infantry he appeared to be everywhere. His valiant spirit chafed at the unavoidable delays, but a kindly word of encouragement to his toiling, tired and half-frozen men warmed their blood into a new glow and gave them quickened action and expanded hope. The leader’s indomitable will stilled every doubt or fear and made every man in the ranks an invincible hero. The darkness, relieved only by a few flickering torches, made ghastly shadows on the muddy, sloppy banks. Pickets, hastily sent in the piercing cold, were in the silence watching for any foes who should be skulking at these unseemly hours in search of enterprising enemies, and they could hear in the Federal camps the commands spoken in relieving guards who were unconscious of the presence of Confederate legions which at earliest dawn were preparing to swoop down upon them with defeat and capture, and who by the rising of the morrow’s sun would bring death and wounds to many and captivity to all the sleeping hosts for whose defense and protection they were, with ceaseless tread, pacing the frozen and snow-clad earth.

By reason of recent rains further up the river, its currents were increased and quickened, and when the advance guard of the cavalrymen undertook to cross the river at the appointed ferry, to their dismay they discovered it was impassable at that point. Nothing daunted, however, by this unlooked-for obstacle, General Duke learned that there was a ford farther down the stream, where it was likely he could get his men and horses across, and rapidly and silently the cavalry trotted through the fields to the new ford. When this was reached it also presented most serious difficulties. It was an unused crossing, and it was impossible to get to the river except by a crooked bridle path along which the men could proceed only in single file. When the river was reached, it was found that the descent into the water was almost impossible. It was necessary to spur the horses into the stream over a bank several feet high. As a result, both men and horses were submerged in the water, and with the thermometer low in the scale, in the night time, and in the gloom of the darkness preceding the break of day, such a bath would have a fearfully chilling effect upon the ardor of any patriot. With several hundred horses tramping over the narrow path which led to the bank of the stream, the slush was churned deeper and deeper. Wet to the skin, with their clothes muddy and dripping, with their saddles, blankets and saddle pockets in the same condition, as these horsemen emerged from the stream on the north side, they found equal difficulties there. The ascent was steep and slippery and the pathway rough, and the shivering mounts with difficulty bore their riders to the open land.

Even the horses, with the vision of the misfortunes to their fellows ahead, were reluctant to make the plunge down into the river. The brutes saw the sad plight of those who were just in front, and watching them struggling in the water, they hesitated to follow in such difficult role. Spurring, pushing, driving, belaboring drove them one by one into the stream. The soldiers, shaking with cold, almost wished they were back by their happy firesides in central Kentucky, but they were game enough for any contingency war might develop, and as the leaders rode into the stream none hesitated, but all took the plunge. Those who were first over managed to build a few fires by which they might create some heat for their soaked and shivering bodies. So depressing was the temperature of the water and so great the strain on the nervous system that, after the plunge, quite a number of the command became so benumbed as to be unable to go forward. Notwithstanding the untiring efforts of General Duke, aided by the regimental officers, it was found impossible to get all the command over in time to enable the approach to Hartsville by daybreak. With part of the cavalry on one side and part on the other, General Duke, who was always prompt, at four o’clock in the morning took such men as had already passed the stream, consisting of Cluke’s, Chenault’s and Bennett’s regiments, and rode with accelerating haste to the appointed meeting place, a mile and a half from the camp of the enemy. He picketed the line of march from the ford to the junction point so that no Federal forces could prevent the remainder of the column which had been left behind from reaching those who had gone before. Six miles was between him and the spot where he had agreed to meet General Morgan, and after this union they would still be nearly three miles from Hartsville. The infantry was over, the artillery was over, and three-fifths of the cavalry, and when these were united, General Morgan decided that he could wait no more for the other regiment (Gano’s), but must take his chances with what men he had and rush the enemy. He knew full well it would not take long for the Federals to march double quick from Castalian Springs to Hartsville. This could be done under stress in two and a half hours, and when this force should reach Hartsville, General Morgan understood he would have an enemy in his rear three times as strong as his fighting men, and a body in front largely outnumbering the men he proposed carrying into the engagement. This was a period of tremendous physical and mental strain. It required supreme courage and unfailing nerve to enable even the greatest of leaders to calmly face such an emergency. The seven hundred infantry were now shut in by the river, which a short while before under great difficulties they had passed. If Colonel Harlan at Castalian Springs and the Hartsville garrison should unite, even the courage of the “Orphan Brigade” would be severely tested to face such tremendous odds. In a crisis, the cavalry might scatter and ride away, but the infantry would have no chance of crossing the Cumberland, or marching through the country on foot. Victory, and victory quick, was the only solution of the grave problems of the hour. Boldness, promptness, intrepidity, desperate courage might save the situation, and it was not without serious, but silent misgivings that General Morgan ordered the command forward. In his calm and unruffled countenance, in his self-possessed and undisturbed demeanor, none could detect the conflict and struggle that was filling his mind and heart. There were no preliminaries that required a moment’s delay. Instant and fierce fighting might win. Hesitation or doubt would bring certain disaster. In the silence and gloom of the night, led by the guides, familiar with every foot of the way, those who walked and those who rode pressed on to find the sleeping foe. Few commands were necessary. The column covered more than a mile, but the horsemen in front followed hard upon the guides, and the infantry with quickened steps, kept a pace that left no intervals between the mounted men who in the vanguard held the place of danger and honor.

As the day was breaking, the cavalrymen in advance struck a strong picket force half a mile south of the Federal camp. The outpost fired and retreated. This awakened the sleeping Federals. Aroused, they immediately got ready to receive these early, unwelcome morning callers. General Morgan had not expected to capture the pickets. He hoped the cavalry would capture most of the camp, ride down the sentinels, and the infantry coming up would thoroughly finish what the cavalry had begun.

In the incredibly short space of time that intervened between the attack and the real fight, the surprised Federals formed a line of battle. They had been taken unawares, but they were not disposed to run away without a conflict. They were on an elevation which slightly raised them above the surrounding fields through which the Confederates must approach. The report brought to Morgan made the numbers of the Federals at Hartsville somewhere around thirteen hundred, but through the dim light of the morning, when he saw twenty-one hundred men instead of thirteen hundred spring into line, immediately it was suggested to his mind that maybe it might have been wiser for him to have remained on the south side of the Cumberland. As they rode into the line of battle, Colonel Duke casually remarked to General Morgan that he had gotten more than he had bargained for, to which Morgan quickly replied, “We must whip and catch these fellows and cross the river in two hours and a half or we will have three thousand men on our backs.” Then he did not know how greatly the army under Harlan outnumbered the little force with him, which his faith in them and in himself had led him to venture into such perilous surroundings. Had he known all he might even have hesitated and he would surely more strenuously have hastened the destroying hands of his followers in burning and wrecking the stores he had captured. If the men at Hartsville could hold off the attack a sufficient length of time to enable the men from Castalian Springs to reach the scene the seven hundred infantry and six hundred cavalry in line would make the issue very uncertain. At that time, General Morgan did not have more than twelve hundred men with which to go after the enemy. Brave, defiant and hopeful, he had sent Bennett’s regiment into the town to prevent the escape of the Federals. It really looked for a moment as if nobody would have to look after the escape of the Federals, but that Morgan would have to look sharply after his own escape. The Federal officers could hardly believe that so small a Confederate force would dare approach the position they were now attacking, and the audacity of Morgan’s movement created the impression of a very large force, and this did much to demoralize the Federal garrison. In sight of each other the two opposing armies formed their lines. The Federal force was composed of nearly all infantry. They had only a small number of cavalry. The lines were formed about twelve hundred feet apart, and the skirmishers from these two armies filled the intervening space and promptly opened a spasmodic fusillade.

Cluke’s and Chenault’s men, riding swiftly upon the scene, instantly dismounted and gallantly sprang into the fight. Although they only numbered four hundred and fifty men, they looked like several thousand to the affrighted Federals who, rushing out of the tents, were not in a frame of mind to calculate with mathematical exactness the number of those who, intent on conflict, were rapidly and fearlessly rushing into their camp. The skirmishers at once became busy and annoying, but Cluke and Chenault double-quicked within three hundred feet of where the Federal skirmishers were. The Federals fired a volley and then retreated, but the dismounted cavalry rushed on as if nothing had happened. One hundred and eighty feet away another volley was fired, and still Cluke and Chenault were advancing. As Cluke and Chenault got within close quarters the 104th Illinois infantry fired at short range. They attempted to back and reload their guns, but a second volley from the dismounted cavalry caused them to break in great disorder. Within thirty minutes of the time Cluke’s and Chenault’s men began to fire, they had cleared their front of any organized resistance. In the meantime the enemy’s artillery was hammering away at Cobb’s two pieces. He had only two caissons, but one of these was blown up by an exploding shell from the enemy and his battery had suffered a loss of more than twenty per cent of its members. The Federal artillery was handled bravely and skillfully and inflicted severe damage upon Cobb’s men and caissons.

The infantry had marched twenty miles over snow-covered, slushy roads, along every step of which incisive cold had partially benumbed their limbs. The warm work of battle gave them new physical energies. As the 2nd Kentucky dashed across the space that separated them from the Federals, somebody unfortunately gave the order to “Halt and dress.” The enemy had been driven back before the impetuous charge of the cavalry, and the infantry lost no time in finishing the brave work of the horsemen. With victory just within their grasp, there was no need for “dressing.” A number of officers sprang to the front and countermanded the order, and Captain Joyce, seizing the colors, waved them in the dim light of the early morning and bade the men to follow where he would lead. At this juncture a concentrated fire of the Federals resulted in great loss to the 2nd Kentucky Infantry. For an instant the line swerved uncertainly, and then this regiment with eager, resistless fury, rushed to the conflict again. The 9th Kentucky infantry now wheeled into action. Stirred with the battle sounds, they pressed upon their foes like lions released from their cages. Fortunately, at the critical moment, one hundred of Gano’s regiment, which had later crossed the Cumberland River, precipitated themselves into the conflict. Their coming was timely. Their shouts and reckless charge added new terrors to the already disturbed garrison. The Federals, with the Confederates in the front and on their flank, were driven into a narrow space and suffered severely from the pitiless and well-directed fire of the men in gray. The incessant thud of the minie balls told the story of the havoc. It appeared to the affrighted Federals that there was no hope of escape. In seventy-five minutes from the time the opening shot had been fired the white flag was run up. The Federal garrison had surrendered, and the first act of the drama had been finished.

For the length of time the Confederates were engaged the losses were large. The 9th Infantry lost seventeen men, the 2nd lost sixty-eight, the 11th Kentucky Cavalry, seventeen, Cobb’s battery, ten, and Cluke’s regiment, thirty-two. More than half the entire loss fell on the 2nd Kentucky Infantry. With two hundred and thirty men engaged, Cluke’s regiment reported a loss of thirty-two, making its casualties fourteen per cent of the men carried into the fight. Gano, Chenault and Bennett had twelve killed, wounded or missing. Lieutenant-Colonel Cicero Coleman, of the 8th Cavalry, ever chivalrous and gallant, while nobly leading a section of his regiment, was seriously wounded.

Two handsomer men than Colonel Cluke or Lieutenant-Colonel Coleman could rarely be found in any organization. Both over six feet, both splendid horsemen, always erect and graceful in their saddles, and full of magnetism, they communicated by their superb presence and their fearless conduct to the men of the regiment an enthusiasm in war’s operations that was always inspiring and helpful, and made each man believe that the result of the conflict was dependent upon his personal valor.

To the Federals there came a heavy loss of killed and wounded. Eighteen hundred prisoners were forced across the Cumberland and were turned in to the Confederate headquarters at Murfreesboro.

Danger was now imminent on every side. One could breathe it in the air. An attack from the forces at Castalian Springs was momentarily expected, but General Morgan could not resist the impulse to destroy wagons and stores, and these things were quickly reduced to ashes. A large amount of clothing was seized in this fortunate capture. Boots and shoes meant much to some of the cavalry regiments, especially the 8th and 11th, who in the march had to reinforce their worn boots and shoes with pieces of blanket. In the face of impending and immediate attack the work of destruction was thoroughly completed. It was against the creed of Morgan’s men to leave anything undestroyed that could aid a foe.

A suspicious firing was soon heard in the direction of Castalian Springs. Quirk’s scouts were doing their best and bravest to hold the Federals in check. They were retiring only because the numbers of the enemy were overwhelming, but the Enfield rifles were speaking defiance to their assailants, and if they were receding it was only because prudence bade them go. Colonel Cluke and his regiment were sent to aid in the show of resistance and the pressure, still increasing, became so great that Gano’s regiment, which in the meantime had arrived, was sent to their support.

Time was never more valuable to any army than to this little Confederate brigade now leaving Hartsville. The Cumberland River, difficult of fording, was in front, and an enemy three times as strong was now pressing vigorously behind.

The artillery, which had been brought along, together with the captured guns, was placed on the south bank to protect the crossing. Courtesy to the conquered ceased to be the order of the hour. The captured were urged and driven forward at the highest possible speed. Some were hesitant about going, but war knows nothing of the law of politeness and their captors demanded double quick march from the crestfallen and distressed prisoners. The wagons were placed in front. Two captured Parrot guns made splendid companions for the “bull pups.” These remained with the Division until General Morgan’s capture in Ohio, July 26th, 1863. One of these was called “Long Tom” and was the object of great admiration and was held in truest affection by the whole force.

As the Confederates approached the river, the infantry began to be very chummy with the cavalry. At the highest possible speed and with great haste they had marched away from the scene of their splendid achievement. They had not been subjected to the bath which a few hours before had been the fate of the horsemen and they had no fancy to ford the icy stream, even under the Federal pressure behind them. A glorious victory had been won, in the winning of which every part of the brigade had borne a distinguished part. Heroes of a common venture, they were alike jubilant over the brilliant work of the morning, and when they got down to the stream it required neither pleading nor threats for the infantry to secure seats behind the horsemen, and so, two on each steed, with their legs lifted high out of the cold water, the patient, gentle, useful horses carried the victors to the south side of the stream.

Among the triumphs and congratulations, the cavalry was not indisposed to be generous to the unfortunate prisoners, and after the infantry had been delivered on the south side, where they might defend any attack of the approaching Federals, now extremely annoying and persistent, they recrossed the stream, and each horseman took a prisoner behind him and thus ferried him over, but the pursuit became fiercer and stronger, and as the cavalry, which were fighting the advance from Castalian Springs approached the stream, the situation became so emergent that the unfortunate prisoners who had not gotten a seat behind the cavalry were forced into the stream, which reached their waists, and required a wade through the rapid, cold current. This was not done without some threats of violence, but the water was to be preferred to bullets, and reluctantly, and with loud protests against such violation of the laws of war, accompanied by all sorts of “back talk,” the Federal prisoners were rushed through the water and with a close line of horsemen on either side were hurried across the stream. The victors had not thought of parole. Even if they had, there was no time to carry out the details of such a process. The eighteen hundred prisoners would look well in the column of the returning heroes when they reached Baird’s Mills and Murfreesboro, and with grim grip, the Confederates held on to their prisoners. Here and there one dropped out, but almost the entire number was gotten safely over the river and finally delivered to the guards at headquarters.

The rear guard bravely defended every foot of the ground. They were anxious to get away, but prudence and pride alike required that they should make stubborn resistance, and with every expedient known to cavalrymen, they delayed the approach of the Federal forces. The Federal commander had some disquieting fears about the number of men that were engaged in the expedition, and he did not press the pursuit as savagely as he would have done had he known that less than seven hundred men were standing in the pathway he must travel to reach his adventurous foes, who were now divided by the rapid currents of the icy stream.

A part of the Confederate dead who so gloriously had died were left behind. Their enemies gave them burial. War destroys the tenderness of sentiment. The safety of their own lives was more important than the sepulture of the slain, however bravely they had gone down in the struggle. Most of the wounded were placed in wagons and ambulances, which were driven away from the scene of carnage and battle. The infantry, in defense of their wounded comrades, had the call been made, would have been extremely dangerous customers. The economics of war are ruthless. The living, the fighters, are to be considered, and then the maimed and dead. On the horsemen fell the burden of the defense of the rear. During all the expedition, the web-footed infantry had gotten the worst of the deal, and the cavalry, gay, happy and mounted, were disposed to place no unnecessary work upon their comrades who were trudging their way back to their comrades, who were longing to hear the tidings of what battle had brought to those who had been selected for so dangerous a mission.

If the infantry had looked with side glances at the cavalry when at Baird’s Mills, they had now lost the recollection of such ungenerous feelings in admiration for the horsemen who, dismounted, had manifested a courage and valor equal to their own, and who, in the charge and advance upon the enemy at Hartsville, and in standing off the Federal pursuers, had displayed an intrepidity that was not unworthy of any Kentucky Confederates, be they men who walked or men who rode to battle. Whenever Hartsville was recalled or its experiences were freshened in their minds, there was no distrust of the steadfastness of the 3rd, 8th and 11th Kentucky Cavalry, and the gallant 9th Tennessee, and by common consent the 2nd and 9th Kentucky Infantry admitted these regiments which had been with them at Hartsville into the full brotherhood of war’s heroes.

The captured guns and the four pieces brought by Morgan were pounding away on the south bank of the river and hurling shot and shell at the pursuers on the north bank, serving notice on the Federals that thus far and no farther could they come. It never entered the minds of the Federals that the Confederates were so few in number. They could not understand how any commander with the slightest prudence would expose his men to such risk as Morgan had dared. It would have been questionable for even cavalry to have undertaken such a campaign, but to jeopardize two of the best regiments of infantry in the army of Tennessee by marching and fighting so far from their military base, and with such liability to attack on the rear and flank, was inconceivable to the Federals who were pursuing. They concluded that there were at least three times as many in the battle as had captured their comrades at Hartsville. Colonels Harlan and Moore estimated Morgan’s fighting force at five thousand, and Federal officers declared that they had seen several regiments of infantry and cavalry standing across the river awaiting the return of their comrades who had gone over the stream and won victory at Hartsville.

By eleven o’clock the agony was past. The pursuit was ended. Joy and complacency filled the hearts of the infantry as they tramped back to Baird’s Mills. They did not ask to ride any more. The cavalry marched in the rear and stood guard and waited for approaching foes. None came. After crossing the stream, courtesy and generosity prompted kindness to the blue-coated prisoners. There was no word of unkindness spoken.

Along the Confederate lines, they were received with surprise, and wonder staggered credence to believe how few could have accomplished so much or that any men in such rigorous weather could have so quickly covered so great a distance, or against such odds have won so marvelous a victory.

For a little while the Federal commanders were dazed. On December 7th General Rosecrans wired General George H. Thomas as follows: “Do I understand they have captured an entire brigade of our troops without our knowing it, or a good fight?” And at one thirty o’clock the same day there came from the President at Washington the following message: “The President to Major General George H. Thomas: The President demands an explanation of the Hartsville affair. Report in detail exact position, strength and relative distances of your troops between Gallatin and Hartsville, and causes of disaster as far as known to you.”

On December 10th, the rage and indignation became more pronounced, and General Halleck wired from Washington: “The most important of the President’s inquiries has not been answered. What officer or officers are chargeable with the surprise at Hartsville and deserve punishment?” Later General Halleck wired the President: “I respectfully recommend that Colonel Moore, 104th Illinois Volunteers, be dismissed from the service for neglect of duty in not properly preparing for the enemy’s attack on Hartsville, Tennessee.” Afterwards Colonel Moore was allowed to resign on the ground of disability after long imprisonment by the Confederates.

Meagre and exaggerated reports were spread among the Confederates of the number of men that had reduced such a numerous company to prisoners. The whole army with glad cheers along the line greeted the return of the victors. Much was said of the cavalry, but the chiefest and highest meed of praise was awarded to the infantry. In less than thirty-six hours they had marched forty-five miles over trying and difficult roads, had fought a battle, with their associates had captured eighteen hundred prisoners and brought these back across an almost impassable stream in the midst of fierce winter weather.

General Bragg, more or less phlegmatic, was moved to enthusiastic praise. He tendered to General Morgan his thanks and assured him and his troops of his unbounded admiration.

He said: “I take great pleasure in commending the endurance and gallantry of all engaged in this remarkable expedition.” He predicted that such valor and courage had before it higher and yet more magnificent victories, and to appeal still more strongly to the pride of those who had been engaged in this wonderful conflict, he ordered that hereafter, upon the battle flags of all organizations which had taken part in this battle, the name of “Hartsville” should be emblazoned, to remind the world forever of the bravery, endurance, enterprise and courage of those who had there won such great distinction.

Chapter XI
WHEELER’S RAID INTO TENNESSEE,
AUGUST, 1864

The tremendous exactions of the Confederate cavalry, in the summer and fall of 1864, gave severest test of both their physical resistance and their patriotism. Food for man and beast was reduced to the minimum of existence. As food lessened, work increased, and the dumb brutes felt more sorely than man the continual shortening of rations.

In July official reports showed that for three days the cavalry of General Wheeler received thirteen pounds of corn per horse. The regular ration was ten pounds of corn and ten pounds of hay. As against the amount experience had shown essential for maintaining strength and vigor, the Confederate horsemen saw the beasts that they loved even as their own lives cut to three and one-third pounds of corn, just one-third of what nature demanded, outside of rough provender, such as hay or oats. The horse could live, but that was all. To put these starving beasts into active work, to exact of them thirty miles a day, with an average of one hundred and eighty pounds on their backs, was only to leave many of them stranded by the roadside to die of starvation and neglect, or to be picked up by the country folks with the hope that a ration of grass or leaves would, in the course of months, bring them back to health.

The cavalryman often starved himself without complaint to help his horse. When it comes to work with insufficient food, as between man and brute, the man is the stronger. The spirit of the man, like the air plant, extracts life from his surroundings and thus begets a strength and virility to which the beast is a stranger. At this period there was a little green corn found here and there, in the patches planted by the women and children, who were fighting for life in the rear of the army, where war’s relentless ravages had left for beasts little but the air, a sprinkle of grass, the branches of the trees, or the sprouts that had come up about the roots. These most frequently were the largest part of the ration served the southern cavalry horse. The men watched these animals grow weaker day by day, and when corn was issued to the soldiers to be parched, they took a small portion for themselves, and patting the noses of the mounts with fondest touch, they would slip a part of their own food into the mouths of the steeds they had learned to love as if they were human.

Western Confederate genius was now engaged in wrestling with the destruction of Sherman’s lines of communication. It was one hundred and fifty-two miles from Chattanooga, the real base of Sherman’s supplies, to Atlanta. Bridges and trestles were numerous, and against these again and again Confederate ingenuity exhausted its power and its enterprise. Sherman was dreaming of a march to the sea. Hood, who succeeded Johnston, was dreaming of flank movements and marches to the rear, and while these leaders were figuring and counting the cost, upon the cavalrymen was laid the heaviest burdens of conflict. Former conditions had now been reversed. In the earlier stages of the War, the Federals were chiefly solicitous to repel cavalry incursions and raids, but now the Confederates were to swap jobs and thwart Federal assaults on lines of communication. This put upon the Confederates increased vigilance and demanded of them that they should make military bricks without the straw necessary to their manufacture.

The proper care of horses was now an important part of the martial regime. If the men were thoughtless enough to overburden their mounts, experience and necessity told the officers, responsible for results, that these details must be watched, and higher authority must intervene to protect the animals, now even as necessary as men in the operations of the hour.

On August 9th, 1864, an order was issued looking to a most rigid enforcement of this sane and wise regulation. No officer of any grade or any soldier was allowed to carry any article outside of his gun and his cartridge box, other than a single blanket and one oil cloth. Naught but something to warm the body and protect the skin would be tolerated, and once, every day on the march, inspection was a part of every officer’s duty for the enforcement of this requirement. Ordnance wagons, caissons and ambulances were subjected to the same close scrutiny and the immediate destruction of all contraband was the stern and irrevocable order of General Wheeler.

General Hood was feeling the constant and relentless pressure of General Sherman around Atlanta. Wheeler and Forrest were his only reliance to lessen the hold that was silently but surely throttling the life of the Army of the Tennessee. Something must be done to relieve this acute situation and to Wheeler and Forrest, Hood appealed in the extreme hour asking if they could not cut off or shorten Sherman’s supplies. If they could compel him to withdraw some thousands of his men, there might yet be a chance. Without these, it could only be a question of days, mayhap with good fortune, weeks. No one could foretell what a brief span might bring forth, and so, catching at faintest hope, these two wondrous cavalry soldiers were to take another turn at the wheel.

It was believed by General Hood, and in this General Forrest concurred, that if Wheeler could pass around Sherman’s army, tear up the railroad north of Atlanta, then reaching to Chattanooga, force a passage of the Tennessee River, swing around towards Knoxville and thence down into Middle Tennessee and assail Nashville and wreck the railroads between Nashville and Chattanooga, this, accompanied by Forrest’s assailment of the lines in Western Tennessee and Southwestern Kentucky, would, if it was within the lines of human possibilities, loosen Sherman’s hold on Hood’s throat.

General Wheeler had concentrated four thousand men at Covington, Ga., forty miles south of Atlanta. The best horses were selected. They were shod and fitted by every means at hand to enter upon one of the most wearying marches of the War. They would perforce rely on some captures of steeds. The Confederate cavalry never failed to count on the United States government to supply a full share of their wants, when thus in need. With the long, long tramps ahead, there were even some dismounted men who resolved to go on this expedition, willing to take the risk of capture, believing that the uncertainties of war and the certainties of striking some loose Federal cavalry force would stand them well in hand, and give them earth’s now richest treasure, a horse. The warrior of old had cried out, “My kingdom for a horse,” but these dejected and bereft horsemen were putting a higher value on such a priceless gift, and were placing their lives in the balance, to win, if mayhap they might win, the coveted prize.

General Hood had calculated that if Wheeler could safely trust to capture food and ammunition, that surely he would break Sherman’s line, and that inevitably Sherman must pay not only some, but much heed to this active, devastating force in his rear.

No extended rations were allowed to go. A blanket and gum coat blanket were all the baggage permitted except a loose horseshoe and a frying pan. It required only the cooking of some water-softened cornmeal, made into soggy bread, to supply immediate wants.

The Confederate horsemen had long since learned the full import of the petition of the Lord’s prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread.” He had shortened it up to say, “Give us one square meal”; and he laid down on the wet or hard ground, covered his face with his worn hat or tattered blanket, and let no thought of the next meal disturb his dreamless sleep.

Starting on this long journey, General Wheeler swung eastwardly to avoid, as far as possible, Federal interruption. In less than twenty-four hours, he began to let his enemies know that he was in the saddle. He struck the railroad near Marietta, Ga., and proceeded to wreck it for miles. He and his followers were hungry. Their larder was empty. They felt certain that Sherman’s supply trains were on the march between Chattanooga and Atlanta. Their horses needed corn, their bodies needed food, and they resolved to apply the old doctrine of “He takes who may; he keeps who can.” A long train of cars was captured, but men and their horses could not eat engines and cars. Then came the comforting message, through friendly sympathizers, that a long wagon train, well guarded, was on the highway a little farther north. This glad news quickened hope and cheered body and soul. A short distance away, a great vision crossed their gaze. When it first stood out upon the horizon, the weary troopers rubbed their eyes, pinched their tired limbs, to discover if they beheld a mirage, or was it real things that loomed across their perspective. The men first saw horses and mules, as if trees walking. The white tops of the commissary schooners, led horses, trailing mules, and a vast horde of driven beeves moving southward, headed for Sherman’s headquarters, developed into a reality. The only drawback was men in blue, some riding, many tramping alongside the wagons. All of these carried guns, and they had special orders to kill all who attempted to take these things from their custody. Necessity is a great incentive, and the Confederates, with patriotism and hunger impelling, without preliminary proceedings, made vigorous assault on the custodians of what to those attacking was the equal of life itself. The odds were against the Confederates, but these had so much at stake that the issue could not long be doubtful. They went after their enemies with such dash and determination that the guards soon fled and left to them the possession of the wagons, the beeves, the horses, the mules and great stores of good things to eat. The cravings of nature were quickly met, but, as with hands full, riders supplied their own bodies, bits were removed from the mouths of the faithful steeds, and with greatest dispatch a bountiful supply of shelled corn and oats was spread upon the ground before the enraptured vision of the jaded steeds. The lowing, restless cattle were corralled by the new masters. Doomed to an early death, it made but little odds whether they fed men who were clad in blue or gray.

General Hannon, with a guard, soon herded the precious drove and its course was promptly turned eastward to escape Federal interference. The captors hoped to run the gauntlet of Federal pursuit and with the glorious prize to bring gladness and relief to the hungry men who, in and about Atlanta, with unfailing courage, were hanging on to that citadel with the grim courage of a forlorn hope to save it from capture and destruction.

These cattle and their guards, although vigorously pursued, with favoring fortune escaped the imminent dangers about them and were landed within the Confederate lines. They would yield more than one million pounds of choice beef, thirty-five pounds for every soldier in General Hood’s army. When these lowing beasts joined the Confederate commissary, there was universal delight, and many joys were added to those who so valiantly were defending the environed citadel about which so much of Confederate faith was now centered.

Emboldened by his success, the Confederate chieftain now followed the railroad, northward from Marietta. He was going over the ground with which he became so familiar a few weeks before on Johnson’s retreat from Dalton to Atlanta. No Federal foresight could stay the avenging hand of the Confederate railway wreckers. Dalton, Sherman’s starting point in the early days of May, was captured, and from Resaca to that point, in many places the track was completely torn up. There were Federals behind and Federals all about, but their presence did not disturb the game little southern general and his men in gray. Bridges, trestles, cattle guards, guns, ammunition, mules, horses, were the things he had calculated to capture and destroy, and to this work he bent all the energies of his willing and active followers. In crossing the streams, the ammunition of every soldier was inspected by officers and every man was compelled to tie his cartridge box about his neck to prevent contact with water. The man, the horse, the gun, the powder and ball must be kept in the best possible condition. On these, combined, depended not only the safety of the command, but the success of the campaign. A few sentences from General Wheeler’s order of August 9th, 1864, will tell how stern was the demand for the protection of the horses who were to carry their masters on this strenuous march: “No soldier of any grade whatever will be permitted to carry any article of private property, except one single blanket and one oil cloth.” Officers and men alike were to share these prevailing and bear these stringent exactions. There was no complaint against these drastic regulations. Rarely, if ever, were these orders disobeyed. With noblest patriotism and sublimest self-sacrifice, the volunteers under Wheeler recognized the necessity of such a call and there was no claim of self-denial and no call of physical privation they were unwilling to face or endure, if they only might win their country’s freedom and drive its enemies from its soil.

When marching out of Dalton, the Federal general, Steedman, furiously assailed Wheeler’s command, but he was beaten off, and a direct march was made on Chattanooga. This greatly alarmed the Federal leader, and he hastened to the rescue of that stronghold; and then General Wheeler, as if playing hide and seek, turned again to Dalton, to which place he was in turn followed by Steedman, only to find his wary enemy gone. These valuable days for Federal repair of the railroad were thus consumed in fruitless marching and countermarching, induced by General Wheeler’s strategy. This interrupted the use of the railway for twelve days, and these two hundred and eighty-eight hours meant much to Sherman’s one hundred thousand followers, camped on the Chattahoochee. The exactions of twelve months of war and alternate occupation of both armies had depleted the country along the railway of all that could sustain man or beast, and by the necessities for forage, General Wheeler was compelled to leave this ravaged territory, and marched eastwardly towards Knoxville. There he was sure of reaching supplies, and he quickly turned his steps towards the valleys along the Tennessee River above Chattanooga. Once before, he had crossed at Cottonport, forty miles above that city; but when he came to the scene of his former brilliant operations, floods filled the banks of the stream and prevented a passage there. He resolved to follow the line of the river towards Knoxville and search for some spot at which he might swim or ferry over. Leaving six companies of thirty men each along the railway to harass and alarm the Federals, with the remainder of his troops he rode away. Those left behind gave a good account of themselves. More than twenty loaded trains became victims of their matchless daring, and it was some time before the enemy knew that General Wheeler had moved his sphere of operations.

If one will take an enlarged map and start with a line beginning at Covington, Georgia, forty miles south of Atlanta, where General Wheeler concentrated his troops on August 10th, to begin this expedition, and trace through all the journeyings of his command for the next twenty-eight days, some idea can be obtained of the tremendous energies and wonderful skill that marked this raid. To make this ride without let or hindrance, within the period it covered, with the animals and supplies possessed by Wheeler’s men, would be considered a reasonable march; but encumbered with artillery and ammunition wagons, the sick and wounded that always must follow in the train of a cavalry incursion make the difficulties appalling. Hidden dangers lurked on every side. The constant pursuit, as well as the constant change in the Federal disposition of both cavalry and infantry forces, rendered the game at all places and hours distractingly uncertain, and only a leader of consummate energy, combined with masterful skill, could hope to escape in safety from such desperate and perilous complications. To make the most conservative estimate of excursions from the main line of march would require something like six hundred and fifty miles of riding on this raid. No well-appointed commissary was present to feed man and hungrier beast. These must live from hand to mouth and either take food from the enemy or to impress it from people, loyal in most cases to the South, and already so impoverished by war that starvation was a real and ever present factor. In partisan warfare, soldiers do not care much for the taking of even the necessaries of life from those who oppose or do not sympathize with them; but to go into a farmer’s barn lot and take his hay, corn and oats, shoot down his hogs and cattle for food, and clean up his chicken coops, because you are compelled to take these or starve yourself and your horse; and knowing all the while the owner loves the cause and country for which you are fighting, and probably his sons and relations are somewhere out in the army contending for that which is dear to you and them, is bound to create a profound sense of grief and sorrow and even shame in any honorable soul. These takings of food from sympathizers often leave in the hearts of true men bitter and more depressing memories then the death and wounds on the battlefield, or the pathetic scenes where comrades in the cheerless hospital are wrestling with disease in a combat for life.

If General Wheeler and his men could not find and take from Federals the things that were essential to life, then they were compelled to despoil in the struggle for self-preservation their own friends and countrymen.

There were but few soldiers in General Wheeler’s four thousand men who rode out of Covington, Georgia, on August 10th, 1864, who, as between the consequences of battle and the taking from aged men, helpless women and dependent children their only food supply, would not have gladly accepted the alternative of battle with absolute cheerfulness and the chances it brought of death or wounding. Two-thirds of the territory to be traversed was a friendly country. In East Tennessee, Confederates found few supporters, or well-wishers, and here the southern soldier was not disturbed about discrimination; but Middle Tennessee and Northern Georgia were almost unanimously loyal, and ever greeted the legions in gray with smiles and benedictions, and so long as they had any surplus over starvation’s rations, would gladly have shared it with the trooper who followed Wheeler, Forrest or Morgan on their arduous rides.

In all this long march and hard campaign, there was not one day, hardly one hour, in which there was not contact with the enemy. The Federals appreciated, as well as the Confederates, what the destruction of the railway between Atlanta and Chattanooga meant to Sherman and his great army camped southward in Georgia. If forced by lack of food and munitions of war to recede, it meant losing what had cost a year’s vigorous campaigning and the waste of the thousands of lives that in battle or by disease had been paid as the price of winning the most important citadel of Georgia.

The twenty-four days, from August 10th to September 3rd, were eventful days in the history of the army of the Tennessee. Sherman sat down in front of Atlanta in July, and by slow degrees was endeavoring by siege and starvation to drive General Hood away. This proved a most difficult task. From Atlanta to Nashville was two hundred and eighty-eight miles, and while Sherman might hammer Hood’s lines south of Atlanta, Hood had most potential wreckers in Forrest and Wheeler to operate on this three hundred miles, upon one hundred and fifty-two of which, from Chattanooga to Atlanta, he must rely for those things without which war could not be carried on. Against this line of Sherman’s, the Confederate cavalry again and again were hurled, always with tremendous effect. Now and then they put Sherman and his men on half rations, and the ordnance department counted their stores to calculate what might happen if the pressure was not relieved. No phase of the war presented nobler evidences of skill, great self-sacrifice or physical endurance, as month after month, Wheeler and Forrest went out upon their errands of destruction and waste. Over in Virginia, Stuart and Hampton grandly met the conditions that faced them there. Across the Mississippi, in Arkansas, Missouri and Texas, brave spirits were fearlessly keeping up the conflict against ever-increasing odds; but along the Mississippi, the Tennessee and the Cumberland were surroundings that invoked a breadth of genius and a scope of operation that excited wonder and admiration everywhere the story was told. The distance here was so great, nature’s obstacles so pronounced, that those who measured and calculated and mastered these, needed something almost above the human to forecast and overcome.

The War, from 1861 to 1865, developed many problems that no soldier in the past had ever faced. There were no experiences that the books described that could fully guide the men in this department as to the best means of harassing and defeating armies that came like Sherman’s.

For the special work that the time and place had cut out for the South, Providence provided two men whose names must go down in human history as superb examples of skill, daring, resource and patience, which will always give them a proud place in the annals of war. Whether we write Forrest and Wheeler, or Wheeler and Forrest, it counts not. Different minds may gauge them differently, but at the end, all who study what they did and how they did it, must set them down as amongst the greatest soldiers of the world. Those who looked upon their faces might not catch at once the splendor of their powers. They were totally unlike in most of their physical makeup, but when once the beholder looked into their eyes, the only safe index to the soul and mind, there was in both of these remarkable men something that at once challenged admiration and proclaimed superiority. In both of their countenances, the Creator stamped valor, intrepidity, self-confidence, individual force and genius and power of achievement. To thus speak of these two extraordinary men takes nothing from the achievements or talents of other great southern cavalry leaders. Stuart, Hampton, Morgan, Marmaduke, Shelby and many others filled their spheres with a luminosity that age cannot dim. It may be that it is probably true that Forrest and Wheeler would have failed when Stuart, Hampton and Morgan won. Each takes, by his performance, an exalted place in the resplendent galaxy of the South’s heroic world. One cannot be judged sharply by the other. There was so much that was brave, skillful and intrepid in them all, that the pen of criticism, by way of comparison, falls paralyzed by the wonder, love and admiration for the various achievements of these military prodigies.

Even during the last days of the War, men who wrote rather than fought, attempted to draw comparisons between the cavalry leaders and what they had accomplished; but the hour for this is now forever gone, and they who love the South and its precious memories sit and gaze in rapture and astonishment at what all and any of these men, with such meager resources, were able to accomplish in those days of darkness and trial, and what the men who followed the stars and bars were doing and daring so constantly in their struggle with an opposing destiny, to win a nation’s crown for the Confederate States.

Some say that Wheeler’s raid through Northern Georgia, into Middle and Eastern Tennessee, in the last days of August and the first days of September, 1864, is a performance so unique and marvelous that it takes a place in history by itself.

Others point to Forrest’s raid into Middle Tennessee, which, succeeding that of General Wheeler, sets a mark on such campaigns that none other ever reached; but those who love Morgan, with the pride of his great achievements, point to Hartsville and the Christmas raid of 1862 as the most remarkable achievement of the great performances of southern cavalry. Another voice speaks of Stuart’s Chickahominy raid and of his ride from Chambersburg to the Potomac, and the Battle of Fleetwood Hill (Brandy Station) as overshadowing all other cavalry triumphs, while others call to mind Hampton’s cattle raid, his Trevilian Station battle and campaign with his jaded mounts, and cry out, “Here is the acme of cavalry successes”; but when we recall what all of these men and their chivalrous followers accomplished for the renown and glory of a nation whose life span was only four years, the human mind is dazzled with the wealth and extent of the glorious memories that gather about the pages which tell of southern cavalry achievement, service and fame.

When General Wheeler, on the 28th day of August, marched up almost to the gates of Nashville and terrified its defenders, he carried with him a motley crowd. The brigades of General Williams and General Anderson had not returned to General Wheeler. They moved east and did incalculable service for the cause in saving the salt works, in Southwestern Virginia, upon which the people and the armies of the Confederacy, west of the Mississippi River, depended for salt, which, next to bread, was the staff of life. But the defection, whether wise or unwise, reduced General Wheeler’s force, already scant enough, to only two thousand men, and thereby imperilled the success of the incursion and threatened the destruction of General Wheeler’s entire command, which at that time would have proven an irreparable loss to Hood’s army. The rise in the Tennessee River had forced General Wheeler to extend his line far east of where he had intended originally to go. These unexpected currents carried him miles beyond Knoxville and out of his chosen path, and the detour south and east of Knoxville to cross the rivers greatly stayed the work of wrecking the railroads between Nashville and the South. Once he was over the Tennessee and its tributaries, the Holston and the French Broad, General Wheeler turned his face westward. The country through which he was to march was in some parts unfriendly. At Clinton, Kingston and other points on his way, he found scattered Federal camps and supplies, but what he needed most now was horses. He had come three hundred miles, and three hundred more must he traverse before he could draw a long breath or be sure that he could, without disaster, reach General Hood’s quarters. Day by day, his beasts became more jaded. No animal, which could carry a man, was left behind, and what could not be taken from the enemy must be impressed from friend or foe along the road which he was passing. The extra shoe or pair of horseshoes with which every prudent cavalryman provides himself, where it is possible, when starting on these marches, had in most cases been exhausted. The company farrier or the comrade who could put on a horseshoe loomed up as the noblest benefactor of the hour. Some were already dismounted. Love, money and force were all beginning to be powerless to mount those who composed the columns. Then, too, ammunition was getting very scarce, and the few cartridges which now rattled in the partly emptied cartridge boxes were constant warnings to the commander to seek his base of operations. All these things spoke to General Wheeler with forceful emphasis, but he also remembered his work was not fully done. The long detour around Knoxville had changed his march, but it had not changed his plan or his purpose, and he could not be satisfied until he grappled again with the railroads which supplied Sherman and put out of commission some more bridges, trestles and cars and supply stations south of Nashville. The road by Sparta, McMinnville, Lebanon, Murfreesboro and intervening places was long, rough and rocky. It proved very trying to the speechless beasts who had now marched, counting the detours, an average of over thirty miles a day. The men had done the fighting, but the beasts had done the carrying, and the beasts in these raids always got the worst of it. The way home was not distressingly: beset with enemies until the vicinity of Nashville would be reached, but there was a sufficient sprinkle of foes to keep the southern riders aware that they were engaged in war, and no twenty-four hours passed without some evidence of the presence of the Federals. The march around Knoxville had mystified the Federal leaders. They were as surprised as General Wheeler that he had gone so far east, but now that he had turned north and westward, none had wisdom enough to prophesy where he would turn up in the very near future. General Wheeler had a wide, wide territory before him. He might strike in north of Nashville and pass around through West Tennessee, or he might follow the Louisville & Nashville Railroad north and destroy that great artery of commerce. Whither he would go, none could even guess, and when Grant at Washington, and Sherman at Atlanta, pleaded for some tidings of the aggressive Confederate and begged to know whither he had gone, the men watching Middle and East Tennessee could only answer, “We cannot tell where he is or into what place he will come.” As the posts became scarcer General Wheeler traveled the harder, and he soon put in an appearance at Sparta and then at McMinnville, the last only sixty miles from Nashville. He was getting close to the danger line. At this juncture, General Wheeler’s difficulties began to greatly enlarge. His fighting men, with the loss of Williams and Anderson, had been cut down, even with several hundred of recruits, to twenty-five hundred men.

On the 30th of August, he made a stirring patriotic appeal for every able-bodied man to flock to his standard. He pointed out what Georgia was doing in demanding the services of every male from seventeen to sixty-five, and he pleaded with all who could fight or were willing to fight, to gather under his standard and to go to the help of their fellow-Tennesseans, who, down at Atlanta, were meeting every call unreservedly and rendering every service to stay the tide of conquest.

This appeal did not fall on deaf or unresponsive ears. Two thousand came to join Wheeler and hundreds more to take place with other commands, and almost a mob followed his line of march. Some of them brought guns, most all of them horses, but twenty-five hundred men were to do the fighting for this unorganized host. Only twenty-five hundred could fight, but they could and all must eat, and the impoverished country could not maintain this hungry throng. A supply for all of these could only find sustenance in Federal storehouses, and to these General Wheeler turned his attention, ever keeping in mind that under all the pressure about him, he had come to harass and distress his foes, and this must not be omitted. Forcing his way northwardly from McMinnville to Lebanon, thirty miles west of Nashville, his enemies became almost desperate, and the commandant at Gallatin, twelve miles from Lebanon, burned up a great supply of stores and hastily decamped. Several other stations joined in this move for safety. Of what was ahead of him, General Wheeler had no accurate news. On a straight line, he was nearly three hundred miles from Hood, and if the pace became desperate, Hood in the end must become his best backer outside of his own gallant and intrepid followers. Cutting in behind Murfreesboro, thirty miles south of Nashville, with apparent indifference to consequences, he turned sharply to the north again and came up within eight miles of Nashville, and with his pickets in sight of the spires and smoke, he began to wreck the railroad leading to Chattanooga. The Federals did not appear to know just where the bold leader was and they did not care where he went if he kept out of Nashville, but in the very shadow of its domes, he set his wreckers to work demolishing the line which meant so much to Sherman. These experienced destroyers made haste in their work of ruin. Moving southward, they left savage marks to tell of their presence, and the burning ties and twisted iron informed the onlooker that experienced men were engaged in this mission. General Wheeler had only occasion to keep out of the path of large forces. Stockades were exempt, except where their occupants had fled, and for seventy miles south of Nashville, the wrecking went vigorously on. Rousseau, Steedman and Granger, who were managing the watch for Sherman, either did not know where Wheeler actually was or they did not appear overly anxious to stop his progress. Following the Tennessee & Alabama Railroad for seventy miles with leisurely movements, General Wheeler, seemingly regardless of his foes, pursued his appointed way to a position north of Florence, Alabama. General Wheeler’s audacity apparently paralyzed the efforts of his pursuers. At Franklin, they had forced some sharp fighting, and here the chivalrous major general, John H. Kelly, fell. Rarely did the South, with its transcendent oblations on the altar of freedom, make nobler offering than this gifted army officer. A graduate of West Point, endowed with great military genius and burning with unbounded patriotism, few men with his opportunities did more for the South than he. In the full tide of a magnificent and brilliant career, he died, leading his men on to battle. Trusted and loved by General Wheeler, he had learned his leader’s methods and, like him, always went to the front, and when it was necessary to inspire and enthuse his command, he led them in every assault upon the lines of their foes. It was in such work he fell.

Recruits, wagon trains, ambulances and wagons filled with wounded, dismounted men and broken down steeds, were the constant reminder to General Wheeler of the dangers of his perilous retreat. About him, all these disturbing difficulties and dangers momentarily stared him in the face. Behind him, vigorous foes were many times pressing his rear guard. What forces might be moved by the Federals to block his path, he could not foresee, but over and above all these disturbing complications, the Confederate leader, weighing not more than one hundred and thirty pounds, sat in his saddle, calm, self-possessed and fearless, awaiting with a brave heart and an undisturbed soul all that fate could bring across his path. He felt that with the brave men about him, war could bring no conflict and present no experiences from which he could not, with credit to his chivalrous command, emerge without defeat and destruction, and in which he would not punish his enemies and give them experiences that would cause them to regret that they had ever assailed his followers or disputed his pathway.

On this great raid, one hundred and twenty dead and wounded was all toll that the God of War exacted of General Wheeler’s forces. He compelled General Sherman to send more than twelve thousand men to the help of his commands. He had destroyed the use of one of the railroads on which the Federals relied for twelve days, the other for thirty days, put General Sherman’s forces on half rations and created in his army a dread and apprehension that did much to help depress their activities and awaken doubts as to the final outcome of the conflict for Atlanta.

Chapter XII
JOHNSONVILLE RAID AND FORREST’S
MARINE EXPERIENCES, NOVEMBER, 1864

October and November, 1864, covered the most successful and aggressive period of General Forrest’s remarkable exploits. Volumes could be written describing the details of his marvellous marches and his almost indescribable triumphs with the means and men at his command. From August 23rd to October 15th, 1864, his capture of Athens, Alabama, the expedition into middle Tennessee, the destruction of the Tennessee and Alabama railway, the capture of Huntsville, destruction of the Sulphur trestles, the battle at Eastport, had presented an array of experiences and won victories enough to make him and his men heroes for the years to come. Within these fifty-three days the actual and incidental losses inflicted upon the Federals cannot be fully estimated. He had killed and captured thirty-five hundred men and officers of the Federal Army, added nine hundred head of horses to his equipment, captured more than one hundred and twenty head of cattle, one hundred wagons and their supplies, and possessed himself of three thousand stand of small arms and stores for his commissary ordnance and medical supplies, which made glad the hearts of his hungry, ill-clad and debilitated followers.

Six long truss bridges had fallen before his relentless destroyers, one hundred miles of railroad had been completely wrecked, two locomotives, with fifty freight cars, had been demolished, thousands of feet of railway trestles, some of sixty feet in height, had been hewn down and given over to flames, to say naught of hundreds of thousands of other property essential to Federal occupation. He had caught up one thousand men in Middle Tennessee for his own command and enabled six hundred men who had either straggled or been cut off from General Wheeler when he had raided the same territory a short while before to come out to the commands. It had cost Forrest three hundred men and officers, killed or wounded. Some of his bravest and best had died on the expedition. Many of them were men whose places could now never be filled, but according to the economics of war, the price paid was not too great for the results obtained. He had traversed over five hundred miles and left a savagely marked trail of ravage and destruction wherever he had come. Not a day was without some sort of contact with the enemy, and every hour was full of danger and peril, demanding ceaseless vigilance and wariest care. On January 13th, 1864, a new Department styled “Forrest’s Cavalry Department” was organized out of West Tennessee and Northern Mississippi. Hardly had the new year been ushered in when the Federal Government, with ten thousand well-equipped and well-drilled cavalry, undertook to force a way down from Memphis to Meridian, taking in some of the Confederate strongholds like Pontotoc, Okolona, Columbus Junction and Macon, a distance of two hundred and fifty miles, to end at Macon. General Sherman was to move from Vicksburg with an army of twenty thousand troops. Co-operation of the cavalry was deemed of the greatest importance. To lead these horsemen, William Sooy Smith, not only a great engineer, but a successful soldier, was placed in command. Telegraphic communication had been opened between Vicksburg and Memphis, so that it was hoped these forces, thus co-operating, might keep in touch with each other. General Sherman made good his march to Meridian, playing havoc with railroad connections and other property in Mississippi. General Smith however failed to keep his engagement. He had been delayed in starting, until the 11th of February, from his rendezvous, Colliers Station, twenty-five miles southeastward from Memphis. He waited here for Colonel George E. Waring, who had been instructed to come from Columbus, Kentucky, with another brigade, under orders to unite with General Smith. Waring left Columbus with several thousand cavalry, and with the best arms of that period, and what was considered at that time amongst the most thoroughly furnished cavalry forces that had ever gone from the Federal lines. General Smith had informed General Sherman that Forrest would strike him somewhere in Northern Mississippi between Cold and Tallahatchee Rivers. After his invasion of West Tennessee, General Forrest had been enabled to get together four brigades under General Richardson, Colonel McCullough, General Tyree H. Bell and General Forrest’s brother, Jeffrey E. Forrest. The Confederates were not inactive, and they prepared to offer strongest resistance to General Smith. The State Militia, under General Gholson, were brought into line. Smith marched for several days unhindered, and the absence of Confederate forces impressed him that it would not be long before he would come in contact with Forrest. Northwestern Mississippi was a great prairie country, producing the most grain of any section of the Southwest. When the Federals reached West Point, Mississippi, there were unmistakable signs of battle. There General Smith learned that three Forrests were about, General Nathan Bedford, Colonel Jeffrey E., and Captain William, and investigation disclosed that the number of men with Forrest was about two thousand. General Smith had now traveled half way from Memphis to Meridian, and Sherman was waiting and watching for Smith’s coming. General Forrest had studiously circulated reports magnifying the number of men under his command. By the 21st of February, Smith felt that the impending blow was about to fall. He hesitated and was lost. He turned back, and Forrest’s hour of advantage had come. Colonel Waring in his book, “Whip and Spur,” of this moment speaks as follows: “No sooner had we turned tail than Forrest saw his time had come, and he pressed us seriously all day and until nightfall.” The retrograde movement was just commenced when Jeffrey Forrest’s orders were to fall in after Captain Tyler’s battalion and to assail the Federal rear at every chance. Pursuit was vigorous and active, and General Smith’s retreat became almost a stampede. It was in one of these charges that Colonel Jeffrey E. Forrest, commanding a brigade, the younger brother of General Forrest, was killed. For over sixty miles, night and day, a relentless pursuit was kept up. Forrest had four thousand men that were new troops. A majority of them had seen service less than six weeks. They were hardy men but mostly untrained soldiers, but they prided themselves that they were the equals of any veterans.

By the time General Smith reached Memphis he had more of a mob than an army. There was practically no organization left and it was almost a case of everybody for himself and devil take the hindmost. Not two weeks had elapsed since, in the pride of strength and full of ambitious hopes, they had set out to cripple and destroy Forrest, and now, with less than fourteen days to their credit as avengers and destroyers, they came, humiliated by reverses, scattered in fright, and with no signs of victory on their colors. Their leaders could make but little excuse for their ignominious failure, and the only chance to palliate or mitigate defeat was to magnify General Forrest’s army that had at first stood them at bay and then, with pitiless pursuit, had driven them to the place from whence they had started with such dazzling dreams of glory and triumph.

This expedition disposed of, Forrest began at once to cut out new work. There were no furloughs for him. War in his mind was constant, ceaseless activity. The scarcity of horses and ammunition as well as clothing was a constant charge upon Forrest’s energies. He could not get from the Confederate quartermaster or commissary what he most needed, and far out on the front he could not wait for transportation even if the Confederates had the essential things. In the Federal Army and outposts he always found an unfailing supply of those things his men must have to faithfully fight.

Three regiments of Kentuckians, about this period, were sent over to help General Forrest, and they were fully up to his high standard of fighters. They only numbered seven hundred men after the decimation of three years in infantry, but they proved a most valuable asset. None of his men were more dependable. Buford, Lyon, Faulkner, Hale, Thompson, Tyler and Crossland could always be counted on for gallant leadership, and the men under them were never averse to fighting at the closest range. These men needed clothing. The Government had given them poor mounts, some of them had rope bridles, with no saddles. They used blankets as a substitute and now and then rode for a while bareback, until they drew from the Federal commissary, by force, what they needed. Up in Kentucky, if any good horses were left after impressment from both sides, these Kentucky boys would surely find them. As for clothing, that would come in far greater quantities than would be desired, and sight of home faces and home places would make them stronger for the subsequent work at Bryce’s Cross Roads, Harrisburg and Johnsonville, and other conflicts, where only highest courage could avail.

Then, too, the Tennesseans, who had come from the northwestern part of the State, also needed mounts and uniforms, and they longed to see what the sad ravages of war had done for their homes and kindred in that part of the South where the cauldron of pillage and bloodshed seemed ever to be seething.

General Forrest reorganized his command into four brigades, and on the 12th day of April Fort Pillow was taken. A year before this, General Forrest had penetrated a considerable distance into Kentucky and had captured a number of posts and looked askance at Fort Pillow. This was deemed a valuable possession, it was used not only for the defense of the river, but as a recruiting place for fugitive slaves. The story of Fort Pillow has been told so often that it need not be repeated here. The loss of Federals was supposed to be five hundred killed and an equal number captured. Forrest’s loss was twenty killed and sixty wounded. Fort Pillow was considered remarkable among cavalry achievements. Forrest, with a few untrained soldiers, had accomplished and won this great victory and given his foes new reasons for animosity. Much, very much has been written and spoken about Fort Pillow. It became a name with which to conjure the colored troops, and through it abuse was so heaped upon General Forrest as to create the impression that he was a brutal, ferocious and merciless monster. The Federal Congress set afoot an investigation, but Forrest’s defense from the calumnies heaped upon him satisfied his friends, if it did not convince his enemies.

The character and antecedents of the garrison had much to do with the events of the histories connected with its capture. Renegade Tennesseans and fugitive slaves comprised the larger part of its defenders. The white men there had perpetrated many wrongs and outrages upon the defenseless families of the Tennesseans under Forrest. Great numbers of his men had come from the regions where these hideous wrongs had been inflicted. Feeling was high on both sides. Human passions had been thoroughly aroused in Confederate and Federal hearts, and both sides were rejoiced at a chance to “have it out.” Neither side went into the conflict looking for any signs of surrender, and had the Confederates changed places, they would have fared no better than those they defeated and captured. But the fall of the Fort was a great windfall to General Forrest, and while it increased the hate of his foes, it detracted nothing from his renown and fame amongst his own people.

Many Federal generals had tried their hand with Forrest only to meet failure. William Sooy Smith had lost, and General Stephen A. Hurlbut had also failed. General C. C. Washburn had taken his place and then Samuel D. Sturgis came and then Bryce’s Cross Roads. Later followed the Confederate defeat at Harrisburg, which for awhile saddened Forrest’s heart. Wounded shortly after this battle, General Forrest was forced to ride in a buggy with his torn foot lifted up so as to cause him the least pain. It was persistently rumored that he had died of lockjaw, and there would have been no tears among the Federals if this had turned out to be true. By the beginning of August, General Forrest had recovered from his wounds sufficiently to enable him to enter upon one of his greatest exploits. Riding into the heart of Memphis, he caused Generals Washburn, Buchland and Hurlbut to flee from their beds at night and seek safety in the forts around the city. General Washburn’s uniform and effects were captured, but he managed to escape. General Washburn sought to lay the blame for this successful and marvelous feat upon General A. J. Smith. Under all the circumstances, Forrest’s raid into Memphis was admittedly amongst the most brilliant and daring cavalry exploits of the war. That two thousand men should avoid the cities in which the Federal garrisons were quartered, pass them by, travel a hundred miles, and then rush into the city of Memphis, make good their escape with an embarrassing contingent of supplies and prisoners, up to that time had few if any parallels.

The tremendous power and efficacy of the methods of General Forrest had at last been realized, and the Government at Richmond resolved to turn Forrest loose upon Sherman, in connection with General Richard Taylor, who had command of the department of the Mississippi. General Taylor, sympathizing with Forrest in his style of fighting, on the 16th day of September, 1864, set him afloat for twenty-one days’ operations on the rear of the enemy. Forrest’s entry into Memphis had caused A. J. Smith’s army to return to that city and had temporarily withdrawn a large and threatening force from Mississippi. Up to that time General Taylor had never seen Forrest. He described him as a tall, stalwart man with grayish hair, kindly countenance and slow of speech. Nature made General Forrest a great soldier. With opportunities for the development of his marvelous genius, there could have been no limit to his performances.

On the 16th day of September, Forrest started from Verona, Mississippi, with three thousand five hundred and forty-two effective men. He undertook to cross the Tennessee River at Newport, where boats had been provided. The artillery, ordnance and wagons were crossed at Newport, but Forrest waded the river at Colbert Shoals. Chalmers commanded one division and Buford the other. Reinforcements now joined Forrest, which made four thousand five hundred soldiers, four hundred of which, however, were dismounted and were following on foot with the expectation of capturing mounts during the raid. These hardy men were glad, by walking and many times running, to be allowed to join the expedition. A horse was the most desirable of all earthly possessions. They were hesitant at no fatigue and hardship which led them to a mount. Those who went with Forrest well knew they would at some point be sure of a captured beast. They all had some friend who would ride and tie with them. Here and there, on some short stretch of good road, they might when nobody was looking get a lift in an ammunition wagon. Then, too, they could escape the slush and mud in the bespattered road, and trotting alongside the fences or passway, they would find it no great task to keep even with the artillery and heavily loaded horses, unless when the haste of battle or the rush of pursuit quickened the pace of the advancing column. Life was worthless to a cavalryman under the great leaders of the Confederate troopers if he had no horse, and thus these nervy men for days followed the expedition, with unfailing faith that in a reasonable time General Forrest would at least give them a sufficient chance with their enemies to enable them to forage upon the Federal Government for the much needed steed. None who ever witnessed these dismounted battalions marching on foot to the scenes of devastation and battle could fail to be impressed with the power of the human will or the strenuosity of the human body under the impulse of war’s hopes and calls.

At this time there was a railroad which ran from Nashville, Tennessee, to Decatur, Alabama, called the Alabama and Tennessee Railroad. This had been a feeder for Federal commissary and general supplies, and General Forrest undertook to destroy it. The Confederates had not been expected. Athens, Alabama, was the first Federal stronghold to fall. Forrest’s presence had never been suspected until his troops were in sight of the place. It surrendered without contest. Nine hundred prisoners were captured at Athens. This invasion of Forrest stayed for a little while Sherman’s great march to the sea. From Pulaski, Tennessee, General Forrest moved to the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad. He reported that the enemy had concentrated at least ten thousand men on the 27th of September, and on the 28th he began to play havoc with the railroad at Fayetteville and Tullahoma. The Federal forces, under the direction of General Sherman, were concentrated in the hope of capturing Forrest. General Sherman telegraphed that he could take care of the line between Atlanta and Chattanooga, but the line from Nashville to Chattanooga must be protected by others. The rage of Forrest’s enemies was evidence enough to convince the men of the South that he had done his work well. At that time General Sherman telegraphed to General Grant on the 29th of September, in which he said, speaking of Forrest, “His cavalry will travel 100 miles in less time than ours will travel 10.” He also said, “I can whip his infantry, but his cavalry is to be feared.” Again he telegraphed to General Elliott, chief of the cavalry department of the Cumberland, “Our cavalry must do more, for it is strange that Forrest and Wheeler should encircle around us thus. We should at least make 10 miles to his 100.”

On the 1st of October, on this raid, Forrest reached Spring Hill, twenty-six miles from Nashville. So far no reverses. The time had come now for General Forrest to escape. On the 3rd of October, with all possible speed, to avoid the Federal columns, he marched south, reaching Florence, Alabama, where he had forded the river two weeks before, but now it was swollen and could no longer be passed. At this point, in what would be considered almost a crisis, Forrest was compelled to carry a thousand of his men out to an island in the Tennessee River, which was filled with an impenetrable growth of cane and timber of all kinds, and hide his boats behind the island, while the enemy was still watching to prevent his troops from crossing. General Forrest, in speaking of this wonderful expedition, said, “I captured 86 commissioned officers, 67 government employees, 1,274 non-commissioned officers and privates and 933 negroes, and killed and wounded 1,000 more, making an aggregate of 3,360, being an average of one to each man I had in the engagements.” He further says, “I captured 800 horses, 7 pieces of artillery, 2,000 stands of small arms, several hundred saddles, 50 wagons and ambulances with a large amount of medical, commissary and quartermaster’s stores, all of which have been distributed to the different commands.”

Now a still greater victory and a new departure in military work was to mark the closing months of 1864, in which General Forrest acted with an independent command. Towards the end of the war, Memphis became a center of the most important operations. The Mississippi was always open and it gave entrance into the grain fields of the West and through the Ohio, the Missouri, the Wabash and the White Rivers, and put at the service of the Federal Army abundant supplies of food and raiment.

The Tennessee River, the fifth largest stream in the United States, like the New River, is one of the marvels of nature. Rising far up in the mountains, close to the Virginia line, it pushes its way southwardly through Tennessee, swinging around into Alabama, as if by some capricious fancy, it changes its direction and then turns north about four hundred and fifty miles to its mouth, where it mingles its waters with those of the Ohio, sixty miles above its union with the Mississippi. After leaving Alabama, pursuing its course within fifty miles of the Father of Waters, it appears to be reluctant to reinforce that stream with which it runs parallel for hundreds of miles. It would appear according to reason and nature that it should again have veered to the west and effected its connection with the Mississippi, but as if wishing to defy this mighty stream, it still moves onward and northward. It comes then within two miles of the Cumberland, which is fed by the waters from the mountains close to where the Tennessee River has its source, and then, as if running a race with the Cumberland, it flows along parallel with that stream and, at last, wearied by its tortuous journeys for nine hundred miles, at Paducah it mingles its waters with those of the Ohio, and these in turn pass westward and reach the Mississippi at Cairo.

About one hundred and fifty miles from Memphis, on the Tennessee River, was a little town called Johnsonville, and at that time it was at the head of the navigable part of the Tennessee River. To that point the larger boats could most always come and it was a great depot for supplies, and in an emergency these might be carried over to Nashville or Memphis, as either one or the other might require.

Forrest was beginning now fully to recover from the effects of the loss of the troops he trained in the earlier months of the war. Successful beyond all question in cavalry service, he had again gathered about him a corps of almost invincible men. His new recruits and such soldiers as were reimbued with patriotic impulses, after having left the army when it abandoned Tennessee, by Forrest’s coming into West Tennessee, cheerfully returned to the post of duty and under the impulse of Forrest’s success, and the love and courage with which he impressed all who once saw him enter battle. The ranks of depleted skeleton regiments were partially filled, and the commanders of these new organizations had now, under Forrest’s eye and control, learned how he deemed it wisest to fight, and they were ready to do and dare all that his impetuous valor required, or his marvelous skill as a leader pointed out as the true way to carry on war under the conditions that then existed in his department.

He had now a division of more than four thousand men. He felt sure he could trust them in all emergencies, and he was eager and willing to put them to the highest test, and he undertook at this period what will always be considered as a remarkable cavalry foray, the expedition to Johnsonville, Tennessee.

Before undertaking this arduous work, Forrest had pleaded for a furlough. This had been promised, but an emergency arose which neither he nor General Taylor could foresee or control, and it became impossible for him to be absent even for a brief while; and so Chalmers and his division were directed to report to General Forrest at Jackson, Tennessee, on the 16th day of October.

General Forrest and General Dick Taylor were kindred spirits. Their relations were most happy and pleasant. They were men who fought the same way and thought the same way, and Taylor recognized the greatness of Forrest and fully understood that he did best when left to his own devices.

On October 12th, 1864, Forrest telegraphed Chalmers, commander of one division, “Fetch your wagons and the batteries with you. I will supply you with artillery ammunition at Jackson.” Buford was ordered to take up his line of march for Lexington, a short distance from the Tennessee River, where Forrest had crossed in his December, 1862, expedition. Gun boats and transports were being moved along the Tennessee River. These could go a little south of Chattanooga, and the line of communication had been protected and held open from the river to General Sherman and his men. Forrest had resolved to destroy some of these gunboats and capture some of the transports. He needed some new guns, the clothing, shoes, arms and ammunition of his troopers needed replenishment and, too, he had a conviction that he could enact such scenes on the Tennessee as would disquiet Sherman at Atlanta and by imperiling the river transportation, and destroying the railroads north of Chattanooga, he could bring Sherman, by sheer starvation, out of Georgia. It was a splendid conception, and could the Confederacy have sent Forrest on one line and General Wheeler on the other, it would have stopped or delayed the march to the sea, and prolonged the war another year. Optimists said, it might bring final victory to the banners of the Southland.

On this Johnsonville raid, as often before, he marched with such tremendous rapidity and covered his movements so thoroughly that the enemy knew nothing of either his plans or his positions, until far up in Tennessee they felt the touch of his avenging powers. He had parked batteries at Paris Landing and Fort Heiman on the Tennessee River, and his men began to wait for the unsuspecting Federals before his foes had an inkling of what he really intended to do. He struck the river about forty miles above Johnsonville. The two batteries were five miles apart. He knew what all his enemies were doing, but they caught naught of where he had gone, or was going. Like a great beast of prey, he hid along the river banks in the cane and undergrowth, watching and waiting for his victims to cross his path, or to come his way. A vast majority of the people of West Tennessee were intensely loyal to the South, and it was only here and there that Federal persuasion could win from a native any facts about the movements of any Confederate force. News about Federal movements was always accessible to Forrest’s scouts, who knew accurately every road and by-way of this entire region. It was one hundred and fifty miles to Memphis where a large Federal force was stationed, but none passed Forrest’s line to carry tidings of his doings, and when Forrest’s guns opened on the transports and gunboats on the river, north of Johnsonville, it was a most startling revelation to the Federals of the ubiquitous movements of the Confederate chieftain. The Federal generals knew he was loose somewhere, but they had no power of divining where he might break out to terrorize their garrisons and destroy their railroads or depots of supplies. Forrest, Wheeler, Hampton, Stuart and Morgan had the most efficient scouts that ever kept an army informed of an enemy’s movements. Forrest’s territory for operation was larger than that of any of these other leaders, and he never once failed, thanks to the courage, daring and intelligence of his scouts to know just how many they were and just where he would find his foes.

A grateful people will some day build a monument to these daring and successful purveyors of information, who deserve a very large share in the splendid victories and triumphs of the Confederate cavalry. The South may never know their names, but the world will some day fairly and justly measure what they were in the campaigns which will live forever amongst the most brilliant of military exploits.

Forrest was playing a great game. He had taken big risks and was figuring on tremendous stakes. In the night time he made all necessary dispositions. His scouts had told him that boats were coming and Forrest was glad, for he had come for boats. The Confederates had waited both patiently and impatiently all the night long. Patiently, because they felt sure of their prey; impatiently, for they anxiously desired to feed upon the good things the vessels contained, and also because they had made a long and trying march and, tiger-like, they were ready to spring upon the victim. It was chilly and raw. It had been raining heavily off and on during the past week. The river bottoms, or even the hill tops, were not comfortable places in October without fire, and these things, added to the excitement that preceded great actions, made the Confederate troopers long for the coming of the rising sun. There was something in the very surroundings that gave portent of great deeds and glorious triumphs on the morrow, when they should be sent forth on their mission, and it was difficult to repress, even amidst their depressing environments, the enthusiasm which they felt sure must break forth in the inevitable happenings of the next twenty-four hours.

Early in the morning of October 29th, the Mazeppa, a splendid steamboat, laden with freight, and two barges which she was towing to Johnsonville, came around the great bend of the Tennessee River. The sections of artillery had been posted some distance apart on the river. Passing the lower one, the boatmen discovered its presence only to find themselves between the two hostile batteries. Both were turned loose and in a few minutes the boat was crippled and the pilot headed for the shore. She was abandoned, and the crew in wild dismay found refuge in the woods along the banks. The immediate trouble was that the Confederates were on the opposite side from the stranded steamer. In this crisis, a valiant Confederate, Captain T. Gracy of the 3rd Kentucky, came to the rescue, and although the water was chilling and the current swift, he strapped his revolver around his neck, mounted on a piece of driftwood, and with a board for a paddle, propelled himself across the stream. Keeping true to the instincts of the sailor, the pilot refused to desert his care, and he surrendered to the naked captain who had so bravely crossed the stream. This was probably, in some respects, the richest capture that Forrest had ever made, and his soldiers began to unload the cargo and carry it away from the river bank to a place where it might be watched and preserved until it could be taken away.

The Federal gunboats got the range on the Mazeppa and opened such a heavy fire that its new captors were glad to consign the boat to the flames, while they energetically packed and hauled its precious contents to places so far inland that the guns of these sea fighters could not find the places of hiding.

A little while and another large steamer, the J. W. Cheeseman, approached the upper battery. It was allowed to pass in between the two Confederate positions. No sooner had she gone well into the trap than fire was opened upon her, both from the troops upon the shore, and from the artillery, and her officers were glad to hasten the surrender of this splendid steamer. The gunboat, Undine, had also gone in between the batteries, but the Confederate artillery were not afraid of gunboats, and so they pounded her so severely that she was disabled and driven to the shore, and her crew and officers hastily abandoned her and escaped through the woods, while she became a prize to Confederate daring and marksmanship. In a little while, the transport Venus moved up the river. On this boat was a small detachment of Federal infantry. This boat was attacked by Colonel Kelley and his men, and so heavy was the iron hail upon her that she, too, was glad to surrender and with the gunboat was brought safely to the shore. Half the garrison were killed or wounded and all captured.

On this day it seemed to rain gunboats. Another one, the No. 29, had probably heard the firing, and, coming down the river, anchored within half a mile of the Confederate batteries and opened fire. This was too slow a game for the Confederates, so General Chalmers took the guns and his escort and a company of videttes, and going through the cane and brush got nearer to the gunboat and soon drove it away. The steamboat Cheeseman could no longer be serviceable, her stores were removed and flames lapped up what was left of her. The Venus and the Undine were slightly injured. The Undine was one of the largest gunboats that had been sent up the Tennessee river. She carried eight twenty-four pound guns, and when she became a victim to Confederate courage, her entire armament went with her. Her crew attempted to spike the guns, but in this they were unsuccessful. In all these captures the Confederate loss was one man severely wounded. Five or six Federals were killed on the Venus, three killed and four wounded on the Undine and one wounded on the Cheeseman.

General Forrest, ever resourceful, and whose capacity for all phases of war seemed unlimited, determined to begin a career as a naval officer, and from the cavalry a volunteer crew was made up; two twenty-four pounders were placed on the Venus, and Captain Gracy placed in command. Gracy had shown himself to be a great land fighter, but he was yet to make his reputation as a marine. The captured gunboat was also put into commission. The new commodore was directed to steam his boat up the river toward Johnsonville, a few miles away, while the troops marched along the road parallel to the river. The gunboats were put in charge of Colonel Dawson. He evidently did not want to secure Forrest’s ill will, and so he made a covenant with him that if he lost his fleet, Forrest was not to “cuss” him. The boats got separated. The artillery were not skilled so well on water as they were on land, and so when a Federal commodore, with boats No. 32 and 29, got within range of the Venus, they soon damaged her so badly that she was of no service, and was run ashore and abandoned without even setting on fire. The Undine, seeing the disaster to her companion ship, sought safety on the river bank under the protection of the Confederate batteries. The Federal gunboat soon closed in upon the Undine, and it was necessary to abandon her, also, and set her on fire.

So far General Forrest had inflicted a great amount of damage upon the Federals. He had captured the Mazeppa with seven hundred tons of freight, two other steamboats, two other gunboats, the transports Venus and Cheeseman, and another steamer over at Clarksville on the Cumberland was also destroyed. It was not very far, something like twenty-five miles, across to the Cumberland, and Forrest undertook to operate upon both rivers. Johnsonville was on the east side of the river.

On the 3rd day of November, Forrest reached the scene of action with his chief of artillery, John W. Morton. Johnsonville, at this time, appeared as a sort of heavenly resort, or a Commissary Utopia, to the Confederates, and Forrest promptly undertook its destruction and all that was gathered in it. The landing was filled with transports and barges and gunboats. The great problem with the Confederates in the later periods of the war was something to eat, wear, shoot and ride, and the little town beside the Tennessee, with more supplies than these oftentimes hungry and illy clad horsemen had ever dreamed of, appeared to contain all the provisions in the world. On the banks were houses filled to overflowing with valuable supplies, and acres of army stores were piled around the warehouses. A new battery had come up during the following night, under Captain Thrall. This was placed just above the town, while the Morton and Hudson batteries were placed just opposite and below the town. At two o’clock Forrest opened with his artillery. He had kept his movements so well concealed that the Federals at Johnsonville were unaware of his presence until the Confederate guns announced the presence of an enemy. Morton promptly opened fire upon the forts and gunboats. For a little while the Federals had no apprehension that Forrest could effect very much, but Morton, always skillful, soon obtained the range and by cutting the fuses with precision, he put his shells into the midst of the supply station. Flame and smoke soon began to rise from many of the boats that lined the river, and from the goods along the wharf and the warehouses. By nightfall, the boats and the walls of the commissary were fired, and for three-quarters of a mile up and down, the river presented a great forest of flame. Flames illuminated the horizon for miles and huge volumes of smoke rose up towards the heavens in glorious signals of a great consuming fire. Some said that the Federal soldiers fired their own boats. Morton, Thrall, Bugg, Zaring, Brown and Hunter, the men who directed the artillery firing on this expedition, won splendid laurels by the accuracy of their aim. Colonel Rucker had an extended experience in artillery service in the Mississippi in the earlier stages of the war; while General Lyon, who before his resignation from the United States Army had served as an artillery officer, gave their assistance in the important work of destroying the Federal boats and supplies. The artillery were the chief instruments in this crowning act of destruction, and all others in the other corps were glad to give them due praise and plaudits for the splendid way in which they had performed their part in this magnificent victory.

Forrest had now accomplished all he had come to do. He had burned up millions’ worth of property. The Federals said he had thirteen thousand men with twenty-six guns. Sherman, telegraphing General Grant, said, “That devil, Forrest, was down about Johnsonville, making havoc among the gunboats and transports.”

The roads had become well-nigh impassable, and the return march to Corinth was slow and toilsome. On November 10th, however, he arrived at Corinth in reasonably good order. He had been absent a little more than two weeks. He had captured and destroyed four gunboats, fourteen transports, twenty barges, twenty-six pieces of artillery, and six million seven hundred thousand dollars’ worth of property. One thing that particularly pleased the Confederates was the capture of nine thousand pairs of shoes and one thousand blankets, and strange to say, in all these operations and fourteen days’ fighting of the Confederates, two were killed and nine wounded.

Forrest always was able to mystify his enemies. He had left enough troops in the neighborhood of Memphis to keep the commanders there busy and to fear an attack on the place. General Smith reported from Memphis, on the 16th of October, that the houses had been loop-holed for sharpshooters, and an inner line of cotton defenses constructed, and told his commander that Forrest was at Grenada on the Friday night before. Halleck, in Washington, wired Thomas that Forrest was threatening Memphis. General Sherman was so alarmed by this destruction of Johnsonville that he telegraphed to General Grant, saying, “Sherman estimates that Forrest has 26,000 men mounted and menacing his communications.” The 23rd Corps was despatched to Johnsonville, and up at Columbus, Kentucky, Sherman had given orders that guns must be defended to death and the town should be burned rather than that Forrest should get a pound of provisions. The Federals seemed to be doing more telegraphing than fighting and marching. While they were comforting each other or alarming each other, Forrest’s soldiers, well dressed, well mounted, thoroughly equipped, were pulling through the mud, trying to get out of Tennessee. The mud and slush became such a menace that General Forrest was required to use sixteen oxen to pull one gun. The teams were doubled to carry the cannon, sixteen horses were hitched to a single piece. The oxen would haul the guns ten or fifteen miles and then were turned back to their owners, who were allowed to drive them home.

On the 15th day of November, Forrest reached Iuka, and then by rail from Cherokee Station, Forrest and his men were transferred to Florence, Alabama. On this trip, horseshoes and nails became very scarce. Many times Forrest was compelled to take the tires from the farm wagons along the route and have these forged into shoes and nails for the use of the horses.

This marvelous expedition was to close the really great destructive career of General Forrest. The ink was hardly dry upon his letter to General Dick Taylor, detailing a portion of the work under his command, until orders were given for General Forrest to proceed at once to Florence and there take command of the cavalry of the Army of the Tennessee, under General Hood.

It was a sad mistake when the Confederate Government at Richmond had failed, a year before, to invest General Forrest with command of the cavalry of the Army of the Tennessee. He was not braver than General Wheeler; he was not more patriotic than General Wheeler; but without any reflection, it may be confidently said that from the same number of men, General Forrest would get more fighting than any officer of the Confederate Army, General Lee not excepted. When damage to his enemies was to be calculated Forrest had no superior in the world. He captured and destroyed more Federal military property than any other officer of the war.

Forrest, like Wheeler, always went to the front. Both seemed destined by miraculous interposition to be preserved from death. Many times all those about them went down before the enemy’s fire. Both Forrest and Wheeler were several times injured, but never very seriously. No two men were more reckless or courageous on the battlefield, and no two men with the means at their command ever did more for any cause than Forrest and Wheeler. Of these two men many thousands of pages might be written, and yet much would be left unsaid that ought to be said in recounting their wonderful campaigns. With charmed lives, with brave spirits, with courageous souls and intrepid hearts, they seemed immune from death.

Chapter XIII
CAVALRY EXPEDITION OF THE TEXANS
INTO NEW MEXICO, WINTER, 1861-62

Only three rivers escape from the American Desert—the Columbia, Colorado and Rio Grande. The last of these, the Rio Grande, rises far up amid the mountains of Colorado, close to the Montana line. It was named by the Spaniards Rio Grande del Norte, or Grand River of the North, because of its great length. It was sometimes called Rio Bravo del Norte, “Brave River of the North.” Fighting its way amid mountain gorges, through canyons, cutting channels deep down into rocky defiles, it forces a passage over nature’s fiercest obstacles and drives its currents through New Mexico and Colorado for seven hundred miles. Then turning southwardly, it seeks a resting place in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. For more than eleven hundred miles it is the boundary between Mexico and the United States.

Moved by love of conquest, or desire to spread the gospel, the Spaniards followed the meandering course of the stream for hundreds of miles, overcoming the barriers which nature had placed in the pathway of those who sought to conquer the arid and inhospitable wilderness, through which this great stream passed to its union with the far off sea. Navigable for only four hundred and fifty miles from the ocean, it held out no hope to those who might seek an easy way to its source. The great trail which led from the settlements on the Atlantic to the new-found lands on the Pacific required the travelers to pass the Rio Grande near Santa Fe. There was no chance to start at El Paso and travel northward by the Rio Grande to the heart of New Mexico and thence find an outlet to the Pacific Ocean. The men who pushed from the East to the Golden Gate preferred to mark out a line from the Missouri River, overland from Missouri, Kansas and Colorado, the Indian Territory and New Mexico. A southern trail might have been shorter, but mountains intervened and nature forced men to make their highway for wagon trains by Santa Fe from the East. The pioneer spirit was strongest in the Missouri Valley, and the population on the Mississippi was content to let those farther north pursue the passage to the Pacific by the northern route. A thin line of settlements had been established along the trail, but no large population was willing then to endure the hardships which surrounded those who lived in those isolated regions; and the white men refused to pass southward by the Rio Grande or the Mexican border, for the country was so inhospitable that it held out no inducements to emigration, commerce or settlement.

When the war between the states began to stir the hearts of the people of the South, after a brief delay, Texas, that great empire with more than two hundred and sixty-six thousand square miles, but thinly populated area, caught the patriotic spirit of the hour, and cast herself, body and soul, into the struggle of the Southland for liberty and independence.

In February, 1861, an ordinance of secession was passed, and nine years later Texas was re-admitted to the Union. General H. H. Sibley, a native of Louisiana, resigned from the United States Army and entered the service of the Confederate States. Familiar with the geography of New Mexico, he visited Richmond, Virginia, was commissioned brigadier general and returned to Texas with authority to lead a brigade up the Rio Grande to Santa Fe. Few believed, at that early date, that war would last a year, and one of the reasons impelling this expedition was to possess as much territory as possible, so that when hostilities ceased, the territories of the Confederacy would cover the largest possible space. General Sibley reached San Antonio, where the troops raised to compose his command were being mustered in. A statement of his plans aroused the zeal and enthusiasm of those who were to engage in the adventure.

The conquest of New Mexico appeared feasible and important. It would cut in twain the land route between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and by reason of its supposed strategic importance, prove of tremendous value to the Confederate states.

The project was bold, daring, but illy considered, and in the end, while sustained by heroism and courage that certainly has no superior in the great story of Southern manhood, yet proved a most unfortunate and distressing failure. From El Paso, on the extreme western boundary of Texas, to Santa Fe, by the route along the Rio Grande, was something like six hundred miles. The Santa Fe railroad of later days has rendered this journey easy and pleasant, but in 1861-62, the route was a vast wilderness, not producing enough food to sustain the sparse number of people who had settled along this trail. Venomous reptiles hid themselves in the recesses of the sandy and rocky ways, or laid in wait for their victims amidst the numerous crevices that marked every mile. The very shrubbery seemed to defy the advance of civilization, and the thorns and thistles that stood out on every bush appeared to enter fierce protests against habitation by man or beast.

In the earlier days of the war, before experience had made men deliberate, and to sit down and count the cost ere entering upon any great military enterprise, it was only necessary for someone to cry “Forward!” and chivalrous patriots were ready to follow wherever any leader might bid them go. The 4th, 5th and 7th Texas mounted regiments were mustered into the Confederate service for three years, or during the Civil War. This enlistment took place October, 1861. Colonel James Riley commanded the 4th. Later, at the head of his regiment, he met a soldier’s death in Louisiana. Thomas Green became colonel of the 5th, and William Steele, colonel of the 7th Regiment. These formed a brigade under the command of Brigadier General H. H. Sibley. Steele did not go with his regiment, which was led by Lieutenant Colonel J. S. Sutton, who died heroically while leading his men at the Battle of Val Verde near Fort Craig. Later, General Thomas Green was promoted to the rank of brigadier general. These regiments reorganized, then became known as Green’s Brigade. When the true story of the war shall be fitly told, the world will realize that no men who marched under the stars and bars did more to win the admiration and applause of the entire Southland than those who composed this wonderful organization.

At this early period of the war, arms were scarce. The fruits of victory had not then given Federal equipments to Texas, and these soldiers were supplied with shotguns and hunting rifles of varying calibre and necessitating the preparation of each man’s ammunition by himself. Many of these volunteers had mingled with the Mexicans and heard their stories of the fiery charges of the Mexican Lancers and of the deadly execution which they made with their shafted spears, and following, unwisely, the suggestions of General Sibley, two companies of the 5th Regiment were induced to exchange their guns for that medieval arm, the Mexican lance.

The troops were enlisted and sworn in at San Antonio, and before beginning the most difficult part of their journey up the Rio Grande, marched from San Antonio to El Paso, seven hundred miles, in broken detachments. At this point, the government had accumulated a small supply of commissary stores. Between San Antonio and Santa Fe, there was not a town or village which could have furnished, from its own storage, a full day’s supply of rations and forage for the command. The settlements were not only few in number, but very far apart, and with small populations. It thus came about that the troops were compelled to carry rations for the whole march. These were very meagre, and were transported in wagons drawn by small Mexican mules. Meat was provided through beeves that were driven on foot. No forage of any kind was to be had other than the grass which grew upon the plains. As if to make the journey still more difficult, water was extremely scarce; and many parts of the journey, both men and beasts were compelled to go on as long as thirty-six hours before relieving their thirst. The men carried a day’s supply in their canteens, but the poor beasts had no provision for quenching the burning of their fevered throats. There was not then living in the entire territory from El Paso to Santa Fe as many as three hundred sincere Southern sympathizers. The great majority of the population were poor, illiterate Mexicans, who had a traditional hatred of all Texans. The secession of Texas from Mexico in 1835, the Santa Fe expedition in 1841 and the war between the United States and Mexico in 1846, had planted in the minds of these rude frontiersmen bitter memories of the Texans.

Almost everywhere, without exception, this brigade, when leaving El Paso and ascending the great river, found itself in a hostile country, a country so devoid of food that it was hardly able to maintain its own people from want, and which with great difficulty supplied them with the bare necessities of life. To make this journey still more difficult for the Confederates, General Canby, then and later on, showing himself to be a wise and sagacious officer, had already, by force or purchase, secured for the support of the Federal troops whatever the needs of these poor people could spare.

Most of the great marches of the war, made by cavalry, were through countries that could at least supply food for a few hours for man and beast. None of them undertook to haul their commissary stores six hundred miles or to rely upon beef driven afoot to satisfy their hunger. The great passion of the brigade was to be led forward. They had gone too far to return without a fight and were anxious to find somebody to engage in conflict. Practically no preparations had been made to arrange for the wants of the soldiers. No foresight had provided stores where food might be garnered, nor wells dug, from which water, that greatest essential of long marches, might be supplied. The brigade finally composing this expedition consisted of the 4th and 5th and part of the 7th Texas mounted infantry, five companies of Baylor’s Regiment, Tool’s light battery and Coopwood’s independent company, aggregating twenty-five hundred men. One-sixth of all these men were required for the protection of the supply train and herd of beeves, and therefore could not be relied upon in case of battle.

General Canby, through couriers, had full notice of the coming expedition and its purpose, and he was not slow to avail himself of the topographical as well as the physical condition of the country in preparing for the emergency. About a hundred and fifty miles north of El Paso, on the river, Fort Craig had been constructed, years before, by the United States Government. The fortification was situated on the west bank of the stream and within musket range of the only road leading from El Paso to Santa Fe. Here General Canby had concentrated over four thousand troops, regulars and volunteers, including infantry, artillery and cavalry, with supplies of every kind in abundance. As the Confederates could travel only one road, the Federal general had only to sit down and wait and prepare for their coming and had ample time to obstruct the narrow pathway along which they must reach Santa Fe. This march was undertaken in the midst of winter. Those who led and those who followed seemed to feel that an hour’s time was of the most tremendous importance, and neither want of preparation or danger could deter them from pushing on to some point where they might meet a foe. Zeal and haste to fight was universal with the southern soldiers in the earlier days of the struggle. Without any disparagement of their splendid courage under all conditions, it may be safely said that a few months’ experience greatly lessened the intensity of this feeling.

Beyond Santa Fe, in the northeastern part of the territory, another fortification, called Fort Union, had been built before the war. This Post had been reconstructed and manned, and here again were established large depots of supplies. Troops had come down from Colorado, and the United States regulars had been hurried hither, and still farther, from the West, the war-trumpets had called volunteers from California who were hastening en route to the scene of hostilities.

A march so carelessly considered and so inadequately provided for, with weather becoming cold, demanded most strenuous sacrifices from the devoted Texans who were engaged in this hazardous task. The Confederates had no tents, their clothing supply was confined to the uniforms that each wore, there was no covering at night except their saddle blankets, and yet, while the fierceness of the climate and the illy provided commissary spread disease and death among them, these gallant Confederates went pushing forward with what would seem to thinking men but little hope, yet without fear. It was not long until disease began to grapple with its gaunt fingers numbers of these chivalrous men. Pneumonia attacked many of the advancing heroes, and under such conditions rarely allowed any of its victims to escape with life.

By the 10th of February, 1862, the command came in sight of Fort Craig. Surveys and reconnaissance soon convinced even the inexperienced that the capture of the Fort by direct assault would be practically impossible, and that it would be equally impossible to follow the road which the Fort commanded, and to run such a gauntlet simply meant great decimation, if not destruction of the entire command. A council of war determined that the wise thing was to turn the Fort by crossing to the east bank of the Rio Grande and to march by it to a point called Val Verde (Green Valley), some nine miles above Fort Craig. To carry out this plan required a tremendous amount of courage and endurance, for there was no road nor even a broken trail, and this way was almost impassable for wagons. It had never been traveled, but lay across deep and wide gulleys and over steep sand hills. There was not a single foot of made highway and men and animals, beset by poisonous thorns, which infested well-nigh every vegetable growth, and tramping over loose stones which rendered almost every resting place for their feet insecure, struggled, stumbled and toiled over the arduous way that the exigencies of the hour forced them to follow. After such laborious, depressing and dangerous effort, two days later, on the evening of the 20th, the command had reached a point nearly opposite Fort Craig, only seven miles from their starting place on the 19th. Here the weary troopers, wearier mules and the thirsty cattle were encamped for the night. The beasts had no water; the men only such as their canteens contained. The conditions were enough to cower the hearts of any soldiers and to dampen the ardor of any patriot, but everybody realized that the very desperate conditions must be met by supreme valor.

MAP OF CAVALRY EXPEDITION INTO NEW MEXICO

Long before the sun had risen above the mountain tops to illuminate and brighten the plains with its cheering beams, the march was begun, so as to reach, at the earliest moment possible, the river, at some point above Fort Craig, and begin the advance again upon the traveled highway, which, while rough, was delightful in comparison to the two days’ march along the inhospitable ground over which these brave soldiers had, with uncomplaining fortitude, forced their way during the past forty-eight hours. The Federal commander did not sit still in the fort. Thoroughly advised of this movement on the part of the Confederates, he pushed his forces north along the road and when the advance guard of the Confederates reached the river, their enemy was there to dispute its passage. To provide against loss of the cattle driven on foot, upon which they depended for meat, and for the protection of the commissary train, a considerable portion of the Confederate force was detailed. The very desperation of the situation stirred the hearts of the Confederates with the noblest courage. Only about two thousand fighting men were left available, after details were provided for the protection of the cattle and the train. These had been left behind at the camp from which they had marched out in the morning to force the battle. There was nothing for the Confederates to do but to win. The Federals were not averse to fighting, and so they crossed the river with thirty-eight hundred men, including a battery of six-pounders and two twenty-pounders. A force sufficiently large to protect Fort Craig against the assault had been left within its walls. These two thousand Confederates, hungry and thirsty, were to oppose, in a position chosen by the Federal commander, a force nearly twice as large as their own. With a fierceness born of difficulty and of courage quickened by the unpropitious surroundings, the conflict was short, sharp and decisive. The Federals were driven back into the fort, with considerable loss of officers and men, and their six-gun battery was captured by the Confederates. The casualties on the Confederate side in this Battle of Val Verde were less than those of the Federals, but it included in the list several of the most promising and prominent officers, who, at this time, were sorely needed. Colonel Green, who commanded the 5th Regiment, owing to the illness of General Sibley, was in immediate charge of the forces. He was a cheerful and experienced soldier, and was later to demonstrate such great genius as a commander, that when he died in April, 1864, at Blair’s Landing, La., it was said of him by the Federal generals that the ablest man west of the Mississippi had been lost to the Southern cause.

CAPTAIN JOSEPH SAYERS

GENERAL TOM GREEN

---

While the battle had been won and the enemy driven back to the fort, it was not decisive; the Federals were safe in the fort, and the Confederates, with their small number of fighting men, were not sufficiently strong, nor did they have the necessary ammunition to carry the fort by assault. The little Confederate army was not in condition to sit down and hesitate and argue or even to delay action, and a council of war determined that the wisest thing to do was to push on to Santa Fe, in the hope of inducing the enemy at Fort Craig to follow along the trail, come out into the open and risk the issue of another contact.

The desperate condition of the Confederates was apparent to any well-informed military man, and General Canby, with an army at Fort Craig twice as large as that of the Confederates, with a still larger force at Fort Union, northeast from Santa Fe, all well supplied with food and ammunition, decided that he had only to bide his time and wait. He perfectly understood the character of the country, the antagonism of the people to the Confederate cause, and the limited resources for providing maintenance for man or beast. He knew the exact number of the Confederate command. He understood they would be unable to carry out the Confederate plan and closely calculated the difficulties which awaited these brave men, who seemingly violating the laws of prudence and ignoring caution, were pushing themselves forward without support, apparently indifferent to consequences.

In possession of Fort Craig, south of Santa Fe, and Fort Union, north of Santa Fe, defending the well-known and traveled north and south roads, which were the only passable exits from the territory, with troops which largely outnumbered his foes, half of whom were regulars, tried, well equipped and exceeding Confederates four thousand in numbers, the Federal commander foresaw that the end could not be very far off and that waiting was the wise and sagacious course to pursue. No one needed to tell him that the Confederates could have no hope of reinforcements. His spies had already assured him of their meager supplies, the vast number of sick and of the many graves along the road of the Confederate march. These told him that disease and hunger would be efficient allies, and that only a few weeks could possibly intervene before the Confederates would be compelled to abandon the territory, and most probably be forced by want and starvation to surrender as prisoners of war. With a force twice as large as their own behind them and with a force twice as large in front of them, with only one traveled route along which they could pass, and that totally inadequate for the supply of food for the invading Confederates, the condition of these brave men became almost desperate. Though the conditions were so discouraging, General Sibley and his subordinates advanced to Albuquerque and Santa Fe and took possession of the immediate towns and villages.

On the 20th day of March, about sixteen miles north of Santa Fe, a second battle occurred in Glorietta Canyon. Here the worn Confederates came in contact with Federal troops which had been sent forward from Fort Union. The Confederates held possession of the field of battle, but something worse than loss of men had occurred. On account of the smallness of the force, a sufficient rear guard had not been detailed for the protection of the wagon train, and their entire supplies had been captured by an attack of the Federal forces. While the Federal soldiers had been defeated and fell back to Fort Union, and the Confederates returned to Santa Fe, hunger was now staring these brave invaders in the face. They were not afraid of their enemies, but lack of food, ammunition and other necessities, oftentimes more terrible than bullets, rarely fails to strike terror into the hearts of the bravest soldiers.

The situation had been thoroughly tried out, the Confederates had now been reduced to less than two thousand men. They were practically destitute of provisions and ammunition. One regiment had been dismounted, its horses were reduced, not only in flesh but in number, and so, some walking and some riding, but all still stout at heart, these Confederates now prepared to abandon the territory for which they had risked and suffered so much. In a few days, the retreat to El Paso was begun. Leaving strong forces at Fort Union and Craig to protect them from any possible force the Confederates could bring to their assault, all available Union soldiers were rushed forward to contest the retreat of General Sibley and his men, and to cut off every avenue of escape. The only thing General Canby failed to fully comprehend was the supreme courage and valor of his foes, the intrepidity and skill of their leaders, and the capacity of men and officers for fatigue and their readiness, if needs be, to die, rather than surrender as prisoners of war to their enemies.

Officers and men all understood the gravity of the situation. They realized that safety lay not only in retreat, but to escape at all necessitated the co-operation and courage of every survivor of the depleted command.

At Peralto, a small town on the Rio Grande, below Albuquerque, the Confederates occupied the town, but before them in battle array were six thousand Federals, well armed, and this was the numerical problem that faced the tired, half-clad and brave men of the South. There was not the slightest disposition to yield or run away, and so all day long the Confederates, with their ill-equipped forces, calmly awaited the attack of the Federals. But there was something the men who were following the stars and bars feared more than the men in blue—starvation. This was now their most dreaded enemy, and this, accompanied by the weather conditions, made a combination that would strike terror into the heart of any ordinary man.

Along the Rio Grande River, the temperature arises during the day to a hundred degrees and then by midnight, it has dropped sixty degrees, alternating between summer’s heat and winter’s frost. These climatic changes shatter even the rocks that so greatly abound in this dreary region and accompanied by lack of warm and necessary clothing, depleted the energies of the Confederates, but at the same time it stirred them to renewed activities.

There was only one feasible route open to the retreating invaders. This was down the Rio Grande, and across this single path was a Union army numbering more than three times those who essayed to escape. The Confederates forded from the east bank to the west side of the river, and for several days, both forces, Union and Confederate, marched southward along the stream on opposite sides. Now and then they exchanged shots. It was soon discovered that to avoid an engagement, which the Confederates were not prepared to risk, something must be done to escape the presence of the enemy, so superior in numbers, food and equipments. The thought of capture aroused the hearts of all the men to heroic resolve to do and dare all that was possible to avoid the humiliation and misfortune of a surrender.

From out of the conflict one thing had been brought, and these brave men were desirous of bearing this back to Texas so that the great march should not be without one trophy, and like grim death they hung to the six-gun battery of twelve-pounders that they had captured at Val Verde, a short while before. They were to haul these cannon over the wilds safety had forced them to traverse. They were to push and pull them to the crest of hills to find that they could only be lowered with ropes to the depths below, and each hour of suffering and companionship with the mute and inanimate guns would add renewed purpose to save them, if their saving was to be compassed by human determination and indomitable will.

In this campaign Joseph D. Sayers came to the front. He was destined to play a distinguished part in the war, and later in the history of Texas.

When the battery was captured at Val Verde, young Sayers was not twenty-one years of age. His cheerfulness under trial, his valor and dauntless courage attracted the attention of the leaders, and he was designated by common consent captain of the battery which held so dear a place in the hearts of all who survived this expedition. He had enjoyed a brief season at a military school, but he was a born soldier. He was authorized to select the members for the battery and with them he clung to the guns with bulldog tenacity, and brought them safely through the dangers that ever loomed up on the homeward march.

Captain Sayers, while in command of the battery, was severely wounded at Bisland, Louisiana; and also at Mansfield, Louisiana, while serving on General Green’s staff with the rank of major. At General Green’s death the young officer crossed the Mississippi River with General Dick Taylor, upon whose staff he served until his surrender in Mississippi in April, 1865.

On every field and in every sphere he met the highest calls of a patriotic service and when paroled had won the commendation and admiration of those who fought with him. His war experiences fitted him for a splendid civil career. He became lieutenant governor, and later governor of Texas. He served fourteen years in Congress, and when he voluntarily retired, his associates in the House of Representatives passed a resolution declaring that his leaving Congress was a national rather than a party calamity. Amongst Confederates, his career in the trans-Mississippi, and later in the cis-Mississippi armies, gave him universal respect, and the good opinion of the great state of Texas was manifested in the bestowal of every honor to which he aspired.

He still lives, in 1914, at Austin, and there is no one who loves the South but that hopes for lengthened years to the hero of Val Verde.

Councils of war were called, and it was resolved to leave the river, march inland, over mountains and canyons and through forests that had never been trodden by civilized man. The Spaniard, whether stirred by religion or love of gold or gain, had never ventured to traverse the country through which General Green and his men now undertook to march. Half-clad, nearly starved, footsore, with both nature and men rising up to oppose their escape, without water sometimes for two days, except what was carried in their canteens, they hazarded this perilous journey. Trees and vines and shrubbery with poisonous thorns stood in their pathway. With axes and knives, they hewed them down, and boldly and fearlessly plunged into the wilderness to escape their pursuing and aggressive foes. Over this rough, thorny road they traveled for one hundred and fifty miles; and then, guided largely by the sun, moon and stars, and nature’s landmarks, they reached the river highway along which they had marched in the early winter and struck the Rio Grande, some distance below Fort Craig. With exuberant joy, they realized that they had left their enemies behind. Nine long and dreary days had been consumed in this horrible journey. Man and beast alike had suffered to the very extreme of endurance. The average distance for each twenty-four hours was sixteen and two-thirds miles. Where the intrepid and exhausted column would emerge, even the experienced and stout-hearted guide, Major Coopwood, did not know. West, south, east, the gallant band must search for a path, and down canyons, over precipitous cliffs, where the eye of white men had never penetrated, these gallant Texans, half starved and consumed for many hours with the fierce and debilitating burnings of thirst, hunted for a path which would enable them to leave their enemies behind and miles below emerge into the Rio Grande Valley, at a point from which they could, unmolested, pursue their march to El Paso.

One-fifth of their number had died in battle or from wounds and sickness, and three-fourths of the survivors marched into San Antonio on foot. Eight months had passed since the journey was begun. More than three men each day, from either wounds or on the battle field or through disease, had gone down to death, and along the march of twelve hundred miles, on an average of every four miles beside this devious and suffering road, was the grave of some comrade, to tell of the ravages and sorrows of war.

Barring the battery which had been captured in the earlier periods of the expedition, the brigade came back empty handed, but the men who composed it brought with them a spirit of courage, a quickened patriotism, a self-reliance, a steadiness of purpose, and a conception of war that was to make them one of the most distinguished and successful organizations of the world’s greatest war; and trained for future services and succeeding triumphs and victories that would endear them not only to the hearts of the people of Texas, but to all who loved or fought for the independence of the South.

After a few months of rest, remounted and recruited, this splendid command entered upon a new career of active service, and through the campaigns of 1863 and 1864, they were to make honorable records for themselves; at Bisland, Fordocho, Bortrich Bay, Lafourche, Fort Butler, Donaldsville, Bourbeau; Opelousas, Mansfield, Pleasant Hill, Blair’s Landing and Yellow Bayou. At Blair’s Landing, General Green met the fate of a chivalrous, patriotic commander, dying as he had fought, with his face to the foe. He and his command were second to no horsemen who were enlisted on the Southern side. The sad and unfortunate experiences of the march into New Mexico proved a great education for these valiant and gallant soldiers. They have been less fortunate than the cavalry commands east of the Mississippi in having chroniclers to exploit their heroism, yet in their splendid career they were never surpassed in the best elements of the cavalry soldier, by any of those whose fame as champions of the Southland and defenders of its glory and its honor has gone out into the whole world.

Chapter XIV
GENERAL J. E. B. STUART’S RIDE AROUND
McCLELLAN’S ARMY—CHICKAHOMINY
RAID, JUNE 12-15, 1863

General J. E. B. Stuart was born on the 16th of February, 1833. At the commencement of the war he had just passed his twenty-eighth year. His father had been an officer in the War of 1812. He was born in Patrick County, Virginia, a few miles away from the North Carolina line. In his veins there was the richest mingling of Virginia’s best blood. In 1850 he was appointed a cadet at West Point, and graduated thirteenth in a class of forty-six. At West Point he was not a very great scholar, but an extremely good soldier. He had a splendid physique, and was popular wherever he went. In his early youth he had hesitated between the law and war, and finally concluded to remain in the army. He was commissioned as second lieutenant in 1854 and served in Texas. He saw a great deal of active service in Indian warfare and in the early part of 1861 was at Fort Lyon. On the 7th of May, 1861, he reached Wytheville, Virginia. His resignation was accepted by the War Department on that day and he offered his sword to his native state. On the 10th of May he was made lieutenant colonel of infantry and directed to report to Colonel T. J. Jackson. His commission was from the State of Virginia. Sixty days later he was commissioned a colonel of Confederate cavalry, and on the 24th of September was made brigadier general, and on July 25th, 1862, major general.

General Stuart, in the summer and fall of 1861, was busy on outpost duty, harassing the enemy and continually active. His operations were not on any extended scale.

General Joseph E. Johnston had a very high opinion of General Stuart. As early as August 10th, 1861, he had written to President Davis: “He—Stuart—is a rare man, wonderfully endowed by nature with the qualities necessary for light cavalry. If you had a brigade of cavalry in this army, you could find no better brigadier general to command.”

He took an important part in the Williamsburg campaign, at the Battle of Williamsburg in May, 1862, and at Seven Pines on the 31st of May and June 1st. It was impossible at the last engagement to use cavalry, but Stuart, always anxious and ready for a fight, was only too happy to go to the front, and became General Longstreet’s aide.

In March, 1862, McClellan had brought his Army of the Potomac up to two hundred and twenty-two thousand men, and with these undertook to capture Richmond. He concluded it was wisest to take Richmond from the rear and recommended that his forces should be transferred to Fortress Monroe and he should proceed from there in a northwesterly direction.

The forces under General Joseph E. Johnson and later under General Lee were widely scattered. Some of them were a hundred miles apart.

From the valleys of Virginia, and from Norfolk down through Fredericksburg, great armies were advancing with Richmond as the converging point. Stonewall Jackson had played havoc with McClellan’s forces in the Shenandoah Valley, and had inaugurated and won a campaign which brought him world-wide fame. In three months Jackson had fought three battles and marched five hundred miles, a feat which was almost unsurpassed in the history of military movements. He held a large Federal force over in the Valley. This was at that period the most important factor in the preservation of the armies of Joseph E. Johnston.

On the 16th of May, advancing from Fortress Monroe, McClellan had taken possession of Whitehouse, on the Pamunky River, and here established his army and reached out to Seven Pines, within eight miles of Richmond. It appeared now as if, with the large forces at his command, McClellan would crush Johnston and reach the coveted capital of the Confederacy. Camped east and northeast of Richmond, in a position chosen by himself, and to the acquisition of which the Confederates made little resistance, McClellan sat down to wait for the forty thousand men McDowell was to bring through Fredericksburg and unite with him in his present camp. The Confederates were roughly handled by the Federals at Hanover Court House on the 27th of May, and General Joseph E. Johnston looked anxiously toward McDowell at Fredericksburg, only fifty-two miles away. He resolved, if possible, to crush McClellan before McDowell could come to his assistance. On the 31st of May the Battle of Seven Pines was fought. Brilliantly designed by Johnston, he claimed that he only failed to destroy McClellan by the neglect of his subordinates to march as directed. General Johnston was wounded on the 31st of May and was succeeded by General Gustavus W. Smith, who commanded for a few hours. At two o’clock on the 1st of June, President Davis rode out upon the field with General Robert E. Lee and turned over to him the command of the Army of Northern Virginia, which he was to hold until the shadows of national death overtook and overwhelmed Lee and his army at Appomattox, on May 9th, 1865.

A large part of McClellan’s army was now south of the Chickahominy River. It was extremely important to know the situation of his forces. He was getting so near to Richmond that the situation had become intensely critical.

General Lee sent for General Stuart and in a private interview explained that he desired to have full information about the exact location of McClellan’s army. On the 12th of June he despatched Stuart, with twelve hundred of the best cavalry that the Army of Northern Virginia could furnish, to ride round McClellan’s camps and get full facts concerning their several locations and movements. His ride on this errand is known as the “Chickahominy Raid.”

Stuart did not wait a moment but instantly undertook this perilous task. Prior to this time no great cavalry raids had been made. Wheeler had not been developed, and Morgan and Forrest had only short forays to their credit. At this period Mosby had not appeared in the Virginia campaigns which he was later to brighten with many wonderful performances, but rode with Stuart as his chief scout, guide and adviser, and no general ever had abler aid. Stuart and Mosby were the same age, were men of like courage and dash, between them was mutual admiration and affection, and each believed implicitly in the genius of the other.

Stuart had been vigilant on outpost duty, but no one had conceived so bold a move as to ride in the rear of a great army of more than a hundred and twenty-five thousand men at a time when the rivers crossing the road were filled with the June rise. Figuratively taking his life in his hand he cut loose from all communication with his allies, and began the circuit of the opposing army, which then stood north and east of Richmond. It was a great work, requiring masterful genius, superb skill, highest courage and transcendent faith in his destiny. He was to make history in cavalry service, set new standards and a new pace for horsemen in war. The original letter which General Lee wrote to General Stuart is still in existence. General Lee informed General Stuart that his purpose was to get exact intelligence of the enemy’s forces and fortifications, to capture his forage parties and commissary depots and as many guns and cattle as it was possible to bring away with him, and to destroy, harass and intimidate the wagon trains which were then supplying McClellan’s army.

General Lee was not as full of confidence in Stuart’s ability then as he was later. He cautioned Stuart about going too far, staying too long, attempting too much. He looked deeper into the situation than Stuart possibly could. Twenty-six years more of life and his lengthened military experience made him cautious where Stuart would be reckless. It was well for Stuart that he was only twenty-nine years old. Had he been fifty, he would have hesitated long before undertaking such hazardous work. Faced by such desperate odds, the youthful blood coursing with unstinted forces through his veins, and his ambition to wrest early from fame its highest rewards, subordinated prudence and caution to the promptings of glory and success, had faith that no odds could defeat his plans and that misfortune was impossible where he should go, with the chivalrous horsemen who would follow in his lead.

It was easy to see that the primal object in General Lee’s sending Stuart was to definitely locate the right wing of McClellan’s army, to know how far it extended east, and whether Jackson could be brought in strong pressure upon it.

Justly Stuart was allowed to pick out his command. He had a section of artillery. This was under Lieutenant James Breathed. Wisely concluding that if you do not want anybody to know your plans, you had better not communicate them, Stuart told few of his associate commanders his destination. The general outlines of his expedition he communicated to Fitzhugh Lee, W. H. F. Lee and W. T. Martin.

The first day’s march was not a heavy one, twenty-two miles due north brought General Stuart to Taylorsville. Having demonstrated that McClellan’s right had not been extended east of a line north of Richmond, General Stuart now turned due east and in a short while marched southeast. He was singularly blessed with scouts who had a full and complete knowledge of the whole country. These had been despatched in various directions. It was beyond all things essential for him to have accurate information regarding the roads he was to travel. He began his movements at early dawn. He had a great work before him; he was to take a march of forty miles, the safety of which depended upon the absolute watchfulness and the unfailing vigilance of his troopers. The eye of every soldier scanned the horizon. None knew aught of what was ahead. Any instant might develop a cavalry or infantry force across their pathway which would bar their progress. No baggage delayed their speed. Stale rations prepared before leaving would stay hunger until they could pounce down upon a Federal wagon train and take from their enemies the food necessary to sustain them upon their strenuous ride. The best horses had been provided for the artillery, so that it could keep pace with the rapidly moving horsemen. A rider was mounted on each of the animals attached to the guns. It was necessary to move with extreme rapidity, and all the preparations were made so that nothing should delay or hinder the march.

MAP OF STUART’S RIDE AROUND McCLELLAN

A force of Federal cavalry was found near Hanover Court House. Failure to attack would indicate fear, and so General Stuart ordered a charge. Fitzhugh Lee had been sent south to intercept their retreat toward McClellan’s army. The enemy moved south of the Tunstall Station road, and Stuart concluded that if they would let him alone he would let them alone. A captured sergeant from the 6th United States Cavalry showed that this force had been in position at Hanover Court House. He had no time to pursue those who did not pursue him, and taking a southeast course, almost parallel with the Pamunky River, he spurred his column to the highest possible speed. A Federal force had been stationed at Old Church, which was on the line of the road Stuart had determined to follow. Moving with such great rapidity and with his presence not expected, Stuart had no reason to believe that the enemy would be able to know his purpose, his plans and his place. A couple of squadrons of the 5th United States Cavalry were stationed at Old Church. A part of the duty of this command was to scout north towards Hanover Court House. Observing Stuart’s force, the lieutenant in command of one of these companies saw the Confederate cavalry at eleven o’clock. As he had only one company he estimated that the Confederates had with them two squadrons of cavalry; he concluded that he was not able to fight Stuart and so he withdrew and avoided a conflict. Reporting his observation to his superior officers, he was directed to fall back upon the main body at Old Church. Stuart was now ten miles north of the rear of McClellan’s infantry. Numerous detachments of cavalry were scattered about. It would not take long for couriers to tell the story of Stuart’s presence and to estimate his forces. Lieutenant Lee, who was in command of the 5th United States Cavalry, had now fallen back toward the bridge at Totopotomy Creek, and he had resolved, even though his command was small, to give Stuart battle and test out the strength of the invader. The bridge across the creek was intact. There was nothing to do but fight. Captain Royal, who was in command of the squadron, aligned his forces to receive Stuart’s attack. Two of the companies of the 9th Virginia were sent to drive these Federals out of the way. The onset was quick and furious. Captain Latane, of Company F, of the 9th Virginia, rode to the charge. Royal was severely wounded by Latane’s sabre, and Latane was killed by Royal’s revolver. The Federal line was broken and fell back. Discipline, however, asserted itself, and although fleeing, they wheeled into line to receive the second assault, and then Captain Royal left the field to the Confederates. Quite a number of the 5th Cavalry were captured, and there Fitzhugh Lee met many acquaintances, pleased to come in contact with an officer under whom they had served, even if he now wore the gray. These men conversed freely with General Lee, who was anxious to capture as many of the regiment as possible. He received permission to follow the enemy to Old Church and, if he could do so, make the entire squadron prisoners. He captured the camp, but the soldiers had fled.

At this time Stuart might have retraced his steps. There was nothing to prevent his returning by the road over which he had passed. Anxious to get the most out of the expedition that was in it, although he had told Fitzhugh Lee to follow the enemy back up the road over which he had advanced, Lee now saw Stuart turn and face southward. A less brave man would have hesitated. Dangers awaited him upon every mile. He was traveling southward and with this line perils increased with every step of his trotting squadrons. For a moment uncertainty filled his mind, but it was only a moment, and then without an expression of fear on his face or the feeling of a doubt in his heart, he bade the column quicken its pace and into the uncertainty of immeasurable and incalculable hazard of a dangerous, unknown path, he hurled his little army.

Stuart now knew that the right wing of McClellan’s army had not extended as far west as General Robert E. Lee thought it had. It was important that General Lee should have this information at the earliest possible moment. One and a half days had been consumed in coming. Should he go back, or should he make the circuit of the Federal army, and endeavor to reach General Lee south of the Chickahominy River? The rivers in front and to the east were unfordable. He must go north to find an easy way to escape and he knew that the Federal infantry, south of him, was within five miles of the road along which he must operate to reach his starting point at Richmond. He must, in the nature of the case, take the long road. His attack on the 5th United States Cavalry had aroused the enemy and his presence would be communicated quickly to the Federals. These could hardly believe that such a small force could be so far from home. The daring of such a movement was incredible at this period of the war. Later, many horsemen on both sides would be glad—even anxious—to engage in such an expedition. To General Stuart with any considerable Confederate force belongs the credit of the inaugurating such enterprises. Twenty-one days later General John H. Morgan conceived and executed his first raid into Kentucky and with twelve hundred men marched a thousand miles in territory occupied by his foes. The example of these two brilliant and successful commanders would soon find many to follow their lead, but to them belongs the credit of having successfully demonstrated that possibility of such campaigns and the practical safety of a cavalry force in such expeditions.

A Federal lieutenant reported that he had seen infantry along with the cavalry, that he thought he had counted as many as five regiments. Some put it as high as seven regiments. The rumored presence of infantry in their rear alarmed the Federals, who were afraid that a large force had reached in behind them, and so certain were the Federals of the presence of infantry that General Porter directed General Cooke not to attack the cavalry. This indecision on the part of the Federals gave Stuart the advantage of several hours. If he could pass Tunstall Station, twelve miles away, he would have a wide territory in which to operate, and in which the Federals would find it difficult to ride him down. Fortune was extremely generous and propitious. Numerous wagon trains were coming along the road to Tunstall Station, carrying supplies to McClellan’s army. The Pamunky River was the base from which supplies were transported to McClellan. It was navigable for quite a distance from the Bay. Many trains were destroyed, two large transports at Putney’s Ferry on the Pamunky River were burned. The railroad from the Pamunky River to the Chickahominy, under McClellan’s forces, had been repaired. At White House, on the Pamunky, tremendous quantities of supplies had been collected. This was only four miles from Tunstall Station. Some gunboats and six hundred cavalry protected this depot. Stuart was now only five or six miles from McClellan’s camp, and the cavalry and infantry might be despatched at any time to close the path he had chosen for a return to Richmond. The idea suggested itself to Stuart that he capture White House. He could have done this, even with the small force under him, but General Lee had told him he must not do all that he might desire to do, and he refrained from attempting this brilliant achievement. Cars, teams, sutlers’ stores, rations were destroyed, telegraph lines were torn down, and from four o’clock in the evening until darkness came on them, Stuart’s men were engaged in the grim work of destruction. A company from New Kent County composed part of the 3d Cavalry, and Stuart had the advantage of having numbers of men in his command who knew every path and by-way of the country through which they must later pass. This fact gave him great faith to ride away in safety should Federal pressure become too tense. Detachments were sent out in all directions to destroy as many wagons as possible. The Chickahominy was full, but it had fords. Eleven o’clock at night, and the last of Stuart’s men had not left Tunstall Station. The Federal infantry in large numbers began to arrive, and some Pennsylvania cavalry as well. General Stuart had calculated that he would cross at a ford near Forge Bridge. This was ten miles from Tunstall’s. A young lieutenant, who had most accurate knowledge of the country, was confident the ford of which General Stuart spoke would give a safe and easy passage over the river. Alas, when the river was reached, new perplexities arose and new dangers angrily stood out to thwart Stuart’s plans. The rains had been more copious than the guides had predicted or believed. The waters, with pitiless currents rushing oceanwards, seemed to forbid the passage of the Chickahominy. The storms, which had raged two days before higher up the stream, had widened the volumes of water, and to the imagination of the wearied horsemen, these increased in width every moment they stood upon its banks.

Colonel W. H. F. Lee was unwilling to surrender the possibility of passing the stream at this point. Boldly entering the water and swimming his horse he reached the other side. The waters were so deep that the horses’ feet became entangled in the roots of trees and prevented a landing. These difficulties raised new doubts and gave warning that some other ford must be found, or means other than swimming must be discovered for reaching the south bank. In this dire extremity there was no hesitation or alarm and all the gallant squadrons felt sure that fate, hitherto gracious and helpful, would, in the crisis, come to their rescue. Only heroes could be calm and cheerful under these dispiriting conditions. Axes were hunted up and trees were cut down in the hope that a temporary bridge might be made, but the swift current, catching up the trees, swept them down the stream like playthings and made the labor of the horsemen a useless waste of energy and time. In these moments, for a moment now appeared hours, everybody seemed anxious except General Stuart. It was important for General Lee to know what Stuart had found out, and calling upon one of his most trusted followers, he repeated in detail to him what he had learned and bade him ride with all haste and tell General Lee the story, and ask that an advance be made on Charles City, to relieve his command of the difficulties with which they were surrounded.

Every mind was now moved to the most vigorous action. The imminence of danger quickened thought, and to think must be to act. Someone under the pressure of extreme peril remembered that an old bridge one mile below had not been entirely destroyed. Hope of escape quickened every step and with unreined and highest speed, the troopers galloped to the site of the ruined structure. Bents, stripped of girders, stood out above the angry, muddy waters, but even they in their desolation and isolation gave but scant promise of escape. Warehouses close by, with the long planks that enclosed their sides, were stripped of their covering. Laid from bent to bent, they made a passway over the stream, but they held out no means of crossing to the weary steeds or offered no prospect to avoid a plunge into the water. The tired beasts were unsaddled and lashed and driven down the banks. Their masters, bearing their equipments on their own backs, with loosened bridle reins, walked along the narrow plankway, while the horses, with their feet beating the water, struggled in its turgid currents in their efforts to cross to the opposite side.

While one part in ever-quickening haste thus convoyed their mounts across, the other with renewed energies strengthened the floors of the tottering bridge and added braces to the timbers, which, under the pressure, trembled and swayed and bade the men beware lest they make too great calls upon the weakened bents. Time, more time, was now the call. If money could have enlarged minutes, every soldier would have given all his possessions to win from Providence another hour of freedom from pursuing foes. Stuart was not willing to abandon his artillery. He had saved his cavalry, but he did not want to give up his guns. Orders for tearing more planks from the warehouse and hunting longer and heavier lumber were sternly and earnestly issued. Officers pleaded with the men to rush, as they had never rushed before. They took hold themselves. No rank stayed the exercise of every man’s energies. With one-half of the command on the south side and the other half on the north side, anxious eyes, reinforced by brave yet questioning hearts, watched with intensest eagerness the roads upon which pursuing Federals might come. Attack now meant capture or disaster. There was no escape, east or west. The remnant on the north side might, if assailed, ride through and over the attacking lines, but the artillery could have no chance to run away, and scattered troops, with their lines broken, would have but slender opportunities of escape should they essay to ride back along the roads they had so successfully and rapidly traversed the two days before. Couriers, wires and scouts would hunt out and reveal the lines of retreat and their presence. Even the bravest hearts could evolve naught but disaster, if the Federal cavalry should now, when they were divided, force them to give battle. Those on the south side had forty miles between them and Richmond. To reach this goal they must pass within a few miles of large numbers of McClellan’s army. Whether the troops were on one side or the other of the Chickahominy, the moment was full of forebodings and presented difficulties calculated to make even the bravest of men fearful of what even an instant might bring forth. Sharp eyes scanned the roads along which the enemy might come. The crossway was quickly patched and completed, and by one o’clock the artillery was sent over. Strong, vigilant rear guards had been stationed some distance away from the bridge. Two or three times the enemy made their appearance, but unwilling to show the least sign of hesitation or doubt, these Federal forces were vigorously attacked.

When the difficulties of the Chickahominy had been surmounted, Stuart recognized that great tasks were yet before him. He was forty miles from Richmond, two-thirds of the distance lay within Federal lines. He must follow the course of the James. His enemies were between the James and the Chickahominy. There was no other route for Stuart to travel. His courage and his orders had brought him into the extremities of the situation. A small force of infantry, properly disposed, could cut off his escape, and he knew nothing of what his enemies were doing to thwart his plans and encompass his ruin. If he calculated the dangers or doubted his courage and skill to meet all emergencies, he would be overwhelmed with fear and misgivings. Great legions of difficulties rose up before his vision to disturb the quietude of his valiant soul. With a wave of his hand and with a peaceful smile upon his compressed lips, he bade fear begone. He answered doubts and quieted them with the response that the men who followed him never wavered at duty’s call, and forward he moved, calm, serene, and with not a shadow of distrust or misgiving hovering in his heart.

Having used the bridge themselves, the torch was applied with willing hands by the grateful troopers. They might not abuse the bridge that had carried them over, but they joyfully burned it lest it might bear relentless enemies over to the side to which they had so fortunately come by reason of its succor and help in the hour of desperation and uncertainty. In the gloaming of the evening, turned into flames, the blazing timbers, so lately a rescue, rose up as a great beacon light, which lit up the surrounding country. If the Federals saw these flames, they understood that the daring raider with his tireless followers had escaped from Federal toils and was temporarily safe from their assaults. A fordless stream now rolled between them and the men they were pursuing.

From the highest point which he touched on Newfound River to the lowest point touched on Queen’s Creek, a tributary of the James River, was forty miles, and from Richmond to the farthest point east, a short distance from Tunstall Station, was only twenty miles. From Richmond to the main force of McClellan’s army was eight miles, and from the Chickahominy to the Pamunky at Tunstall Station was twelve miles. South of the Chickahominy, five miles, was the largest force of the Federal army; north of it, at Cold Harbor, was another strong division and then five miles east at Ellyson’s Mill was another large infantry Federal force.

At Ellyson’s Mill, down the Chickahominy, to Cold Harbor, at Fair Oaks, McClellan had infantry forces practically covering the entire territory which Stuart must pass. He traveled around the Federal army one hundred and thirty miles, and at no point of his whole journey was he removed from some Federal force as much as five miles. With his small command, at several places he was less than eight miles from large infantry commands. The inexperience of the Federal cavalry was one of Stuart’s chiefest aids in carrying out his splendid conception of this brilliant march. Two years later it would have been impossible even for Stuart, with his seasoned and trained soldiers, to have made such a movement. Stuart had knowledge of the men who would oppose him, and particularly of the cavalrymen who would pursue him, and this made him calmer and more confident than he would otherwise have been. No enemy came. The artillery was saved. United on the south side of the stream, their delivery from such imminent danger gave them renewed and enlarged confidence. They did not know what was ahead. The past was a sure guarantee of the future. Hitherto they had come in safety, and they confidently believed that fate would still be kind and helpful. The very uncertainty of what might at any moment appear to prevent their escape or impede their progress made them brave and cheerful. They rode swiftly along the road which might at any moment prove to be thronged with vigilant foes. The close call at the river, their triumph over apparently unsurmountable difficulties, made them complacent and contented. They pitied their weary and hungry beasts, and took little account of what privations they themselves had endured, or from what great danger they had so fortunately been delivered. General Stuart might now breathe easier, but he could not yet breathe freely. On the James River, along the banks of which he must pass on his route to Richmond, were Federal gunboats; and Hooker, from White Oak Swamps, five miles from the only course that Stuart could follow, could within a couple of hours, under forced marches, place infantry in the front. There was no time for rest or food; a splendid exploit, a magnificent expedition, was now nearing completion, and no appeal of tired nature could find response in the heart of the gallant leader. With marvelous genius he had brought his men out of difficulties that seemed unsurmountable, and so riding and riding and riding through the long hours of the night and the day, with ever-watchful eyes and ever-increasing vigilance, he pursued his journey to reach the place from which, four days before, he had set out upon what was then the greatest cavalry expedition of the war. He had lost one soldier, but he was a soldier worthy of any cause. Captain Latane’s burial by lovely Southern women, with the assistance of a faithful slave, has become one of the most pathetic incidents of the war. Aided only by the faithful negro, to whom freedom had no charms when associated with the abandonment of those he had served and loved, they dug a grave, folded his pale, brave hands over his stilled heart, and alone and without the protection of the men they loved, they read the burial service for the dead and committed the dust of the young patriot to the care of the God they truly and sincerely worshipped.

The Burial of Captain Latane

A brother bore his body from the field

And gave it unto strangers’ hands, that closed

The calm blue eyes on earth forever closed,

And tenderly the slender limbs composed.

Strangers, yet sisters, who, with Mary’s love,

Sat by the open tomb, and weeping, looked above.

A little child strewed roses on his bier,

Pale roses, not more stainless than his soul,

Nor yet more fragrant than his life sincere,

That blossomed with good actions, brief but whole.

The aged matron and the faithful slave

Approached with reverent feet the hero’s lonely grave.

No man of God might say the burial rite

Above the rebel, thus declared the foe

That blanched before him in the deadly fight.

But woman’s voice, with accents soft and low,

Trembling with pity, touched with pathos—read

Over his hallowed dust the ritual of the dead.

“’Tis sown in weakness. It is raised in power.”

Softly the promise floated on the air,

While the low breathings of the sunset hour

Came back, responsive to the mourners’ prayer.

Gently they laid him underneath the sod

And left him with his fame, his country and his God.

Stuart had left behind him, even when pressed by his enemies, but one artillery limber. From sunset until eleven o’clock at night these fierce raiders and their harried steeds slept. Awakened at midnight, by dawn they reached Richmond. General Stuart turned over the command of the brigade to Colonel Fitzhugh Lee, near Charles City, at sunset on the night of the 14th, and taking with him one courier and a guide, he hastily rode to report to General Lee the result of his expedition. Once during the night the wiry trooper stopped to refresh himself with a cup of coffee. For twenty miles of his journey he was liable at any turn in the road to meet Federal scouts. The hours of the night were long. Stuart both in body and mind had borne tremendous burdens on his great march, but he felt more than repaid for all he had suffered and endured when, as the sun rose over General Lee’s headquarters, with his two faithful companions he dismounted to tell the great chieftain what he and his men had accomplished. He had captured one hundred and sixty-five prisoners and brought them out with him. He had captured two hundred and sixty horses and mules, which he was enabled to turn over to the quartermaster’s department. He had destroyed not less than seventy-five wagons, two schooners and great quantities of forage, and to the Federals more trains were lost than were in the possession of the brigade quartermaster, at the front, with McClellan’s great army.

This exploit gave General Stuart a leading place among Confederate cavalry leaders, which he ably and fully sustained until the end so sadly came to him at Yellow Tavern, almost to an hour, two years later, in his desperate defense of Richmond from the approach of Sheridan and his raiders. He deserved all the world said and thought about him. His genius, his daring, his unfaltering courage, his cheerfulness and calmness in danger stamped him as a military prodigy and gave him a renown that would increase and brighten, as, month by month, fate was yet to open for him the paths of true greatness.

Chapter XV
BATTLE AND CAMPAIGN OF TREVILIAN
STATION, JUNE 11th AND 12th, 1864

General Meade, notwithstanding his splendid service to the Federal Army at Gettysburg, did not receive the promotion to which he and many of his associates and friends felt that he was entitled. In the fall of 1863 and in the early part of 1864 the failure of Meade to meet public expectation induced President Lincoln to bring General Grant from the West to direct the military movements around Washington and Richmond. There had been so many disappointments under the impetus of the cry, “On to Richmond,” that General Grant determined, as he said, “to make Lee’s army my only objective point. Wherever Lee goes we will go and we will hammer him continuously until by mere attrition, if nothing else, there shall be nothing left him but submission.” General Grant had many successes to his credit, but he had never faced General Lee, and he had not yet fully comprehended the character of the foe he was to encounter in the new field to which he had come. He had before him a gigantic task. It required several great battles to awake General Grant fully to the burdens he must carry in the mission he had, with some degree of both egotism and optimism, assumed.

These pronunciamentos of victory sounded well in orders and reports to his superiors. The rulers and overseers in Washington were gladdened by these expressions of confidence and assurance. True, many here and there had thus spoken, but these had no such history as General Grant, and could give no such reasons as he for the hope that was within him.

During the first week of May, 1864, the roads and conditions were such that an advance could be safely made by the Federal forces. On the 2d of May General Lee ascended a high mountain in the midst of his army and with a glass took in the situation. Around and about him were scenes which his genius had made illustrious and which the men of his army, by their valor, had rendered immortal. Longstreet had come back from Tennessee and Georgia and the Army of Northern Virginia had been recruited as far as possible, so as to prepare for the onslaught which the springtime would surely bring, and which the military conditions rendered speedy and certain.

Grant’s forces were well down in Virginia near Culpepper Court House, forty-five miles from Washington. He had one hundred and fifty thousand men under his command. This large army demanded vast trains for supplies, and one-seventh of General Grant’s army was required to take care of his wagon train. Grant had two hundred and seventy-five cannon of the most improved kind, and he had Sheridan, then in the zenith of his fame, as his cavalry leader. There were thirteen thousand cavalrymen to look out for the advance and take care of the flanks of this great array. It is calculated that if Grant’s supply train had marched in single file, it would have covered a distance of one hundred miles; and one of General Grant’s well-informed subordinates said to him, “You have the best clothed and the best fed army that ever marched on any field.”

About the first of May General Lee had sixty-two thousand men ready for battle. He had two hundred and twenty-five guns; five thousand artillerymen and eight thousand five hundred cavalrymen under the renowned “Jeb” Stuart. Each of the great leaders realized, although they gave no outward expression of their conclusion, that the month of May would witness a mighty death grapple, the fiercest and most destructive that the war had seen. Neither the men in gray nor the men in blue would possibly have fought so vigorously had they known what the days from May 4th to June 4th had in store for the legions now ready to face and destroy each other. Day by day the calls of an astounding mortality would be met. Day by day each would accept the demands that duty made, with a fortitude that was worthy of American soldiers, but only General Lee fully realized what these days would bring forth. Not until twenty days later did General Grant grasp the true extent of what this advance meant to the soldiers he had been called to lead.

It was clear from General Grant’s telegrams that he had not expected the sort of campaign that General Lee put up against him in this march to Richmond. On the 4th of May, after he had crossed the Rapidan, he wired to his superiors at Washington that “forty-eight hours would demonstrate whether Lee intends to give battle before receding to Richmond.” General Lee was in no hurry to throw down the gage. He could afford to take his own time. He had met many Federal generals before and he had out-generaled them all. His army was at Orange Court House. Later, to protect his flank, it turned eastward to Spottsylvania County. Gradually Lee was nestling his army between Fredericksburg and the Pamunky River. Richmond was almost due south of Washington, but the Potomac drove Grant westward and in sight of Fredericksburg, where in days gone by Burnside had been crushed. Grant had resolved to go to Richmond, but between him and Richmond was General Lee with his matchless fighters, and hitherto these had proved an unsurmountable barrier to all who undertook to travel this road.

By the morning of the 5th the lines had been formed on the Wilderness Road and it became apparent that every step that General Grant would take on his southern advance was to be skillfully and savagely contested.

On the 5th of May, when the first day of the battle was passed, General Lee had suffered no reverse, and he telegraphed to Richmond: “By the blessing of God we maintained our position against every effort, until night, when the contest closed.” By five o’clock on the morning of the 6th the armies were engaged again. In the midst of a crisis at the front, long expected reinforcements came on the field; General Lee advanced to meet them. The turning point was at hand. The men of Texas were the first to reach the scene of action. Hitherto General Lee had never lost his equipoise, and, riding in the midst of the Texans, did what he rarely ever did before—gave an immediate command on the battlefield. He exclaimed to the Texans: “Charge! Charge! Charge, boys! Charge!” He was rushing amongst them to the front where the storm of lead and iron was heavy and momentarily increasing. When these devoted soldiers saw their great commander exposed to the fire, with one accord they cried out: “Go back, General Lee! Go back! Go back!” The brave artillerymen under Poague shouted, “Come back, General Lee! Come back! Come back!” Oblivious of these tender expressions of their solicitude, lifting himself high up in his stirrups, on “Traveler,” and waving his hat he headed the charge. Up to this moment there had been no firing from the Confederate soldiers. From one end of the line to the other there arose over the battlefield the cry, “Lee to the rear! Lee to the rear!” The roar of artillery and the sharper crackling of musketry could not drown this outburst of solicitude along the Confederate ranks. No danger could quell this agony of his followers or still their fear for his safety. His life was to them above all other considerations, and their concern for him even in the midst of greatest danger was an absorbing passion and consuming desire. A brawny Texas sergeant sprang from the ranks and seized the bridle of “Traveler” and turned him about. The Confederate column refused to move until General Lee retired from the scene of danger. The love and devotion of his followers forced him to go. No commander could, or dare, resist such an appeal.

On the morning of the 10th of May General Grant felt that Washington would like to know what had happened down in the Virginia hills, and so out of the smoke and gloom of the firing line and the burning summer sun he said: “We were engaged with the enemy all day both on the 5th and 6th.... Had there been daylight, the enemy could have injured us very much in the confusion that prevailed.” He confessed that his loss in this battle had been twelve thousand. He quieted the alarms at Washington by saying that the mortality of the Confederates no doubt exceeded his, but he admitted, that was only a guess based on the fact that they had attacked and were repulsed. He added: “At present we can claim no victory over the enemy, neither have they gained a single advantage.” General Grant had now discovered that General Lee would give him battle “this side of Richmond,” and it had cost him seventeen thousand men to reach this conclusion.

By the 8th of May General Grant began to take General Lee more seriously, for he wired: “It is not demonstrated what the enemy will do, but the best of feeling prevails in this army and I feel at present no apprehension for the result.” He now resolved to go east of the route he had chosen and so he despatched the following to his superiors: “My exact route to the James River I have not yet definitely marked out.” It was evident that General Lee had changed General Grant’s plans.

General Grant now set his cavalry to raid General Lee’s trains. Sheridan swung to the right and struck the highway to Richmond. The contending forces had now reached Spottsylvania Court House. It had been a slow march, and it was a death march. By the 10th General Grant became still more uncertain, and he wired: “The enemy hold out front in very strong force and evince a very strong determination to interpose between us and Richmond.... I shall take no backward steps but may be compelled to send back for further supplies. We can maintain ourselves and in the end beat Lee’s army, I believe.”

On the 11th General Grant had still further reason to revise his opinions. He wired General Halleck: “We have now ended the 6th day of very heavy fighting. The result to this time is in our favor, but our losses have been heavy as well as those of the enemy. We have lost to this time eleven ... general officers killed, wounded and missing, and probably twenty thousand men. I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.”

Not sufficiently protected, twenty-eight hundred of General Lee’s men had been captured. Artillery had not been ordered to their support promptly enough, and twenty cannon were the prize of Hancock’s valiant followers. General Lee heard the sounds of a fierce conflict and rode to the scene of danger and advanced into a line of heavy fire. He found himself in the midst of General John B. Gordon’s men. General Gordon, with that voice that thrilled men in war and peace, wherever it was heard, shouted: “General Lee to the rear!” and flaming with courage and enthusiasm he rode to the Confederate chieftain and exclaimed, “General Lee, these men are Georgians and Virginians; they have never failed you. They will not fail you now.” A soldier, moved by the spirit of the moment, rushed from the ranks and seizing “Traveler” by the bridle turned his head to the rear and led him away, and up and down the line came a mighty cry, “Lee to the rear!” With a wild rush Gordon drove the enemy from his front, but not a step did the soldiers advance until General Lee had obeyed their peremptory order to find a place of safety.

General Lee, remaining close to the position where Gordon had left him, attempted to lead the Mississippians under Harris. These again took up the great heart cry of the Confederate hosts, and shouted, “Lee to the rear! Lee to the rear!” The conflict became appalling. Men from opposite sides of breastworks climbed to their tops and fired into the face of their opponents. They grappled with each other and drew each other across the breastworks. The trenches were filled with blood, and nature sent a cold and dreary rain to chill the life currents of the wounded men that lay on the field. It was said by those who listened to the sound of musketry and the crash of artillery at Spottsylvania and elsewhere, that it was the steadiest and most continuous and deafening that the war witnessed.

By the 13th twenty-eight hundred of Lee’s men had been captured under General Bushrod Johnson, but he had only lost eighteen per cent of his army. Sixteen thousand of General Grant’s had been killed and wounded. To this loss must be added the twenty thousand who had already fallen bravely before the men of the Army of Northern Virginia.

By the 12th General Grant had telegraphed: “The 8th day of battle closed. The enemy obstinate. They seem to have found the last ditch.” On the morning of the 13th General Grant’s subordinate again telegraphed: “The proportion of severely wounded is greater than either of the previous day’s fighting.” He further said in the afternoon: “The impression that Lee had started on his retreat which prevailed at the date of my despatch this morning is not confirmed.... Of course, we cannot determine without a battle whether the whole army is still here, and nothing has been done today to provoke one. It has been necessary to rest the men, and accordingly we have everywhere stood upon the defensive.”

It was on the evening of May 11th that along the wires came to General Lee the startling and shocking intelligence that General J. E. B. Stuart had fallen. For seven days Lee declined to give any official announcement of this tragedy. He carried the depressing secret in his bosom. A year before, Stonewall Jackson, at Chancellorsville, had been stricken down in the midst of another gigantic conflict. General Lee was unwilling to let his fighters know that death had called the illustrious cavalry chieftain at the moment when they most needed the inspiration of every Confederate leader.

Grant sat down to wait five days and in the meantime he added twenty thousand fresh troops to his legions.

The hammering process had not proved such a wonderful success after all, and so Grant had ordered Sigel down the Shenandoah Valley to break Lee’s communication. In the meantime General John C. Breckinridge came up from Southwestern Virginia and brought with him some infantry and some cavalry, and on the 15th of May, while General Grant was waiting, Breckinridge had crushed Sigel and captured six of his guns as well as one-sixth of his men. On the 17th of May, Halleck wired General Grant: “Sigel is in full retreat on Strasburg. He will do nothing but run—never did anything else”; and there came also to General Grant on this eventful day the news that Beauregard over at Petersburg had driven General Butler back and bottled him up on the James River.

On the 20th of May, Grant moved still further eastward at Spottsylvania Court House. Since crossing the Rapidan on May 4th, sixteen days before, he had suffered a loss of thirty-seven thousand men. This was thirty per cent of all the fighting men that he had led out from Culpepper Court House.

Grant was still moving eastward and Dana telegraphed: “Now for the first time Lee prevented his southward march.” He seemed to have forgotten what had been happening since the 4th of May.

Sigel disposed of, Breckinridge came to join in the conflict at Cold Harbor. By the 26th of May General Grant had withdrawn from Lee’s front, and pressing eastward and southwardly, attempted to find another road to Richmond. He telegraphed to Washington: “I may be mistaken, but I feel that our success over Lee’s army is already insured,” but yet he directed that his supplies be brought up the Pamunky River to the White House. He was looking for a base and he was going to find the path that McClellan followed when he met defeat from General Lee two years before.

By May 30th General Grant had again changed his views about General Lee and so he despatched to General Halleck: “I wish you would bring all the pontoon bridging you can to City Point to have it ready in case it is wanted.” He found out that Lee might fight outside of Richmond—and anywhere else in its defense.

The two armies were swinging around now to Cold Harbor. This place was already known in history. The armies now facing each other had met there before, in June, 1862. The results then to the Federals were not encouraging. This time they were to prove far more disastrous and exceedingly horrible.

On the morning of June 3d, 1864, at half past four o’clock, General Grant opened a great battle—Cold Harbor—the greatest battle of this campaign and the only battle he afterwards said that he ever regretted having fought. Persisting in his policy of forcing his way south to Richmond, he was unwilling to confess failure. Confident of the power of the “hammering process,” committed by his boast to fight it out on this line if it took all summer, he was too proud to admit that he was mistaken. He hoped and believed that fate, hitherto so propitious, would now come to his rescue and relief in the extremity of the situation into which war’s surprises had brought him. Between four and nine o’clock in the morning, assault after assault was made and the whole front of Grant’s line was so decimated that his men drew back from the scenes of conflict. At nine o’clock it became so dreadful that even as brave men as Hancock refused to transmit General Grant’s peremptory orders to his subordinates to renew the attack. Each time it was transmitted, each time the men on the line refused to obey the order, and officers who had never before quailed, and who were strangers to fear, stood still and allowed their men to stand still in the face of peremptory orders to advance. Ten thousand men on the 1st and 3d of June were wounded and killed, and then General Grant moved away from Lee’s front. It was impregnable, and General Grant realized that the Army of Northern Virginia, although only half as numerous as his own, would not be driven away from their places. It cost thousands of dead and wounded, but it was demonstrated to be a verity, and General Grant, with all his hitherto indomitable will and with his tremendous pride of opinion, yielded to the inevitable—that General Lee’s genius and the courage of his followers had forced into his mind and set up in his path.

Seventeen thousand killed, wounded or sent away by reason of sickness, were the tidings that came from this ensanguined field to Washington, where thirty days before every heart was so full of hope. General Grant had permitted his dead and wounded between the lines to lie uncared for until the 5th of June, and then humanity with fearful protest forced him at least officially to admit that he was vanquished. He at last sought the right to succor the wounded and bury the dead.

With the Army of Northern Virginia behind the breastworks, with their courage and dogged determination to defend their capital, there was no force of men and no legion however brave or intrepid that could move these men in gray. The men under the Stars and Bars had sufficient ammunition to keep their guns in use, and so long as it was possible to fire these guns, no earthly foeman could break their lines. True, for an instant, at one angle the line had been forced, but quickly it was retaken and the Confederate front restored.

Grant had lost approximately seventy thousand men, killed or wounded. General Lee had suffered a loss of twenty thousand, making a total on both sides of ninety thousand, and from Culpepper to Cold Harbor, covering a period of thirty days, the world had never seen such a trail of blood. The life currents of valiant soldiers flowed almost in a stream. These armies had traveled fifty miles. They had been battling and killing all the way. This road was two hundred and sixty-four thousand feet in length. Every three feet had witnessed the sacrifice of a life or the infliction of a wound. Men looked aghast at this loss of life and limb.

On the 11th of May, General Stuart had fallen at Yellow Tavern. He died on the 12th. Universal sorrow filled every heart. A year before Stonewall Jackson had died, and now came the death of Stuart, as a sort of final stroke to the Confederate hopes. When Stuart died, on May 12th, General Wade Hampton, as senior major general of cavalry in the Army of Northern Virginia, took his place. Sheridan had gone down to the west of Richmond and made the attack which resulted in Stuart’s death, and after a repulse rode back to the shelter of General Grant’s infantry.

Sheridan had reached the gates of Richmond, but there his course was stayed and his raid ended and he turned about and came to the west of Grant’s army and resumed his place with it on the 25th of May. He had not suffered a very great loss, six hundred and twenty-five men, but the Confederates had lost Stuart, and now Hampton was to come to the front. He was forty-six years of age; he had passed through three years of vigorous warfare and a wide experience. Under him now were some of the best cavalry leaders the country had known. He had M. C. Butler, with his South Carolinians; he had P. M. B. Young, with his Georgians; he had Rosser, with his Virginians; he had Wickham and Lomax, with their Virginians, under Fitzhugh Lee. He had James B. Gordon, with the North Carolinians, and Chambliss, with his Virginians, under W. H. F. Lee, son of Robert E. Lee. Dismounts, wounds and casualties had reduced his forces to the point where they could only do the necessary cavalry work for General Lee’s army.

The Federal cavalry, at this time, was commanded by General Sheridan. He had three divisions under Torbert, Gregg and Wilson, and these had between them fifteen thousand eight hundred and twenty-five serviceable horses and men. For every horseman of Hampton, Sheridan had two. A little while before there had come into use among the Federals the Spencer & Hall magazine rifles. Each man not only had one of these magazine rifles, but he had a revolver and a sabre. The horses were always fed and they could be changed whenever the exigencies of war demanded. After the experiences at Fleetwood Hill, General Hampton realized that the methods of fighting must be altered. He had read of what Morgan and Forrest and Wheeler had done with dismounted men. He did not yield his mounted drill, but he expanded and developed his dismounted drill.

General Grant had failed to break General Lee’s lines. He must now resort to flank movements. General Hampton never for a moment hesitated at the tremendous responsibilities which now rested upon the cavalry. He was conscious of his power and the efficiency of his followers, and was ready to do the best he could. He was the successor of one of the most distinguished, brave and dashing cavalry leaders of the war. It required genius and courage to rise to the situation, but General Hampton, with calmness and intrepidity, was willing to meet every call and face every emergency.

Over at Hawes’ Shop, on the 28th of May, Sheridan was trying to find out the position of the Confederate infantry, and Hampton was trying to find out the position of the Federal infantry. They fought seven hours. Some of Hampton’s men had never heard the battle sound before. They had been sandwiched in with the veterans, and they made good soldiers even in their first conflict.

Custer and other Federal officers said that the fight at Hawes’ Shop was the severest cavalry fighting in the war. Colonel Alger of the 5th Michigan says it was a hand-to-hand battle. The South Carolinians bore the brunt of it, and they won new laurels. When the result of the fighting at Hawes’ Shop was made known none doubted that Stuart’s mantle had fallen upon a worthy successor. It was immediately preceding the death of General Stuart that General Sheridan said either to Grant or some of his commanders that he “could whip hell out of Stuart”; to which General Grant laconically replied, “Why in hell didn’t he go and do it?” He went, but he came back without making good his boast, and he was now to take a turn with General Hampton.

Next came Atlee Station, with its close, sharp contest and with its victory.

After the Battle of Cold Harbor, on the 4th day of June, Grant began to fortify and swing around to the east and north. Later he crossed the James River and sat down for the siege of Petersburg. He had not at first recognized General Lee’s true greatness. Here he was to realize the stern, unyielding courage of the Army of Northern Virginia. He had found it would do no good to “fight it out on that line, if it took all summer,” and to save his army from annihilation he must change his plan of campaign. At the Battle of Cold Harbor, the ratio of loss had been for fifteen Federals, one Confederate. Nothing had happened like this before. No man could deny the valor and persistency of the Federal soldiers under Grant. They did not flinch when the test came. They bared their breast to the awful storm, and it swept more than seventy thousand either into the grave or the hospital. We know now all that passed. The wonderful book published by the Federal government, entitled “War of the Rebellion, Official Record,” tells the whole story, and the reader can see by the daily records and despatches of the actors on both sides, in these days of tremendous conflict, what these two armies did in the gigantic struggle for the possession of the Confederate capital.

On the morning of June 8th, General Hampton with his forces was out near Atlee Station, eight miles north of Richmond. In the early hours of that morning Sheridan marched away with a cavalry force of nine thousand men. He had been ordered by Grant to march northwest, to capture and destroy Gordonsville and Charlottesville, and then to move down the valley and help Hunter, who was then on his way to Lynchburg.

All the fury and storm of war now seemed to be turned loose on General Lee’s army. Hunter had penetrated the valley and was setting his face toward Lynchburg. The torch, with the horrors of hell behind it, was reducing the beautiful and happy homes of Virginia to heaps of ruins; piles of ashes and chimneys standing stark and lone were the memorial to the savagery of the invasion of this once hospitable and cultured country. Now Sheridan, later the “Scourge of God” in the Shenandoah Valley, was to add new atrocities at Charlottesville to war’s devastation and brutality.

The signal stations told the story of General Sheridan’s departure. General Hampton divined where he was going. He conferred with General Lee, and asked to follow Sheridan’s path and attempt the defense of the valley. As greatly as General Lee needed men, he could not allow Sheridan to march unmolested and destroy lines which were so essential to the maintenance of the Confederate position in and around Richmond.

Rations were light in these days. Quickly, three days’ food was cooked and with a few ears of corn tied round with strings and fastened to the saddles became the commissary equipment of Hampton’s forces, which were to engage in one of the important cavalry campaigns of the war. The cavalry under Hampton and Sheridan was to be removed fifty miles from the infantry supports and the cavalry alone was to fight out the issues of this campaign. Like mighty wrestlers repairing to some desert to try out their skill alone, these two cavalry forces marched away where none could see them in their struggle, and where none could come to the rescue of the vanquished.

Hampton could not take more than forty-seven hundred men. These were all that Lee could spare. He had twelve pieces of artillery.

Sheridan had two divisions. They numbered nine thousand men. They carried twenty-four pieces of artillery, and were the best the army of the Potomac could send. Sheridan had the 1st, 2d and 5th United States Regulars and there were no better trained cavalry than these. He had Custer’s brigade, who had imbibed the dash and courage of their leader, and he had New York, New Jersey and Maine regiments that had won renown not only at Fleetwood Hill, but on many other fields. These horsemen had witnessed the terrors of the march from Culpepper to Cold Harbor. Its wrecks and its losses stood out before their minds in sharpest lines. The horsemen had fared well, and the infantry had borne the burden of the thirty-seven days’ decimation, and with the instincts of brave men they were rather glad to be sent to take a hand in any movement which should either avenge or compensate for the defense of that terrifying campaign.

GENERAL WADE HAMPTON

Few people knew of Sheridan’s going. He had marched away first towards Washington, but he could not march out of sight of the skill or the watchful eyes of General Hampton’s scouts. Hope beat high in the breast of Sheridan. He had felt chagrined that he had failed in his attack on Richmond a few days before and now he hoped to destroy Gordonsville and Charlottesville and march down the valley to Lynchburg and take Richmond from the rear, come in behind Petersburg, and bring wreck and ruin to General Lee. It was a great plan of campaign, laid out along broad lines. He had hoped to keep away from his wily antagonist, but Hampton divined whither he was going, and it turned out when Sheridan had reached the first objective point of his campaign, he was to face a tired but vigorous and dauntless pursuer, and one who never quailed or doubted even when nature was almost pitilessly resistant.

Sheridan marched in three days sixty-five miles. It was hot, dusty and water was scarce. He marched leisurely, because he felt that his antagonist knew naught of his plans, and he was confident that Hampton could not reach him where he was going. He was sure that he had gotten away unobserved, and that he would have nothing to do but burn, waste and destroy from Gordonsville to Lynchburg. He could see in his mind’s eye the flames licking up the buildings that stood by the path he was to march. A feeling of profound satisfaction filled his heart, and on the terribleness of his work he felt sure he could found a new reputation for victory and success.

On the night of the 10th Sheridan and his soldiers slept calmly in the summer air. They did not know where Hampton was, but they felt sure he was not where they were, and no dreams of danger or battle disturbed the tranquility and quiet of their rest.

On the morning after Sheridan started north and then turned west, Hampton set his forces in motion. He was sure that he knew where Sheridan was going. He was staking his all on the correctness of his instincts. He was confident he could march more rapidly than Sheridan; he knew the road and he had the short line; but yet he must march under tremendous difficulties. The temperature was torrid, the dust was so thick that it almost could be cut with a knife. After breathing it a few hours, the nostrils and eyes of the men became inflamed, and the moisture of the body combining with the dust made an oozy, slimy substance that half blinded their vision. Water was scarce and food was scarce, but courage was still abundant.

By the night of June 10th Hampton had traveled something like fifty miles. Sheridan had gone sixty-five miles, and as darkness came on, Hampton’s forces reached Green Spring Valley, a few miles away from Trevilian Station, an insignificant railway stop, from which the battle on the morrow was to take its name. The two Confederate divisions were a few miles apart. This hard marching, the cooked rations, the corn upon the saddles, told the intelligent men that constituted Hampton’s forces that they were after somebody and it did not take them long to figure out that this somebody was Sheridan. With their parched throats and swollen eyes, and suffering with inflamed nostrils, they laid down to sleep, not worrying about the morrow. Careless as to what it would bring for them, they were ready to answer every call of duty, wherever that should lead them in the day to come. As the streaks of light began to come over the mountain sides from the east, every man in the Confederate line was up and at his post, ready for action. The last of the corn that was brought on their weary backs from Atlee Station was fed to the hungry brutes, and the last of the soggy bread, which had been cooked for the men before they had set out on this march, was eaten. General Hampton knew that now he must be close to the Federal lines. The night before his scouts had brought him back information that Sheridan was near by. Some of these had looked into his camps, and the Federals, unconscious of the presence of Hampton’s legions, had been sounding their bugles and were quietly and leisurely making their morning’s meal. They felt there was no need for haste. As there was no hostile force near, they believed they might in safety enjoy a brief repose, which they had fully earned by hardest service.

Hampton’s scouts knew the topography. They had described Sheridan’s location. He formed his plans accordingly, and they were plans which involved savage work. General Forrest’s quaint saying, “Get the bulge on them,” had traveled to the east and fallen on Hampton’s ears. With an inferior force he well understood that strategy and skill would stand him well in hand, and that he must take fullest advantage of all that chance might send his way. It was worth some hundreds of men to get the drop on Sheridan. The first lick is oftentimes of great value, and General Hampton was resolved if it was possible to strike an unexpected blow. He hoped in this way to equalize the disparity of numbers. He began his work early and he set about the business of the day furiously. His orders were to assail the enemy wherever and whenever found and not for a single moment to stay the tide of battle.

The country had not been denuded of its wood. This would help to hide from the enemy the full strength and position of the Confederates, and at the same time it would make more effective the slower, steadier and more accurate firing of the men in gray. The Federals had sarcastically referred to General Hampton as a “woods fighter”; in other words, he was afraid to come out in the open, but when he had forty-seven hundred to nine thousand, he had a right to take advantage of all that the surrounding conditions would give him in the conflict.

Hampton had undertaken to intercept Sheridan’s march. He had out-marched him. He had done in two days that which had taken Sheridan three, and his men were as fresh and bright as those of Sheridan. The journey had told on man and beast, but they had both become used to the severest toil, and were willing and ready for any fray that would pass that way.

Some picket firing was heard, but the Federals, not yet realizing that Hampton was in their front and on their flank, supposed that the desultory shots were from the guns of raw militia who had pressed forward with more vigor than discretion.

Sheridan and his most dashing lieutenant, General Custer, no sooner heard heavy firing than they comprehended the real situation. They understood that the Confederates had followed them in heavy force, that the clash would be serious, and that hard fighting was at hand, and that if they were to continue their march down the valley, they must discomfit the men who were now assailing their lines and drive them out of their path. The Federals began to fight back with spirit. It did not take them long to get ready for the grave task that was forced upon them. While the Confederates were charging, the men in blue were charging, too, and by good luck and by boldness Custer passed between Fitzhugh Lee and Hampton’s two divisions and was at the Confederate rear before anybody caught on to this serious condition. When General Hampton, guided by the sound of firing, rushed to the spot, he found that Custer was vigorously assailing his rear. Custer had taken many of his caissons and wagons and led horses, and he felt that victory was already within his grasp. In this emergency, Rosser, who could always be depended upon for a fierce, impetuous charge, was ordered to attack Custer. In a few moments the crash of charging horses, the roll of revolver firing, and the cuts of sabres demonstrated to Custer’s men that the people they were fighting were not militia, but foemen worthy of their steel. Nearly all that Custer had captured was retaken, and an entire regiment made prisoners. Rosser fell wounded. The enemy, finding the opportunity, pressed hard upon Butler’s and Young’s brigades. The result of the battle hung in the balance. A mistake on either side would be fatal. Hampton’s presence was always an inspiration, and he rode from place to place on every part of the field. Outnumbered, Hampton’s division under Lee was sorely pressed, and General Fitzhugh Lee’s division was cut off and became so thoroughly separated that it could be of no help or support for twenty-four hours.

Sheridan’s forces were now turned with severe impact upon Hampton’s division, and gradually it was forced back toward Gordonsville, but still protected that place and Charlottesville. Hampton quickly took advantage of a railroad embankment, dismounted his men and put them behind it, and against this, Sheridan, all during the afternoon of the 10th, in vain hurled his forces. When the sun rose on the morning of the 11th, Hampton, his men, his artillery and his horses were still in position. Sheridan, strangely enough, waited until three o’clock in the afternoon. By this he lost his chance to win. Had he rushed the Confederate line with a real impetuous assault he would have broken it. He waited without a good reason. Fitzhugh Lee, with two-fifths of Hampton’s men, was marching to avoid Federal interruption, and when he came, Hampton’s heart was gladdened and his hopes lifted high. Fitzhugh Lee coming once more united the Confederates, and now all of Hampton’s men faced all of Sheridan’s men with Hampton protected by the railroad embankment. When this barrier, as the battle front was lengthened, failed, fence rails were pressed into service and such earth as the men could throw up with their hands and plates and cups reinforced the rails. So far little had been done or accomplished, and Sheridan moved up his men close to the Confederate lines. They had plenty of ammunition, and the roar from the constant discharge of the magazine rifles made a terrific din. Again and again Sheridan’s men with supreme courage assailed the Confederate breastworks, but each time they left their dead and wounded and fell back from the scenes of slaughter. Chew and Hart, with their artillery, poured deadliest discharges into the Federal columns. At one time General M. C. Butler’s men exhausted their ammunition. It looked as if all was lost. When despair seemed to fill every heart in this brave command, an ammunition wagon, with the horses lashed to a gallop, came dashing by, and the occupants of the wagon flung out from its sides loose handfuls of cartridges, and these the men joyously seized and returned to the fray. Seven times Sheridan’s men advanced to the charge, and seven times they recoiled from the tremendous fire that greeted them from the Confederate lines. At the moment of the last assault a Confederate shell exploded a Federal caisson. Somebody realized that this was the psychological moment, and from over the breastworks the Confederates, moved by instinct and valor, charged with the speed of racers upon the Federal line. The rebel yell was heard from end to end, and the Federal forces, disheartened by their many failures, were swept away by the unexpected and impetuous advance of Hampton’s soldiers. The turning point had come. The Confederates seized their opportunity and the battle was won.

From three o’clock in the afternoon until ten o’clock at night the contest had raged, and the record showed that it was a fierce contest. Both sides had dismounted. On the ground they were assailing each other with greatest energy and persistence. The Confederates had the best of position, but the Federals had the most of men. All through the afternoon and in the darkness of night neither side was willing to give up the struggle. The stars came out with feeble light to relieve the gloom and shadows that overspread the wreck and suffering of the battlefield. Naught could stay the surging tide of war, and in the darkness, as in the light, these soldiers continued to wage the contest. There was no time to bear away the dead or relieve the wounded. Orders had been given by General Hampton to Fitzhugh Lee for rapid and fierce pursuit, and to intervene between Sheridan and Carpenter’s Ford on the North Anna River, at which he had crossed the day before; but the orders failed or were not executed and Sheridan marched away, leaving the unfortunate wounded behind, and returned by the same road over which he had come. He left in the hands of the men of the South six hundred and ninety-five prisoners and one hundred and twenty-five wounded. Again was demonstrated the power of the single-firing guns. The Federals claim to have carried away more than five hundred wounded, but they abandoned their dead and a hundred and twenty-five wounded were left with Hampton.

Little time was allowed for expressions of humanity. The Confederates, with the possession of the battlefield, assumed thereby responsibility for the care of those whose misfortunes left them suffering and helpless in the fields and woods that had witnessed the harvest of death on the two days of the struggle. When the storm of battle had passed, Federal and Confederate wounded were placed in improvised hospitals constructed of flat cars, thence conveyed to some convenient hospital further south. The few people that were left in this war-stricken country brought such food as they could spare to feed Hampton and his men; but these, rising to the highest calls of humanity, hungry and thirsty themselves, willingly made an equal division of what had been brought with their wounded and captured foes. This was a splendid demonstration of the noble and generous instincts that ever dwell in the hearts of brave men and which quicken and expand under the influence of opportunity. The bitterness of a fratricidal war could not stay the exercise of benignity and mercy.

General Sheridan endeavored to mitigate the unfortunate results of this expedition upon which he had started with high and boastful hopes. He had promised so much and accomplished so little that it required no small genius and much of rhetorical skill to satisfy those who had sent him on so important a mission. He had his own choice of troopers. Those he took with him had shown that in any contest they were ready to give a good account of themselves. Equipped, armed and provided with all that money could bring, and brought to a high degree of discipline, and already fully proved as able to cope with their foes, General Sheridan had either to exaggerate the number of men under Hampton, magnify the difficulties he encountered or admit a complete defeat. He chose the former. He claimed that he had attacked the Confederates in fortifications. He reported that Hampton had been reinforced by infantry on the second day of the fight, when in fact there was no infantry closer than General Lee’s camps, eight miles from Richmond. The barren results of this expedition temporarily shook General Grant’s faith in General Sheridan’s capacity and fighting qualities, and this was only restored, when later, in the Valley and around Petersburg, General Sheridan repaired his shattered reputation, and with the experiences of another four months demonstrated that he was both a brilliant and aggressive cavalry leader.

He had hoped to do great damage to the railroad at Gordonsville and south to Staunton, and yet he only disturbed two hundred feet. General Torbert reported that the Confederates had a large brigade of mounted infantry armed with rifle muskets. A Federal prisoner had written in his diary on the last day of the fight—“Sunday, June 12th, ... fought on same ground and got whipped like the devil....” Anyhow, whatever may have been the results as figured in General Sheridan’s imagination, he made a night ride, crossed the North Anna River, and marched back to Cold Harbor, from whence he had come. For eight days Hampton was on one side of the river and Sheridan on the other. If Sheridan wanted to fight he had pontoon bridges and he had only to lay them and cross over. For at least a portion of the time the two cavalry commands were within sight of each other and now and then they exchanged shots. After fifteen days General Sheridan had gotten back to where he left Grant’s army, from whence he started out with such flattering hopes and alluring expectations. He now found that Grant had determined to abandon his summer line, cross the Chickahominy, ferry over the James River, and take up a position on its south bank, from whence the long siege of Petersburg would begin, and proceed by inches until it would culminate in the overthrow of the Confederacy.

General Hampton had a second chance at General Gregg at Nance’s Shop on the 24th of June, eleven days after the cessation of hostilities at Trevilian. He came close to making a complete rout of General Gregg’s forces. Attacking in the afternoon he harried his lines,—pursued him until eleven o’clock at night, and a short distance from Charles City Court House captured one hundred and fifty-seven prisoners. So sorely was General Gregg’s division handled in this affair that it required some time to recruit and mend up.

General Sheridan, in making his report, was bound by his backward march to express his regret at his inability to carry out his instructions. It was with much humiliation that he admitted failure. In the campaign Sheridan lost, according to Federal reports, more than fifteen hundred killed, wounded and taken prisoner, while General Hampton’s forces lost less than eight hundred. This Trevilian expedition was another test out of the spirit and power of Federal and Confederate cavalry of the armies in Northern Virginia. It demonstrated anew that the Confederate cavalry under Hampton was just as enterprising, as valiant, as enthusiastic and as brave and dauntless as when it fought under Stuart. Down to the very end the horsemen of the Army of Northern Virginia maintained their proud spirit and their indomitable will, and when the last call was made, when the lines at Petersburg had been broken, and when General Lee, in the vain hope of effecting a union with Johnston in Georgia, had turned his face west and reached Appomattox, there to be met with sad and appalling disaster, the cavalry was still ready and willing to fight and give valiant response to the last call that their country could make upon their fealty and their courage. Many of them marched into North Carolina and Georgia to make one more stand under the Stars and Bars, and once more offer their lives to win life for the Confederate Nation.

Chapter XVI
MORGAN’S RIDE AROUND CINCINNATI, ON
“THE OHIO RAID,” JULY, 1863

In June, 1863, General Banks was hammering Port Hudson, Louisiana, where General Gardner, the commander of the Confederate forces, made such gallant and fierce resistance. The fall of Vicksburg on July 4th did not affect the valor of Gardner and his command. He fought until his men from mere exhaustion could fight no longer. Without rest, in constant battle for six weeks, flesh and blood could resist no more. He inflicted tremendous loss upon his assailants, and he yielded only when further resistance was physically impossible. These were very dark days for the people of the Southland.

After the Battle of Murfreesboro at Stone River, December 31, 1862—January 1, 1863, General Rosecrans remained inactive for five months. The mortality in this struggle measurably paralyzed the energies of both Confederates and Federals. Each general sat down to rest, renew hopes, recuperate and plead for reinforcements.

While Rosecrans had behind him almost unlimited resources, an ample fighting force of trained men and abundant supplies, the experience at Murfreesboro rendered him uncertain about grappling again with General Bragg, and the latter, with the awful memory of that struggle, was glad to wait for the other side to move.

That, in June, 1863, Bragg’s troops were at Shelbyville, Tennessee, about twenty miles away from Murfreesboro, was convincing evidence that Rosecrans was not eager for battle. The clamors of those in authority at Washington indicated that Rosecrans must advance. It was necessary for him either to go forward or resign, and in June he undertook to force Bragg still farther south.

Fifty miles from Nashville, at Shelbyville, General Bragg decided again to try the fortunes of war, but Rosecrans, with a larger army than Bragg, was able to turn his flanks. On the 27th of June General Bragg concentrated his army at Tullahoma, which was twenty miles from Shelbyville. He had at first determined there again to risk a battle. At this time, General Bragg was in extremely poor health. With friction among his generals and with enemies in front, he had suffered both mental and physical depletion, and General Hardee had said of him that he “was not able to take command in the field.” His corps commanders advised him to recede and retreat to Chattanooga, where with his army he arrived on the 7th of July, 1863. The spirit and courage of his men had suffered no depreciation. He had lost no guns and no supplies, and the rank and file had no sympathy in the movements which surrendered so much of Tennessee to Federal occupation. A third of Bragg’s army were Tennesseeans, and they looked upon a retreat to Chattanooga as little short of treason. Left to these men thus expatriated by military necessities, they would gladly have fought a battle every week.

Determined upon another trial of strength with Rosecrans, General Bragg undertook, through General John H. Morgan, to threaten and destroy the Federal lines of communication, to force the withdrawal of men to defend wagon trains, railroad bridges and trestles. Morgan was directed to enter Kentucky at or near Burksville on the Cumberland River, proceed northward to the Ohio River, and then retreat out of the state by the route which the exigencies of the moment should suggest as the most feasible road for a return to the army in Tennessee. For some days previous General Morgan’s division had been concentrating in Wayne County, Kentucky, in and around Monticello, its county seat, and he gradually worked his way towards Burksville. Across the Cumberland, Federal cavalry were guarding the paths into Central Kentucky and keeping a sharp lookout for Morgan and his followers. They had stringent orders to be vigilant and under no stress to allow the Confederate raider to steal by and start havoc and ruin on the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, then essential for feeding Rosecrans’ advancing legions.

Here, waiting for the moment which would be most critical in General Bragg’s southward retreat, on the morning of July 2d, 1863, General Morgan’s division, twenty-six hundred strong, crossed the Cumberland River at Burksville and at Turkey Neck Bend, a few miles west of the town. Nine-tenths of the men composing this division were Kentuckians and all very young men. A thrill of joy stirred every heart and quickened every body, when the order came which turned their faces homeward. The men of Missouri, Maryland and Kentucky were the orphans of the Confederacy, and to them home-going in army days gave a touch of highest bliss. The First Brigade, under General Duke, crossed a short distance above Burksville, while the Second Brigade, under General Adam R. Johnson, crossed at Turkey Neck Bend, a few miles below Burksville, some five or six miles apart. The First Brigade had some flat boats, and the Second had one leaky flatboat and a couple of canoes. All the horses and some of the men of the Second Brigade must swim. There was no organized resistance to the crossing of the stream, which was full from bank to bank and its currents running at tremendous speed. The Federal watchers thought the great flood in the Cumberland River would temporarily stop Morgan, and with the water on their side, they did not believe it possible for the Confederates to pass over with their artillery and ammunition and get lodgment on the north side of the stream. They could not learn exactly where he would try to ferry; they knew he could not ford, and so, trusting to luck and high water, they securely waited in their camp for what the morrow would bring forth.

In the Second Brigade the saddles, guns, ammunition, cannon and clothing were placed in the ferryboat, and regiments one at a time were brought down to the river. The horses with their bridles and halters were driven into the stream and forced to take their chances, not only with the rapid current, but with the driftwood, which was very abundant and large. At some places it covered almost the entire surface. The stream was five-eighths of a mile wide. Many of the men clung to the ferryboat and thus swam across. Some held to the canoes and floated by their side, while others swam with their horses, holding to their manes or tails to prevent being swept down stream by its fierce tides. As the first detachment crossed over, the Federal pickets undertook to resist the landing. The part of the Confederates who were in the ferryboat and canoe with their clothes on, rushed into line, while those who swam, unwilling to be laggard, not halting to dress, seized their cartridge boxes and guns and rushed upon the enemy. The strange sight of naked men engaging in combat for a moment amazed the enemy. They had never seen soldiers before clad only in nature’s garb; they concluded that warriors, fully grown and armed, just born into the world, were the men they must fight. Amid such scenes as this was begun the thousand mile march which constituted Morgan’s Ohio Raid. The animals were quickly corralled and saddled, lines promptly formed, and the onslaught upon the Federals begun. It did not take long for Morgan’s men to discover that their presence was not only unwelcome, but was expected. In a little while dead troopers, dead steeds, abandoned clothing, lost haversacks and wrecked wagons along the highway gave mute but convincing proof of war’s terrors and war’s exactions. The Southern raiders thus early learned that the campaign would not be completed without much of conflict and loss. It did not take long to drive Woolford’s Federal cavalry out of Columbia. Nothing could stay the impetuous rush of these riders towards the Bluegrass. The resistance was feeble, but it was enough to show that enemies were abundant and alert. A few dead and wounded were left by both sides in Columbia, but these were remitted to the ministrations and care of non-combatants, while the fighters rode forward to new conflicts. The enthusiasm of homecoming lent renewed courage and ever-increasing vehemence to the Kentuckians, and they were ready to ride over anything that obstructed the way that pointed toward their friends farther up the state.

At Green River Stockade was stationed the 25th Michigan Infantry, commanded by Colonel O. B. Moore. The position of the stockade had been selected with great skill and protected by an impassable line, consisting of trees and rifle pits and sharpened pieces of wood with some wires and fencing. Against this a couple of regiments were hurled, but in vain. When surrender had been demanded of Colonel Moore, the Federal commander, he returned the laconic answer that “the Fourth of July was no day for me to entertain such a proposition.” He was a brave, gallant and fearless foe, and his patriotic response won the respect of his enemies. The tone of his reply foreboded trouble. The Confederates were not long in finding out that he was prepared in action to back up his words of eloquent defiance. General Morgan was compelled in a little while to do what his judgment now told him he should have done in the outset, that is to leave the stockade and the infantry alone. They were really not in his way, could do him no damage if left unmolested, and could join in no pursuit when once he had passed them by. In thirty minutes’ fighting more than forty men were killed and forty-five wounded. Of the enemy, nine were killed and twenty-six wounded. Colonel Chenault of the 11th Kentucky, Major Brent of the 5th, Lieutenant Cowan of the 3d, Lieutenants Holloway and Ferguson of the 5th were among the valiant and gallant officers who laid down their lives on that day for their country.

In any protracted war, all commands which extensively participate have their dark days, and in some respects, outside the disaster at Buffington Island, fifteen days later, the darkest day that ever came to General Morgan’s division was this sad 4th of July. For a little while it checked the enthusiasm and stilled the quickened heartbeats of the returning exiles. On the morrow at Lebanon there would be other sorrowful experiences and the hope of home-going would temporarily vanish when at Lebanon the head of the column turned west instead of continuing east.

On that grim day at Green River Stockade the 11th under Chenault and the 5th under Colonel Smith were asked to do the impossible. They stood until standing was no longer wise, or even brave. The Federal commander reported that the fighting lasted three hours, but the real fighting lasted less than three-quarters of an hour, and with something less than six hundred men engaged, about forty-five were killed and the same number wounded. This was a distressing percentage of mortality under the circumstances of the battle.

Chenault, impetuous, gallant, died close up to the enemy with his face to the foe. Major Brent, of the 5th Kentucky, so full of promise, was killed as he rode up to salute Colonel James B. McCreary, who succeeded Chenault in command of the 11th. Captain Treble, of Christmas raid fame, was among the men who gave their lives on this field for the Southland. As he rose to salute the colonel, who had become such by the death of Chenault, and waved his hand to let him know that he would be ready when the order came, he fell, struck by a bullet that crushed through his brain.

None of those who saw these dead brought out under the flag of truce, and the wounded carried in blankets from out of the woods and from the ravines and laid along the turnpike road from Columbia to Lebanon, will ever forget the harrowing scene. When they looked upon the dead, with their pallid faces turned heavenward, and their pale hands folded across their stilled breasts, poignant grief filled every heart. It did not take long to bury or arrange for burial of the dead. Humanity would care for the wounded, and war’s demands bade the remaining soldiers press forward, and by midnight the division camped a few miles out from Lebanon to rest for the conflict on the morrow.

Colonel Charles Hanson, who commanded the 20th Kentucky Federal Infantry, had prepared to make the best defense possible at Lebanon. He placed his men in the brick depot and in the houses surrounding it. General Morgan disliked to leave anything behind, and so he resolved to capture this force. It was captured, but the cost did not justify the losses. It was there that we saw General Morgan’s youngest brother, “Tom,” as they familiarly called him, go down in the storm. He was a first lieutenant in the 2d Kentucky and was then serving on General Duke’s staff. With the fiery courage of youth, backed by a fearless heart, in the excitement of battle he exposed his person and was struck down by a shot from the depot. War allows no time for partings. It permits no preparation for the great beyond. Standing close to his brother, he could only exclaim, “Brother, I am killed. I am killed,” and then fell into the grief-stricken brother’s arms. He was a mere lad, but he died like a hero.

The taking of a brick depot with several hundred men inside, in war, is not an easy job. It was to cost ten killed and thirty wounded. Here I witnessed what appeared to be one of the bravest things I have ever observed. The 8th Kentucky—Cluke’s—with which I was connected, was ordered to charge the front of the depot. The men were advancing through a field where the weeds were waist-high. It was difficult marching. The thermometer stood over a hundred in the shade, and the foliage of the weeds made the heat still more intense. It was this regiment’s fortune to face the larger door of the depot. It was said that somebody had blundered, but the charge was ordered and the men enthusiastically and bravely obeyed. When within a few hundred feet of the door, the order was passed along to “lie down.” The time in which the “lying down” was done seemed many hours. The regiment was subject to the stinging fire of the Federals in the depot. A number of the men were hit by shots which struck the front of the body and ranged downward through the limbs of the soldiers. Such wounds produced excruciating tortures.

A man by my side was shot in the shoulder this way. He was a brave, uneducated, but faithful mountain soldier. He came from around Somerset and had been a cattle drover before he went away to war. Why he had ever volunteered I never could fully fathom. He had no property, he had no relatives in the Confederacy. He had made a few casual acquaintances in his journeyings as a drover, but these could hardly have influenced him to risk his life for the Southland. He was not a man to seek war for the glory or excitement of campaigning.

Men of his calling are rarely communicative or confidential. Finally one night, on a lonely scout through the mountains, he unburdened his soul and told me why he had gone to war. There was something in the isolation of our surroundings, the constant presence of danger, the depressing shadows of the trees which shut out even the starlight, that made the heavy-hearted man long for human sympathy, and in sad, sad tones he told me his life’s tragedy. He was thirty-two years of age and had fallen desperately in love with a young girl he had met while driving stock along the Wilderness Road, having stopped one night at her father’s house. At the end of each journey he had purchased souvenirs for his sweetheart, small mirrors, plain rings, garnet breastpins and plated bracelets and an occasional dress of many colors, the equal of Joseph’s coat, and these conveyed in the most delicate way to the young lady the great love that was being enkindled in the heart of the silent, undemonstrative drover. He could speak no words, but in deferential courtesy, through these simple tokens, he endeavored to declare the turmoil raging in his bosom.

MAP OF MORGAN’S RIDE AROUND CINCINNATI

He had never the courage to tell her of his affection. He had worshipped in this patient style at the shrine of her beauty and forecast in his mind a happy, happy time when in a log cabin on the mountain side he should claim her for his bride and set up his household gods in a humble abode. He had in the past loved nobody else, and he had persuaded himself that in the future he would never love again, and at the end of each trip he carried back these homely offerings, showing how, in his humble way, he worshipped her ruddy face, her bright eyes and wavy hair, and dreamed as only lovers can dream of the exquisite joy and happiness that would overshadow his life if he might but make her his own.

Upon returning from one of his long drives, he found that she had married another. He uttered no word of complaint, he gave expression to no outcry of grief. He realized that his case was hopeless, that the brightest dream of his life had been shattered, that he had lost his first and only love. He nursed in the depths of his soul the disappointment and sorrow that overwhelmed his joyous anticipations of a blissful future. He could not bear to pass her home any more. He had naught of this world’s goods but a few dollars in coin, a saddle, bridle and an old bob-tailed black horse which had become his when style and symmetry had put him below the more exacting standards of the Bluegrass, and condemned him to spend the last years of his horse life amongst the less fastidious fanciers of the mountains. He called his steed “Bob-Tail.” He had been nicked in his youth, and now that age had dignified his demeanor and slowed his speed, he made a hardy and reliable mount for his steady-going owner, who loved him for his kindly disposition and for his cheerful performance of every duty, however severe. They seemed to have a common sympathy and fellowship in that both had lost out in the struggle of life.

He gave up driving, and one day when Morgan rode through Somerset, he mounted his old black steed, waved a kindly adieu to his few acquaintances, and rode away to war, little caring whether he lived or died.

He was always cheerful, brave, patient and well up at the front. He insisted upon doing for me all possible services, caring for my horse, keeping my saddle, bridle and arms in good shape. There was no sacrifice he would not have made for me, and he had won my heart. He clung to me because I knew his heart’s tragedy and because he must love somebody now that his life was a ruin and blank.

The Enfield ball passed almost through his entire body and the suffering was so horrible that his groans were agonizing. He begged somebody to bear him off the field. The order had been issued to shoot any man who arose. This was done to prevent the Federals from getting the exact range of the regiment which was now lying down with their heads toward the depot. While in this position, I observed what was to me the bravest thing I had ever seen in the war. I always thought it was the 5th Kentucky, but General Duke says it was the 2d. The men from this regiment charged on the south side of the depot with their pistols and guns and marched up to the windows and put their weapons in through the openings and fired into the mass of Federals inside. It required almost superhuman courage to undertake this act, yet it was done with a calmness that would thrill every observer, and those of us who were lying on the ground and watching this splendid move and realized what it meant for our relief, cheered and cheered the courage of these valiant warriors. The groans of my wounded friend became so distressing and harassing that finally I received permission to rise and take him on my back and bear him from the field, where the bullets were still whizzing. Wounded and suffering as he was, I had only time to commend him to the surgeons and bid him good-bye. He took my hand and pressed it to his now bloodless lips, and his great black eyes filled with tears when he looked up at me and said that he would see my face no more. After my return to Louisville in 1868, succeeding a three years’ exile, I observed in Cave Hill Cemetery the grave of my wounded friend, Vincent Eastham. The stone which comrades had erected to his memory was marked “5th Kentucky Cavalry,” but I pointed out the mistake and put the proper endorsement on his marker, “Company B, 8th Kentucky Cavalry.” Each Decoration Day, with those near to me, we carry armfuls of flowers to make beautiful the mound where he sleeps, and my children and my children’s children have been asked to keep green the spot where my mountain friend so calmly rests amongst his Confederate comrades in Louisville’s beautiful “City of the Dead.”

The next ten days were full of intensest excitement and harassing marching. This marching was done in the midst of stifling dust, intense heat and almost constant battle. On the 8th day of July the command crossed the Ohio River at Brandenburg, capturing a couple of steamboats and fighting off gunboats, until at last, on the evening of that day, General Morgan and his division camped on northern soil.

No courtesies were expected, and certainly none were received from the people of the “Hoosier State.” They harassed and distressed Morgan’s march all they could. If they worried Morgan, he was more than even with them. Absurd stories of the Confederate and his followers had gone on before the line of his march, and fear and dismay filled all hearts when they saw the dust clouds or heard the shots that proclaimed his presence. These reports with each telling became more gruesome and horrible and when they stole from behind trees, or out of the thickets, for a sight of his riders, they refused to believe that these men in gray were not real, sure enough devils, horns, hoofs and all. Even rhyme was put under conscription to help tell how awful they were, and words like these were carried by speedy couriers in their dashes along the roads to prepare the country folk for the dreadful catastrophe that was breaking upon the innocent people of Southern Indiana:

“I’m sent to warn the neighbors, he’s only a mile behind.

He’s sweeping up the horses, every horse that he can find.

Morgan, Morgan, the raider, and Morgan’s terrible men,

With bowie knives and pistols are galloping up the glen.”

Each day was full of strenuous work, night marching, incessant fighting, guerrilla firing, obstructions of roads, and on the night of the 12th of July, General Morgan and his men were sixty miles north of the Ohio River and far up into the State of Indiana. The average march for all these days was forty miles, counting detours, under difficulties that sorely taxed human powers.

On the 12th of July the command made thirty-eight miles, although this was the eleventh day in the saddle.

Scattered along the fence corners for four miles, at a little town called Milam on the line of the Ohio & Michigan Railroad, Morgan and his command caught a few hours’ rest. Some subtle and mysterious instinct came to them that the morrow would demand heroic work. They seemed to breathe in the very air that something great was expected of them. The beasts laid down in slumber and rest beside the tired bodies of their persistent riders. Voices of unseen bodies seemed to whisper to them that on the morrow they would attempt the longest continued cavalry march ever said to have been made by twenty-five hundred men in column. Stuart, when he started from Chambersburg, was rested. For twelve hours he had slept. Forrest, when in pursuit of Streight, had briefly halted at Courtland, Alabama, but these Morgan’s men had been marching and fighting for ten days and yet fate was to put up to them the task of excelling human records. Two and a half miles away were twenty-five hundred Federal troops. Although humanity would suggest that the saddles should be stripped from the backs of the tired horses, the calls of the hour were such that mercy could make no response and every man slept with his bridle rein over his arm, and in his weary hand he held his trusted gun.

They were now over four hundred miles from the place where they began their march, in territory held by the enemy. They were beset on every side with forces sent for their capture. Guides were unfaithful, and sometimes the main roads were blockaded and ambuscades frequent. The column was three miles long and already there was a number of sick and wounded in buggies and wagons. Under all these conditions, men might well ask, “Can this great task be accomplished?”

Morgan felt that the men riding with him were thoroughbreds. They were the grandsons of the pioneers given by Virginia, Maryland, Carolina, in the savage work of wresting Kentucky from the Indians, and the pioneers had given Kentucky men a name and fame wherever the English tongue had been spoken. They were sons, or grandsons, of the men who had fought the Battles of Blue Lick, Maumee, Fort Stevenson, the Thames, of the Raisin, Tippecanoe, New Orleans, Cerro Gordo, Buena Vista, and their great leader, with the knowledge of what they had done and faith in what they could accomplish, already in his own mind was asking, “Can this thing be done?”

These troopers had never failed him either in the march or on the field. If it were possible for men to do it, he knew it would be done. He knew that they would try, and if they failed it would be only because the accomplishment of such a task was humanly impossible.

The command to mount was his answer to these curious questionings which forced themselves into his brain, as in the dim light of the early dawn he looked over their sleeping forms and found it hard in his heart to rouse them from their death-like slumber.

Out into the dusty roads before the rays of the scorching July sun should be felt, he bade them wake and ride.

By twelve o’clock thirty-two miles were done. Across the White River into Harrison, Ohio, they rode. The torch was applied to the great bridge that crossed White River and as the blazes lifted hissing tongues high in the air, and while they watched the timbers crumble under the conquering hand of fire, the advance guard of the Federals exchanged shots over the stream with the rear guard of the Confederates.

The men could manage a few hours without food. They had fared well along the line in the plenteous and forsaken kitchens and dining rooms of the frightened inhabitants, who, upon the advance of the Confederates, left their tables loaded with well-prepared food and fled into the woods and fields to escape the terrors of what they called Morgan’s “murderers and horse thieves.”

The well-filled cribs and stables of the people of Harrison supplied the tired horses with a good feed. This was the last stop they were to make until they should end the march, and so the General allowed a brief rest and time to satisfy appetites, quickened by the long and tedious ride of the morning.

An hour was consumed in marching and counter-marching so as to mislead General Burnside and his thirty thousand soldiers at Cincinnati, only thirty-two miles away. These men at Cincinnati were planning to create a wall of infantry which it would be impossible for Morgan to pass.

Haste, haste, haste, was the watchword of the hour, and down the valley toward the Big Miami River the Confederate column moved. At dusk the long, wooden bridge across the Big Miami was struck. Bridges and railroads were dangerous enemies to leave in the rear, and the torch was called into requisition. As the red flames, created by the great burning timbers, rose skyward, they illumined the entire valley; and in the flickering shadows which they cast for several miles around, in the gloaming of the evening, among the trees and fences and buildings, huge, weird forms, born, it is true, of the imagination, filled the minds and hearts of the invading horsemen for the moment with apprehensive awe and depressing forebodings.

At midnight fifty-five miles had been marched by the ceaseless tramp of the wearied steeds. A hundred and forty-four thousand steps they had already taken, and still more than a hundred thousand were to be required before they could rest their tired limbs, and well might they inquire as their riders still spurred them onward, “Masters, masters, be ye men or devils which exact from your beasts such unseemly toil and fearful sufferings?” With the darkness of the night the fears seemed to subside, if fears there were. The wearied bodies called for sleep, sleep, yet there could be no staying for “tired nature’s sweet restorer.” The early hours of the night were filled with suffering, but as the intense darkness which preceded the coming dawn enveloped the column, the strain became still more terrible. Horses, unwilling and unable to go further forward, sank down in death with their riders astride still urging them onward, and under the dreadful physical burdens, strong men fell from their beasts as if smitten with sudden death. Hundreds of the men lashed themselves to their saddles while fighting the assaults of sleep. Riders losing consciousness failed to close up, and by the time the rear of the columns was reached, this closing up kept a large portion of the column much of the time in a gallop. Once it became necessary with lighted candles to crawl upon hands and knees and by the tracks determine which road the vanguard had ridden. Comrades, dismounted by the breaking down of their weakened steeds, walked beside the line, keeping pace with the horses, while others, where possible, sprang up behind their companions until a convenient stable by the roadside would provide a new mount.

A common sense of danger told even the most careless rider that the passage around Cincinnati was the moment of extreme danger, and as the column came nearer and nearer to that line, the thought that the supreme moment was at hand gave renewed strength and wakefulness to the majority of the men now attempting an unprecedented march.

Three times during the night General Morgan changed guides, and each time it was necessary by either open or covert threat to force an enemy to lead the column. Guides were informed that the compass would tell the story of their treachery and that death would be the sure consequence of their bad faith.

There was no direct line along which the command could march, and the change of direction did much to confuse the column. The crawl of the artillery and a large number of buggies bearing sick and wounded comrades over a hilly and woody country amidst almost absolute darkness, with here and there an unfriendly shot, made an ordeal which rarely if at all had come into soldier life.

By two o’clock in the morning the dead line at Glendale was passed. The Federal commander, deceived by Morgan’s marching and counter-marching, had carried a large body of troops too far north and Morgan had slipped through at this neglected point, and his strategy had foiled the Federal commander’s chances and efforts to check the invader. This line was crossed at a high rate of speed. If the passage of the troops had been obstructed, there was nothing to do but to ride over those who attempted to stay the march, and so every man rose in his stirrups, grasped his bridle reins with firmer hold, unswung his gun from his shoulder and carried it on the pommel of his saddle, and felt to be sure that his trusted revolvers were in their appointed places in his belt at his side. If foe appeared, woe be unto that foe unless he could present himself in such vast numbers as to stay the charge of twenty-five hundred troopers upon whose courage at this moment depended the escape of the division. The calls of the hour were met with a cheerful response. Every man carried in his bosom a firm resolve to sweep any foe from the appointed path and to cut his way through any ranks that might oppose his going. The intense emergencies of the moment made them almost hope that somebody would get in their way. There came into their minds a desire to fight rather than ride through, and a touch of pride made them anxious for some sort of contest to show that after all the wear and tear of the past twelve days they were quite as brave and virile as when in the flush of the beginning they had forced a passage of the Cumberland River. Fear seemed to vanish and prudence fled away, as these night riders saw the people of Glendale rush out into the streets, or from raised windows, with dreading apprehension, watch the strange procession gallop through the streets. In the enthusiasm of the moment, the dust-stained Confederates cheered for Jefferson Davis and the Southern Confederacy and bade the alarmed onlookers tell General Burnside and his bluecoats that Morgan and his men had come and gone. Mind rose superior to the pain and weariness of body, and in these words of good-natured badinage was a new evidence of the valor and spirit of these bold raiders.

Though the line was passed, safety was not yet assured. The larger bodies of infantry were close at hand. A great task had been accomplished, and still there were thirty-eight miles ahead, and this distance, now every moment growing longer and longer, the weary horsemen knew must be covered before solid rest was attainable. In a little while the sunshine came to brighten the earth and to cheer as it always does cheer struggling humanity, but the record was yet unbroken. Every mile seemed to grow into a dozen miles. Each step brought increasing suffering. Skirmishes and contact with the militia would arouse the men for a brief while, but with the cessation of the excitement, nature would again lift its cry for mercy and plead for sleep for man and beast.

And so on and on and on until the sun was about to hide its face behind the western slopes, and at four o’clock in the afternoon, on the 14th, the column, now struggling and oppressed with both hunger and weariness, reached Williamsburg, Ohio, and camped for the night, and the greatest single cavalry march of the world, composed of as large a force as twenty-five hundred men, was ended.

Ninety-five and a quarter miles in thirty-two hours of marching! Surely such work was not unworthy of what the Confederacy asked of its sons.

As these hard riders dismounted they stood for a moment helpless with fatigue. Leaning against a horse or a fence they would sleep standing, and in taking food to recuperate their wearied bodies, would sink into slumber. It was a great triumph for Confederate cavalry, and amid all its terrors and horrors it was worth something to realize that the record of human endurance had been lifted several degrees higher. The future had yet in store for some of these men much of hardship and much of renown—imprisonment in the Ohio penitentiary, at Camp Chase, Camp Douglass, Johnson’s Island, Fort Delaware, for many, death under the chafings, starvation and cruelties of Northern prisons; but out of these there would come a remnant who should, when others had capitulated, ride as an escort for Jefferson Davis when Richmond and Columbia would be in ruins and all hope for the nation’s life had fled.

There would yet come a time when to these still hoping men, hope would fail, when the Confederate Armies would be shattered and scattered, when Lee had surrendered and Johnson capitulated, when the western army and the Army of Northern Virginia, its veterans paroled, would turn their tear-stained faces toward their desolated homes and take up anew the burdens of life; when all the mighty legions west of the Mississippi, which had maintained for four years the mightiest conflict of the ages, would stack their guns, sheath their swords, and accept war’s decrees for surrender.

They were yet to see a time when the President of the Confederacy should go forth from the seat of government, and in sadness and gloom ride away from the Confederate capital to seek refuge south of Virginia. There were some of these men who were here at this hour destined and appointed still to cling to Jefferson Davis’ fortunes and defend his person in the period of surpassing disaster and sadness, when with a broken heart he would realize that his nation was dead and he was without a country. There would come a time when a pitying Providence should provide out of these soldiers for the first and only Confederate President a depleted bodyguard, who would go with him in his reverses and humiliation, and who were to stand guard over him and his cabinet, to beat off pursuing foes at a time when every man’s hand would be against him and them, when fate would hide its face and give him over to a cruel, brutal mocking and an imprisonment which would shock the world’s sense of mercy and justice. There were men now closing this great ride who would be present when the wretchedness of death would hover over and around the Southern cause, and would look upon the last council of war. When the greatness of the South should end in desolation and ruin, some of these riders were, in the closing hours of the Confederacy, to offer anew their lives and their all to the cause which they loved to the end, and for which they had sacrificed their fortunes; and yet in the blackness of death and the final agonies of their nation would again cheerfully tender their all, to prolong even for an hour its hopes and its existence. They were yet by their exalted courage to glorify that cause for which the South had endured untold and immeasurable suffering, and would by a crowning act of constancy take a deserved place on the brightest pages of human annals that record patriotic fortitude and valor.

A few hundred of these men now closing this wonderful march would accompany Jefferson Davis in his last effort to avoid capture, and would only leave him and those he loved, when he should plead that their presence would only endanger his escape. They would only depart when he commanded them to go, and urged them by their loyalty and devotion to him to listen to his appeal—that they leave him alone in the supreme hour of his political grief and distress.

Some of these men would also be present when the last sun that ever shone on the Confederate States, as a nation, was lengthening its rays on its western course, and sending forth a fading glow on the sad scenes of national dissolution which would, if it were possible, with nature’s shadings, make glorious and immortal the faces of the heroes who, in anguish and awe, looked upon its death throes, a nation that in its brief days of four eventful years was to make a history that would win the admiration and love of all the people of succeeding ages, who read the story of their suffering, their valor, their loyalty and their devotion to principle and country.

Some of these riders were to be faithful unto death, and have a full share of that glorious crown of immortality which fate would hereafter decree to the men of the South as a compensation for a victory, which, though deserved, should be denied.

Chapter XVII
RICHARDS WITH MOSBY’S MEN IN THE
FIGHT AT MT. CARMEL CHURCH,
FEBRUARY 19, 1864

In all military history, Colonel John S. Mosby and his command had neither a counterpart nor a parallel. Man for man, Mosby and his men did more, proportionately, to damage, to harass, to delay and to disturb the Federal forces than any equal number of soldiers who wore the gray.

John Singleton Mosby was born in Powhatan County, Virginia, in December, 1833, fifty miles south of the scenes of his wonderful military exploits. He came from refined, cultured and well-to-do people, and as was the custom in those days amongst the better class in that State, he was educated at the University of Virginia. His courage early developed itself. Some trouble with a fellow-student suspended his career in the University. He prepared himself for the practice of law, and when the war broke out, he was engaged in his profession at Bristol. He was among the very first men to offer for the Confederate service for twelve months. War, especially partisan war, had peculiar fascinations for this young lawyer. He had read and re-read the history of Sumter and Marion, and he longed for opportunity and occasion to engage in similar work. He knew every detail of the things they had done in the struggle of the colonies for liberty. While his eyes scanned the lines of Blackstone and Story, dreams of military glory flitted before his vision. The excitement, din, rush and fury of war appealed to his nature and he sighed for a chance to see and know what real war was. He shirked no duty, sought every possible opportunity for inflicting loss upon his country’s enemies. Enlisted for twelve months, he refused the furlough accorded men who served that length of time, and he re-enlisted for the war. His enterprise and his daring won him promotion, and by February, 1862, he was the adjutant of his regiment. He resigned because of some misunderstanding between Colonel William E. Jones and General Stuart, but the latter was quick to note men of Mosby’s ability and military aptitude and he put him on his staff as a scout and adviser. He held this position and rode with Stuart on his Chickahominy raid in June, 1862. He was almost the same age as his commander. He was quieter, but none the less brave. He took service more seriously than General Stuart; war with him was a passion, not a pastime. He loved war for the excitement and experience it brought, for the opportunities it offered to his genius for development, and devoid of fear, he was glad when chance brought his way the legal right to fight.

It was only a brief period until his marvelous efficiency and his masterful sagacity, as well as his extraordinary courage, caused General Stuart to give him a small independent command. He used this so effectively that his forces were quickly increased and the area of his operations enlarged. He had men in his battalion from almost all parts of the world, but the majority was composed of young soldiers who came from Virginia and Maryland. There was so much that was fascinating and attractive in the service in which Mosby was engaged that there was no difficulty in finding recruits who were the impersonation, not only of valor, but of dash. He enjoyed in the highest degree the confidence not only of General Stuart, but of General Lee, and the only criticism which General Lee ever passed on Mosby was his ability to catch bullets and win wounds.

In 1863 he engaged in a successful exploit, which largely added to his fame. With twenty-nine men, he penetrated the Federal lines and captured General Stoughton in his headquarters in the midst of his division, at Fairfax Court House, Virginia. This secured promotion for Mosby. Nothing in the war was more skillfully or recklessly done than this capture of General Stoughton. There are no mathematic quantities by which the damage that Mosby inflicted upon the Federals can be calculated. For every one man under his command, he kept one hundred Federals from the front. Had Colonel Mosby enjoyed the opportunities of other Confederate cavalry leaders, he would have won a fame and rank equal to either Forrest or Wheeler or Morgan or Stuart or Hampton. Had he gone to West Point and entered the war with the experience and prestige which came to men who had enjoyed military education, there would have been few officers in the Confederate Army who would have surpassed him in military achievement. At the period when Mosby first began his partisan career, there was no other man in the armies of the South who, with the means at hand, could have inflicted such damage on the enemy, or have accomplished such great results for his country.

A number of books have been written about Mosby and his men, and yet they can only touch a few of the wonderful things done by this wonderful man with his wonderful followers. He had no equipment of any kind. His men knew nothing about tents, and they had substantially no commissary and no quartermaster. They lived largely off their enemies and when not pursuing these, passed the time with their friends.

Mosby operated in four Virginia counties. This country became known as “Mosby’s Confederacy,” and the “Debatable Land.” However often the Federals invaded it they never could feel that their title was secure. This “Debatable Land” was not more than sixty miles long by forty miles wide, and yet in this limited area Mosby and his men subsisted, fought and disquieted the Federal army, in a way that demoralized its trains and kept its soldiers in a state of constant dread and apprehension. While the organization consisted of several companies, never at any one time did Colonel Mosby have more than four hundred men, and most of the time far less. These four hundred men, or whatever their number may have been, destroyed more Federal property than any other equal number of men in the Confederacy; and it is truly said of them that they gave the Federal troops more trouble than any five thousand men of any other command. Most of their work was in the rear of their foes. In a fight, General Forrest said one man in the rear was equal to three in the front, but in Mosby’s operations, one man behind the Federal lines counted more than twenty in front.

Mosby was cool, calm, fearless, dauntless. He inspired his men with his own confidence, faith and hope. They all respected him—most of them feared him—and all were glad to follow him. There was something in his personality that created in the minds of his followers absolute trust. They believed in him and they knew that he could be relied upon in all emergencies and that whether in the storm of battle, in the haste of retreat, or in the rush of the charge, Mosby was always at himself, and he was sure to do the wisest and the most sagacious thing under any contingency that might arise.

In Mosby’s command there was no room for cowardice and no place for cowards. The men who went with him took their lives in their hands. They knew that following him meant constant danger, ceaseless activity, incessant watchfulness and reckless service, and they were willing in exchange for the glory which they might gain, to assume all the risks that were incident to the daily life of the adherents of this silent, bold and fearless man.

Mosby’s operations were largely confined to Fauquier and Loudoun County, Virginia. Occasionally he crossed the line into Prince William County, and sometimes operated in Culpepper, but Fauquier County was the chief scene of his operations. In the later months of the war he was practically always within the enemy’s lines. He never had a camp, except for a small number of his men, and then only for a brief while. There was no place for Mosby to hide himself except among those who loved the Cause in these counties. In cabins and barns and in the forest and among the hills, his command found their home. Rarely more than two or three of them ever remained together. They scattered, as has been said, like the mist when the sun rose. When the Federals undertook to pursue them, the pursuit became like the chase after a phantom. If followed, they dispersed through the country into the crossroads and by-ways and among their friends and sympathizers. The exploits of Marion and Sumter become as a fading light when compared with the glamour and splendor of the work of Mosby and his men for the Confederacy. When they met, it was by preconcerted arrangement, or in answer to the calls of couriers. Much of their work was done at night. For the three years in which Mosby was engaged in active operations, there was rarely a single day that some of his men were not operating somewhere on the enemy’s line and on the enemy’s forces. In the activity of his campaigning the death rate was high, but there was always an abundance of daring spirits that were ready to take the places of those who had fallen in this desperate game of war.

Mosby taught his men to eschew sabres, to use no guns, but to rely upon the pistol alone. This meant fighting at close range, hand to hand combat. He and his men seemed to be everywhere; they were ever the terror and dread of the Federal Army. The men who guarded the wagon trains heard always with tremor the name of Mosby. With the exception of General Forrest, Colonel Mosby was the most feared and hated of all Confederate leaders. The writer of a history of his command says: “He kept in a defensive attitude, according to their own admission, thirty-five thousand of their troops which would otherwise have been employed in the active theatre of war. But this was not all. More than once, with his band, he compelled the invading army to relinquish actual and projected lines of communication, to fall back from advance positions, and, if we may credit the assertion of the Federal Secretary of War, occasioned a loss of an important battle.”

The things done by Mosby and his men were so out of the ordinary that they simply challenge belief and surpass comprehension. In the capture of General Stoughton, two of his staff officers and thirty other prisoners, in the midst of the Federal division, and removing them and their equipment and fifty-eight horses into Confederate lines without the loss of a man, appears impossible.

With a small body of men, he passed the rear of Sheridan’s army in the valley of Virginia, and after a brisk skirmish, captured and brought away General Duffie of the Federal Army. With less than one hundred men he made a forced march into the enemy’s lines at night, captured many prisoners, derailed a train, destroyed it, and secured as his prey two paymasters, who had in their possession one hundred and sixty-eight thousand dollars in United States currency. Refusing to take anything himself, he divided this money amongst his followers and each one with him on this expedition received twenty-one hundred dollars.

With three hundred men he rode to the rear of Sheridan’s army in the valley of Virginia and attacked in broad daylight a brigade of infantry and two hundred and fifty cavalrymen, guarding a wagon train. He burned one hundred wagons, captured two hundred and eight prisoners and brought away five hundred mules and horses and two hundred head of cattle.

When all these amazing things have been told they would make any one man great, but Mosby had to his credit dozens of other feats almost equally as remarkable.

Colonel Mosby was wounded several times, and in December, 1864, he was desperately injured and was compelled to take a long furlough.

In 1863 there came to Colonel Mosby’s command a young Virginian, A. E. Richards. Beginning as a private, by his soldierly qualities he rose to be major. Christened Adolphus Edward Richards, he became known among Mosby’s followers as “Dolly.” When he succeeded Mosby he was just twenty years of age, and no man in the Confederacy, twenty years old, accomplished more or exhibited a nobler courage or more remarkable skill and enterprise.

From December, 1864, until April, 1865, was one of the most strenuous periods of Mosby’s command. The Federal Army was then engaged around Richmond, and this left a hundred miles’ space for the operation of these aggressive cavaliers. For months, while Mosby was off, wounded, Major Richards not only took up but efficiently carried on his work. Two of the fights in which he commanded were used by Colonel George Taylor Denison, of Canada, in his work on “Modern Cavalry,” published in 1868, to illustrate the superiority of the revolver as a weapon for cavalry.

Just at this time, Colonel Harry Gilmor, who enjoyed a wide reputation as a partisan leader in Northern Virginia and Maryland, had been surprised and made prisoner. The Federals, encouraged by this success, undertook to capture Major Richards and scatter Mosby’s men.

General Merritt, then in charge of the Federal cavalry operating in “Mosby’s Confederacy,” sent the same detail which had caught Gilmor to hunt down Richards and his followers. The party comprising this force numbered two hundred and fifty men and was in charge of Major Thomas Gibson of the 14th Pennsylvania Cavalry. This officer, in the past, had shown that he was not only brave but resourceful, and his superiors hoped as well as expected that he would do great things on this expedition. If he could catch Major Richards and a part of his command, it meant peace in the Federal rear, and the release of many thousands of men for action at the front. Promotion was sure to follow success, and the Federal leader dreamed of becoming a brigadier and winning a renown that would make him famous.

Attracted by the adventurous nature of the expedition and also lured by the hope of success in the work, two of Merritt’s staff officers, Captain Martindale and Lieutenant Baker, volunteered to aid in this scout. This command crossed the Shenandoah River at night. A few miles away from the river, at Paris, in Fauquier County, the force was divided. Major Gibson took with him the men of his own regiment, which comprised one-half of the command, and placed the other half, from the 1st New York Cavalry, in charge of Captain Snow. These forces separated with the understanding that they would make wide circuits through the country, would gather prisoners and seize horses, and meet at Upperville at daylight, six miles from Paris. A couple of deserters from the 12th Virginia regiment acted as guides for the two detachments. Through the report of a spy, Captain Snow learned that Major Richards had come that night to his father’s house, near Upperville, and the captain felt it would be a great feather in his cap if he could make the leader of Mosby’s command a prisoner. This was what Major Gibson had been chiefly sent to do, and the Federal captain calculated if he could do this, he would win the applause and gratitude of his countrymen. They reached “Green Garden,” the Richards’ ancestral home, at one o’clock in the morning. Without warning or signal of any kind the Federal soldiers surrounded the house and the leader knocked for admittance at the front door. Hearing was very acute in those days where Mosby’s men slept, and the knock, although at first not very heavy, awoke Major Richards, Captain Walker and Private Hipkins, who were together spending the night under the hospitable roof. The moon was shining with brilliance; not a cloud obscured its brightness. The ground was covered with snow. When the Confederates looked through the blinds, they saw the yard filled with Federal soldiers. On other occasions, when the odds were not so great, Major Richards and some of his companions had shot their way out, but he dared not try this experiment this time, for it meant almost certain death. To meet such emergencies, the Richards family had provided a trap door in the floor of the family room. Major Richards had only time to seize his pistols and his field glasses, and his companions hastily caught up their arms, and all went scurrying down through the trap door into the space under the sills. This trap door was in the lower floor and covered with an oil carpet, over which a bed was rolled. The Federals remained silent for a few moments, knocked again with more fury, and upon forcing themselves into the house, the men in blue found Major Richards’ uniform, his boots with the spurs attached, his white hat with its black ostrich plume, and they chuckled and said to themselves, “We have caught him at last.” Forcing the father of Major Richards to furnish them candles they searched the house over and over again. They went from cellar to garret and from garret to cellar. One officer suggested that in order to make sure of their game they burn the house, but another, with nobler instincts and better impulses, protested so vigorously that this plan was abandoned. For two hours they scrutinized every portion of the house, the outbuildings, the stables, the cabins, but all in vain, and they finally concluded that by some strange sport of chance their victims had escaped; and they mounted their horses and rode away to Upperville.

MAJOR A. E. RICHARDS

Commanding Mosby’s Men at Mt. Carmel Fight

The hours of this search were moments of sore trial to the three Confederates under the floor. A sneeze, a cough, would betray their hiding place. Discovery meant prison—maybe death—and certainly retirement from the work in which they delighted and which gave them the consciousness of service to the country to which they had offered their fortunes and their lives. Minutes lengthened into days. The tread of the searching Federals echoed ominously into the silence and darkness of their place of refuge. Their hearts beat strong and fast—so furiously that they feared they might reveal their presence to their enemies. Huddled close together, with a trusty pistol in each hand, they waited for what fate might bring. They reviewed over and over again in their minds what they should do, if found. Should they open fire and sell their lives as dearly as possible, or by sudden rush seek to run the gauntlet of their foes, and thus bring ruin and the torch upon their family and friends, or accept a long and baneful imprisonment. In the gloom and dread of their prison, they could hear every word that was spoken. The curses and threats to the father and mother cut deep into their hearts, and they longed for a chance to resent the insults that were heaped upon the inmates of the home. Only an inch of wood separated them from their pursuers, and thus through two long hours they listened, watched—even prayed—that they might not be found. The torture of body and mind became almost unbearable, and they questioned if they should not rise up, push the trap door ajar, open fire, and rush away in the din and confusion such an attack was sure to bring. Each moment that passed they realized added new chances for escape, and though moments seemed years, with hearts for every lot, they bided the end.

Captain Snow and his men rode to the place of rendezvous. There, fortunately or unfortunately, the Federals found a barrel of apple brandy. It was a bitter cold night, and after taking a little brandy they all took some more and a large number of the men became intoxicated. Captain Snow decided that the best thing for him to do was to hurry back through Paris and cross the Shenandoah, lest when the sun rose, Mosby’s men might turn out in large numbers and destroy him, with his force weakened by their potations.

Suspecting a ruse, the Richards family looked well in every direction to see that all the Federals had gone, and that none were lurking in the shadows of the farm structures. They waited, and then waited some more, to be sure that there was no mistake about their departure, and then the bed was rolled back, the trap door raised, and Major Richards and his two companions, called by those above, hastily emerged from their hiding place. Though their uniforms were carried away by their enemies as a trophy, they felt that they were not without some compensation. Their horses, which had been turned loose in a distant pasture, had neither been seen or captured.

They greeted their steeds with affectionate pats on their noses and sincerely congratulated themselves that these had been spared them in the very close call which had passed their way. The Confederate commander immediately sent Captain Walker and Private Hipkins in different directions with urgent orders to all the men to follow in the track of the enemy. This they could easily do by the moonlight. All three rode at highest speed in different directions to tell the news. The steeds were not spared. Haste was the watchword of the call to comrades once found. Each was urged to spread the news in the plain and on the mountain sides, and to let nothing stay them in the ride for vengeance and retribution. The Federals had left a well-marked trail, and this made pursuit sure and rapid. Those following were told that it was the plan to strike the enemy before they could recross the Shenandoah, and that they must ride fiercely, halt not, and be prepared for onslaught, pursuit and battle.

Captain Snow rode hard and fast, and he got across the river before the sun was up. Major Gibson was not so fortunate. With one hundred and thirty-six men, when the Confederates under the urgent call of the couriers that were sent in every direction began to get together, Gibson was still on the turnpike leading through Ashby’s Gap across the Blue Ridge Mountains. They had not gotten down to the foot of the mountains and were just ahead of Major Richards and the men that he and his companions had so quickly summoned. There was no time to count or figure the odds. This incursion must be resented and few or many, Richards resolved to attack wherever he found the foe. He had fought as great odds before, and the extraordinary experience of the night had quickened his taste for battle and blood. When he came in touch with the Federals, he had only twenty-eight men. Five to one had no terrors for these galloping cavaliers, and Major Richards determined to make an attack, be the consequences what they would. In the meantime, ten others came up, and now he had one to four.

The turnpike at Ashby’s Gap winds its way up the mountain side by a succession of short curves. Major Richards arranged his men to press an attack on the enemy while they were passing around these curves, so that his real strength would be concealed. The Federal officer, uncertain what might happen in this country, but sure that dangers were lurking in every quarter, had increased his rear guard to forty men, under the command of Captain Duff of the 14th Pennsylvania. A sight of the bluecoats aroused every Mosby man to impetuous and furious action. They longed to resent some rough handling that had been given their comrades a few days before and they bitterly remembered with indignation the treatment accorded their associates, and above all they desired to serve notice on their invaders that it was a risky business to hunt Mosby’s men in their chosen haunts. The Confederates rode down in a furious, headlong charge around the bend of the road and received a volley from the Federal rear guard. This did no damage, but the Federals broke into a gallop; with disordered ranks and shattered files they all scrambled away for safety, and undertook to reach the main force. The Confederates, spurring and whooping and yelling, dashed in among these retreating Federals and used their six shooters with tremendous effect. The Federals could not fire their longer guns. There was no chance to turn, and the rear files felt the pitiless onslaught of the Confederate column, which was riding so furiously and bent on destroying their fleeing foes. The shooting was almost altogether on the side of the Confederates.

At the top of the mountains was Mt. Carmel Church. Here the Baptists of the neighborhood hitherto were accustomed to come and worship long before the war. Its peaceful surroundings and its memories of God’s service were not in harmony with the rude and savage war scenes enacted about it on this wintry morn. The men who rode at that hour with Richards were not thinking of the dead, who in the quiet and peace of the country churchyard were waiting Heaven’s call for the resurrection. They were now dealing only with the living, and those living who had invaded their country, ravaged their homes, and sought to destroy their liberty. Courage nerved every arm, valor moved every heart. They thought only of punishing their foes and bringing ruin and destruction on these men who had oftentimes, with ruthless barbarity, inflicted grievous wrongs upon their kinsmen and countrymen.

The turnpike passed in front of the church. Upon the road Major Gibson drew up his men in column. When they heard the firing and saw the galloping cavalrymen, they did not at first understand the situation, but as the surging crowd came closer they observed the Federals and Confederates in undistinguishable confusion. As the Confederates were riding toward the rear guard and these were in a gallop, the latter could not use their carbines. At the gait they were going it was impossible to aim and fire with the least assurance of hitting anybody.

The pursuit was rapid and fierce. The fleeing enemy were helpless. The Confederates were moved to savage onslaught and resolved to kill and slay with all the abandon that war creates. There were few of the Confederate riders that did not have some wrong to avenge, and to these there was no better time than the present. There were at first no calls for surrender. There was no chance for parley. War meant fighting, and fighting meant killing those who opposed. The Federals had no chance to turn and ask for their lives. The time in this battle had not yet come for this cry. The Confederates rode into the files of the Federals with their pistols in hand; they shot as they rode, and they made no distinction among their foes. When one file of the Confederates exhausted their shots another took their place. There was no let up in punishing the fleeing Federals. When the loads were all used, they reversed their revolvers and knocked their foes from their steeds with the butt end of their weapons. The hotly pursued rear guard, under Captain Duff, had no time to tell Major Gibson of what had happened. The turnpike went down the mountain, and that was open. If they turned aside they knew not what might come, and when they saw Major Gibson’s men drawn up in line ready for the fray, it came into their minds that he was better prepared than they were to deal with these men in gray who were riding and firing with devilish vehemence, so the rear guard galloped on by.

It was a perplexing sight to see these men of opposite sides thus mingling in combat, and the soldiers in Major Gibson’s line looked with amazement at the confusion, pursuit and flight.

The men of the rear guard had no time to inform Major Gibson of the situation; the men with Major Richards were not disposed to pass them by, and the thirty-eight Confederates responded to the command to turn and attack the column waiting by the roadside. The men with Richards veered to the right and galloped into the midst of Gibson’s men, pushed their revolvers into the faces of the surprised Federals and opened a furious and murderous attack.

The assault was so unexpected and so savage that it disorganized Major Gibson’s line. Richards’ men broke through the column and severed it in twain, and then a panic struck the Federal force. Its men, demoralized, quickly followed the madly fleeing Federal rear guard down the mountain side. Another chance was now opened up. It was seven miles to the Shenandoah River, and the Federals, unless they re-formed, could expect no respite or safety until this stream was passed. It would require an hour for the Federals, in this race for life, to reach the ford, and until then there was little hope of escape from danger, capture and death.

The Federals could not use their carbines with one hand, while the Confederates could hold their bridles with their left hands and fire their revolvers with their right. Part of Major Gibson’s men were shot down before they could even offer resistance or turn in flight. In an instant, the Federals began to give way and started down the side of the mountain, along which only two men could ride abreast. The moment the retreat was begun it became headlong. Again and again brave officers in blue attempted to stay the flight. A few men would halt by the wayside, but the feeling of the hour with the Federals was to escape, and it was impossible to get enough Federals together to stop the stampede.

As the Confederate advance guard fired their revolvers into the backs of the retreating foe, they would either drop back and reload their weapon, or else those behind them who had full cylinders would ride up and continue the fire into the fleeing enemy. In the wild chase of the Federals the Confederates observed one on a dun horse. He was brave and was fighting desperately to protect the rear of his men, and urging them to halt and face their foe. When Major Richards observed that the efforts of this Federal soldier were having some effect upon his comrades, he called to two of his soldiers, Sidney Ferguson and Charles Dear, to “kill the man on the dun horse.” This person had not bargained for this singling out of himself as a target for Confederate shots. When these ominous words fell upon his ears, he put spurs to his horse and in a reckless frenzy forged his way past his comrades and was not afterwards seen in the rout. The two Confederates who were endeavoring to capture or kill the man on the dun horse, at this point made Lieutenant Baker of General Merritt’s staff a prisoner. This rapid and relentless following was continued for seven miles down the narrow road, and it only ended on the banks of the Shenandoah River. Scattered along the highway were wounded and dead animals. Thirteen Federal troopers were still in death on the roadside. Sixty-four prisoners were taken and more than ninety horses captured. Captain Duff, the commander of the rear guard, was among the wounded prisoners. Among the revolvers captured was one with Colonel Harry Gilmor’s name carved upon the guard. Reading this inscription, Major Richards asked Lieutenant Baker, his prisoner, how the Federals happened to have this pistol, and he was then informed for the first time that Colonel Gilmor had been captured.

Major Gibson, the Federal commandant, was among the few who escaped. He reported his misfortune to General Merritt. It is published in Series 1, Volume 46, Part 1, Page 463, of the Records of the Rebellion. He said:

“I placed Captain Duff in charge of the rear guard, which consisted of forty men. I made the rear guard so strong, in proportion to the size of my command, owing to the enemy’s repeated and vigorous attacks on it. I was at the head of the column, and turned around in order to observe the condition of the column, and looking to the rear, I observed several men hold up their hands and make gestures which I supposed were intended to inform me that the rear was attacked. I immediately ordered the command, ‘right into line.’

“No sooner had I issued these commands than I saw Captain Duff and his party at the rear of the small party who marched in the rear of the led horses. Captain Duff’s command was coming at a run. I saw rebels among and in the rear of his party, charging. I ordered the command forward, fired a volley and ordered a charge, which the men did not complete. Captain Duff in the meantime was trying to rally his men in the rear of my line. Before his men had reloaded their pieces, I had fired another volley and ordered another charge.... The charge was met by one from the enemy and the command was broken. The men had no weapons but their carbines, and these were extremely difficult to load, and inefficient in the melee that ensued. I made every effort, as did Captain Duff and Captain Martindale and Lieutenant Baker, of the corps staff, to re-form the men, but our efforts were fruitless. The rebels had very few sabres, but were well supplied with revolvers, and rode up to our men and shot them down, without meeting more resistance than men could make with carbines. There was a small ridge overlooking both parties, through which the path led. I rode up to the side of this and formed the advance guard, which had returned to aid me. The enemy were amidst the men, and both parties were so mixed up that it was impossible to get the men in line. As fast as the men could force their horses into the path, where many of the men were crowded together, they broke for the river. I waited until I was surrounded, and only a half a dozen men left around; the balance had retreated toward the river, or were killed, wounded or captured. Captain Martindale, as he left, said to me: ‘It is useless to attempt to rally the men here; we’ll try it farther on.’ I tried to ride to the front. Men were crowded into the path by twos and threes where there was really only room for one to ride. Men were being thrown and being crushed as they lay on the ground, by others; they were falling from their horses from the enemy’s fire in front and rear of me. I rode past about twenty of the men and again tried to rally the men, but all my efforts were fruitless.

“... I was ordered to surrender, two of the enemy in advance endeavoring to beat me off my horse with their pistols.... I reached the river; my horse fell several times in it, but at last I got across. Captain Martindale forced most of the men across to halt and form here, and cover the crossing of the few who had reached the river. Captain Martindale, myself, two scouts and twelve men were saved. We waited to see if more would come, but none came; eight had crossed and arrived at camp before us.”

Major Gibson, in accounting for his disaster, says that his men being armed with carbines alone were “unable to engage in a melee successfully with an enemy armed with at least two revolvers to the man; also, I didn’t know of the attack until I observed the rear guard coming in at full flight, mixed up with and pursued by the enemy.” He concluded his report by asking for a “court of inquiry at the earliest practicable moment.”

Colonel George Taylor Denison, who long held a leading commission as a Canadian Cavalry officer, in his book on “Modern Cavalry,” describes the results of this battle as one of the most remarkable in the history of cavalry warfare. He asserts the fight of Mosby’s men at Mt. Carmel Church demonstrated the superiority of the pistol and revolver above all other weapons in cavalry combat, when these are in the hands of men who know how to use them.

The Confederates pursued the fleeing foe right up to the Shenandoah River. With his limited force Major Richards deemed it unwise to cross that stream. He marched back with his followers over the Blue Ridge Mountains to Paris, a little town in the northernmost part of Fauquier County. In this immediate neighborhood, and about Upperville, there had been many engagements between cavalry on both sides. Some of the severest cavalry fighting of the war occurred in this vicinity a few days after the Battle of Fleetwood Hill. Stuart and Pleasanton were for three days in contact about Upperville, Middleburg and Aldie, but none of these, considering the number engaged, were so brilliant as this conflict between Major Gibson and Major Richards. Only two Confederates were wounded and none killed. This gallant fight was complimented by General Lee in a dispatch to the War Department.

As the Federals left the home of Major Richards’ father, they took with them his uniform and his other trappings. When he emerged from the trap door there was nothing left for him to wear. The Federal soldiers had taken everything that they could lay their hands upon, hoping thereby to make the Major ride thereafter with a limited wardrobe. They wished also to exhibit them as a trophy won from Mosby’s men.

Searching around, Major Richards found an old-fashioned, high top, black felt hat, badly worn and with many holes around the brim. He managed to secure a suit of brown Kentucky jeans and a pair of laborer’s boots which had been discarded by some farm hand. Lacking an overcoat, his mother pinned her woolen shawl about his shoulders. It was not a very attractive garb. It might have served in a pinch for an infantryman, but it did not sit well upon a dashing cavalryman.

When Richards’ command reached Paris the Federal prisoners had been corralled in an old blacksmith shop. While resting there the Confederate commander was informed that one of the prisoners desired to speak with him. When Major Richards arrived at the blacksmith shop, the courier indicated a handsomely dressed young officer as the one who had sent the message seeking an interview. The Confederate commander asked why he had been sent for. The Federal officer, surprised at the appearance of the Confederate, not then twenty-one years of age, said to Major Richards: “I desire to speak to the commanding officer.” Major Richards, in his pride of achievement, forgot the sorry appearance he was making in the cast-off clothing of the farm hand, and calmly looking the Federal in the eye, he said to him: “I am the commanding officer.” The lieutenant, amazed, gazed carefully at the stripling, so grotesquely clad. He was too astounded to be able to speak. Waiting a brief time, Major Richards, in order to relieve the embarrassment, said, “Well, what is it you want?” The Federal lieutenant then informed the major that there was a captain among the prisoners who was severely wounded, and he wished to know if he could not be properly cared for. The solicitude of the wounded man’s comrade appealed to the finer sentiments of the Confederate. Learning the name of the Federal captain, he directed him to be paroled and removed to the village hotel and placed under the care of the neighborhood physician, and directed that the bills for medical attention and board be sent to him for payment.

After this preliminary had been arranged, Major Richards turned to the lieutenant and said, “I notice you are wearing a staff officer’s uniform;” to which response was made: “Yes, I am a lieutenant on General Merritt’s staff.” Then the Confederate commander asked, “How did you happen to be in this command?” The Federal replied that he had been sent with the orders under which Major Gibson was to make this raid, and he asked General Merritt to permit him to go along just for the fun of it; to which the Confederate replied: “I hope, Lieutenant, you have enjoyed it more than your surroundings seem to indicate.”

The wounded officer was Captain Duff, who had commanded the rear guard. He speedily recovered and was permitted to return to his home. In later years when statements were made that Mosby had mistreated his prisoners, the grateful captain made a vigorous defense of Mosby and his men, and extolled both their humanity and their mercy.

Chapter XVIII
MORGAN’S CHRISTMAS RAID, DECEMBER 22,
1862, TO JANUARY 2, 1863

The distance between Nashville and Murfreesboro is thirty miles. For sixty days after assuming command of the Federal forces at Nashville, General Rosecrans was making his preparations to advance south. The Confederate Army was at Murfreesboro. The center, under General Leonidas Polk, around the town; the right wing, under General McCown, at Readyville, ten miles east of Murfreesboro; and the left wing at Triune and Eaglesville, under General W. J. Hardee, ten miles west of Murfreesboro. These comprised the entire Confederate Army called the “Army of Tennessee.” It was in front of the Federal forces, styled the “Army of the Cumberland,” and covered the lines around Murfreesboro.

General Rosecrans took with him out of Nashville forty-seven thousand men. He had seventy-five hundred at Nashville, thirty-five hundred at Gallatin and four thousand at Bowling Green, Kentucky, and Clarksville, Tennessee. General Bragg, all counted, had thirty-eight thousand men to resist the Federal advance.

Between Murfreesboro and Nashville there was a macadam road. Along this, Rosecrans advanced, and it took him four days to get close enough to Murfreesboro to justify an attack on the part of the Confederates. The outlook to the Federals was flattering. On the afternoon of the 30th, General Palmer, who was commanding the Union vanguard, telegraphed that he was “in sight of Murfreesboro and the enemy was running.” On the next day, he discovered that this was a great mistake, and when he felt the impact of the Confederates on the 31st, he realized that if “the men in gray were running,” they had suddenly changed their mind and their ways. The four days consumed by Rosecrans in making this twenty miles were full of intense activities. Generals Wheeler and Wharton of the Confederate cavalry were the potent factors in delaying and embarrassing the Federal movements.

No one in the Confederate service knew better than General Wheeler how to obstruct an advancing foe. On the 26th, 27th, 28th and 29th, he harassed and assailed the Federals at every opportunity and made them hesitant and extremely cautious.

At midnight, on the 29th of December, General Wheeler was ordered by General Bragg to ride around the Federal Army. It was only a thirty-five mile dash, but it had much of excitement, danger and difficulty. On the morning of the 30th, Wheeler reported that he had captured a brigade train and fifty prisoners. At Lavergne, a few hours later, he took seven hundred prisoners and destroyed an immense train. This carried with it a loss to the Federals in supplies and munitions of many hundreds of thousands of dollars. Nearby, at Rock Springs, he caught another train. At Nolensville he captured still another and three hundred prisoners, and then without any disturbance from his foes, he proceeded to take his place on the left wing of the Confederate Army. In these brief hours he had swung the circle and deeply impressed on his opponents that they might expect trouble at every step of their way.

At dawn of the day following, General McCown opened the Battle of Murfreesboro. General Wheeler, with his cavalry, joined in the attack on the Federals and aided in driving them two miles. General Wharton, with the other portion of the Southern cavalry, was ordered also to ride to the rear of the enemy. He captured hundreds of prisoners, and as if defying all rules of safety, he turned the head of his column due north, in the direction of Nashville. He destroyed many wagons and made numerous prisoners. A large majority of those he safely delivered within the Confederate lines. The Federals had good guns; Wharton, inferior ones. He immediately provided his two thousand riders with the improved arms which had been taken from the Federals, and then returned to the rear of the enemy, passing entirely around the Federal forces. These successes inspired every man in Bragg’s army with courage and hope. The example of these bold horsemen was contagious, and the infantry were anxious to try their luck with the invading columns.

Not satisfied with these adventures, on the 1st day of January, General Wheeler with his own and Wharton’s cavalry, decided to return to the rear of the Federal Army, where there was such rich reward for his labors. Revisiting Lavergne, he attacked the garrison, burned many wagons and captured a number of infantry and a splendid piece of artillery. Fate was so propitious in all these expeditions and the field for destruction so wide, the same night he again went to Rosecrans’ rear, capturing a large number of wagons and horses and prisoners, and by two o’clock the next morning was on the left flank of the army. At nine o’clock on the night of the 1st, he made his last expedition to the Federal rear, and, as before, found his foes easily demoralized and ready to flee or surrender when vigorously and promptly assailed. On the 4th of January, after these adventurous and successful operations, he emerged from his Federal surroundings to find that General Bragg had fallen back. No cavalry in any great battle of the war played a more distinguished part than Wheeler’s and Wharton’s men at Murfreesboro. Their audacity was only equalled by their success, and it is difficult to comprehend how even the greatest of leaders, with only twenty-nine hundred horsemen, could make such havoc with foes, or move with such ease, celerity and with freedom from disaster, in the rear of an opposing army, when rarely was he at any time more than ten miles from the tents of its commanders. A few hundreds of Federal cavalry properly led and disposed, with such numbers of infantry close by, ought not only to have obstructed Generals Wheeler and Wharton in their marches, but should have forced or driven them discomfited within their own lines. In the battle the Federal losses in killed and wounded was eight thousand, seven hundred and seventy-eight and three thousand six hundred and seventy-three captured, making a total of twelve thousand four hundred and fifty-one. Rosecrans also lost twenty-eight pieces of artillery. Bragg, with thirty-eight thousand men, had a loss of ten thousand, two hundred and sixty-six, of which nine thousand were killed and wounded, and about twelve hundred of them were left in the hospitals at Murfreesboro, which later were taken possession of by the Federal Army.

A third of the forces in this battle were from Tennessee. They fought desperately on their native soil, contesting for their homes and firesides, and they suffered a terrific decimation. Cheatham’s division, composed entirely of Tennesseeans, had thirty-six per cent wounded or killed. Cleburne’s division suffered a like mortality, and Johnson’s and Palmer’s Tennessee brigades sustained a loss of twenty-nine and a half per cent.

In order to prevent reinforcements at Clarksville, Nashville and Bowling Green from coming to the assistance of Rosecrans, General John H. Morgan was directed by General Bragg on the 22d of December, 1862, to make a raid along the Louisville and Nashville railroad into Kentucky, and, as far as possible, destroy it, so as to break the Federal communications.

Alexandria, in Wilson County, Tennessee, was forty miles east of Nashville. The Federals did not spread out very far from Nashville in this direction, and there was a neutral zone in and around Lebanon, the county seat of Wilson County, to which the Federals and Confederates each now and then came. It was necessary to protect this line in order to prevent danger to Knoxville. It was still in the nominal possession of the Confederacy. South and west of Nashville, Wheeler, Wharton and Forrest were campaigning. Forrest’s December raid into West Tennessee had not only demonstrated that he was one of the most ferocious fighters in the Confederate service, but also the tremendous power of cavalry when skillfully handled. He had largely recruited his skeleton regiments, and when he came out, although he had seen hard service, he numbered several hundred more men than when he was ordered, against his judgment, by General Bragg to make the raid, in the face of most inclement weather and with an ill-equipped force. His personal pride had been subordinated to his patriotism, and he was ready to give and do his best for the work now before Bragg.

Morgan was now to be given a chance to try his hand in Kentucky. For some months there had been no material interruption of the Louisville and Nashville railroad, and Rosecrans was using it and the Cumberland River to supply his army at Nashville. General Bragg was perfectly familiar with the preparations that Rosecrans was making for the advance of his army southward, and he knew that a decisive battle could not be long delayed.

General Morgan’s name was now on every tongue. His July raid from Knoxville into Kentucky, where he had marched a thousand miles, destroyed millions of dollars worth of property, and terrorized a district three hundred miles long and sixty miles wide, his services during the invasion of Kentucky by General Bragg, and his splendid exhibition of genius demonstrated in covering General Bragg’s retreat from Kentucky in October, and the Battle of Hartsville had given him not only a well-deserved but wide reputation. The things he had done were along new lines and everywhere created wonder and admiration. The Battle of Hartsville, one of the most brilliant exploits in the history of the Confederacy, resulted in Morgan’s being advanced to brigadier general. Seven days after the Hartsville expedition, General Morgan was married to Miss Ready, of Murfreesboro, among the most brilliant, charming and attractive women of the Southland. There were those at the time who predicted that this marriage, under the circumstances surrounding Morgan’s military career, would affect his success. Be this as it may, this splendid woman enthusiastically entered into the military hopes and ambitions of her now greatly distinguished husband, and moved and inspired with the loyalty and courage that filled the hearts of the women of the South, urged rather than restrained the enterprise and activity of her companion.

Morgan always did best when he was allowed to act independently. When operating his own way and managing his campaigns, he was one of the most successful, dangerous and destructive of Confederate cavalry leaders. Full of resource, glorying in adventure, he imbued his men with his marvelous fervor and passionate ardor. Within a few days after his promotion to brigadier general, his forces were materially strengthened. Colonels W. C. P. Breckinridge and Robert G. Stoner each recruited battalions in Kentucky in the fall of 1862. These were now consolidated and thereafter known as the 9th Kentucky Cavalry, with Breckinridge as colonel and Stoner as lieutenant colonel. Toward the end of September Colonel Adam R. Johnson reached Murfreesboro with a regiment which he had recruited in Western Kentucky, of about four hundred men. It had been battered by service, and received rough handling in the Federal lines, but had a splendid organization. Its lieutenant colonel, Robert M. Martin, was confessedly one of the most daring and dashing of the men who wore the Confederate uniform. The brigade was now thirty-nine hundred strong. The misfortunes of war had dismounted some of the troops, and part of them were not fully armed, but all knew that the next raid would remedy these deficiencies. Morgan divided his regiments into two brigades, the first under command of General Basil W. Duke, Colonel of the 2d Kentucky, and the second under command of Colonel W. C. P. Breckinridge, of the 9th Kentucky. Colonel A. R. Johnson was at this time considered the ranking colonel, and when offered by General Morgan the command of the second brigade, declined it, preferring to act as colonel of the 10th Kentucky. Later, however, he accepted promotion to a brigadier.

Then, many believed that Colonel Roy S. Cluke, of the 8th Kentucky, should have been made brigadier general, and it is said that his raid into Kentucky, which followed in February and March, 1863, was projected in order to equalize things on account of Colonel Cluke being ranked at this time by Colonels Breckinridge and Johnson. Both Cluke and Johnson hesitating, Morgan appointed Breckinridge to command the second brigade. The first was composed of the 2d Kentucky, Duke’s, the 3d Kentucky, Gano’s, the 8th Kentucky, Cluke’s, with Palmer’s battery of four pieces. The second was composed of the 9th Kentucky, Breckinridge’s, the 10th Kentucky, Johnson’s, the 11th, Chenault’s, and the 14th Tennessee under Colonel Bennett. These had a Parrott gun and two mountain howitzers. By November, 1862, Morgan’s forces had reached in equipment and numbers a very high grade of efficiency. True, there were some unmounted and unarmed men, but these could be used as horse holders, and as out of every four men, one must hold horses, when four thousand cavalrymen should go into battle, one thousand of them would have to remain at the rear with the animals while the other three-fourths dismounted to fight.

For a few days preceding the 21st, the farriers were busy shoeing the horses. Equipments were inspected with minutest scrutiny. Ammunition was counted out, the mounts were carefully examined, as only soldiers and horses that could stand a strenuous and long drawn out expedition were to be taken. These men and beasts were to be subjected to the rigors of storms, travel and cold that would try out the highest resistance of flesh and blood to nature’s warfare. These preparations the rank and file knew portended immediate and intense activity. The division then comprised a remarkable body of young men. It represented a full share of the chivalry and flower of the states of Kentucky and Tennessee. Lawyers, physicians, farmers, clerks, and here and there clergymen were either officers or in the ranks. A large proportion of these were liberally educated. Intelligent and patriotic and full of the spirit of adventure and romance which attached to cavalry, they were ready for any service and always would go without fear where duty called. They were proud, and that made them brave. The vast majority of the men were under twenty-five years of age, and youth always makes the best soldiers if the material and leadership are good.

On the morning of December 22d, in and around the little town of Alexandria, the lines of the divisions were formed. The Kentuckians sat astride their horses most anxiously, longing for the command to move. They looked and acted like men who understood that work was cut out for them.

In a brief while a general order from their leader was read. There was no longer any reason for concealment. In a few moments they knew they were going into Kentucky, and the hope and promise of home-going caused the blood to tingle in their veins and their hearts to beat with quickened rapture and joy. These boys could guess the path they would follow, and the confidence of their commander added new courage to their hearts. He told them candidly where they were going; he reminded them who they were, and he impressed upon them what was expected of them. Prolonged and vociferous cheering was heard when the order was read, and the hills and the woods were filled with the glad shouts of these exiled youths who were now to turn their faces homeward. With wild hurrahs they expressed their delight, and with exultant outcries gave dauntless response to the call of their chieftain. The one Tennessee regiment felt the spirit of the hour. Though going from home, they caught the delirium of joy that thrilled these horsemen, now commencing one of the great marches of a great war.

From Alexandria for some distance there was a good road. In a little over two hours the column had covered eight miles. Suddenly the stillness of the march was disturbed. The men far up in front heard, away to the rear, triumphant yells and tremendous cheering. They knew what this meant. Morgan was coming. Alongside the column, with a splendid staff, magnificently mounted, superbly dressed, riding like a centaur, bare-headed, with plumed hat in his right hand, waving salutations to his applauding followers, the general came galloping by. Pride and happiness were radiated from every feature of his joyous face. He was now a brigadier general, and new opportunity was opened to add to his already superb fame. He had just been married to one of the most beautiful and gracious women of the South. As he released himself from her tender embrace and felt the touch of her lovely lips upon his own and saw the tear-drops trickle down her cheek, painted by the delicate touch of nature with most exquisite colors, he caught an inspiration that lifted him up to the sublimest heights of human heroism, and imbued him with a valor that stirred every fibre of his soul, and made him feel that with him there must be victory or death. He had with him four thousand Kentucky boys, well armed, for so large a force well mounted, and there spread out before his enraptured fancy scenes of conquest and glory that filled his mind with ecstasy and delight. There was in such an hour of splendor no omen of the gloom and darkness of the future, and no signal came to warn of the time when, a few months later, by war’s harsh and cruel edict, his hopes would be shattered, when his dead body would be mutilated by his vengeful foes and the weeping wife and an unborn babe would feel forever the rude shock of the awful bereavement.

No time was now to be wasted. Every moment must count. To do the work that he had undertaken and to do it well meant that he must ride like the whirlwind and march like the storm. Biting cold, drenching rains, chilling sleet, were not to be considered. Rapid night rides, days without food, sleepless watchings, ceaseless vigils, constant battle, fording or swimming rivers, and defiance of nature’s protest and barriers, held out no terrors for these high-spirited riders. All believed that leaders and men were invincible and that a generous fate would protect and guard them in whatever dangers and difficulties the fortunes of war would bring, on the campaign to which their country and Cause had bid them come.

By the night of the 22d, the first brigade had forded the Cumberland River at Sand Shoal, and at dawn the second had crossed the stream. There were not enough rations to require long delays for feeding. The horses ravenously munched the meagre supply of corn and fodder that had been impressed to satisfy their hunger. By sundown the column had covered thirty miles. There was heavy work ahead. They would meet and attack Federal garrisons who were in stockades and forts. This made it necessary to have the artillery; but the guns, however important, slowed down the speed of the march.

By the 6th of May, 1862, Andrew Johnson had spoken savagely of Morgan and his men. In writing to Horace Maynard, Member of Congress, he said: “Morgan’s marauding gang should not be admitted to the rules of civilised warfare, and the portion of his forces taken at Lebanon should not be held as prisoners of war. I hope you will call attention of Secretary Stanton to the fact of their being a mere band of freebooters.” The seven months that had transpired since this utterance had not increased the good opinion of the Federals concerning Morgan’s brigades. The Union forces were so much afraid of General Morgan and talked so much of his exploits and his expeditions that they created in the minds of the public, who did not sympathize with the South, a most exaggerated and ridiculous idea of him and his men. They were singing and talking of “Morgan, Morgan and his terrible men.”

By the 24th of December Morgan had reached up into Barren County, five miles from Glasgow and ninety miles from the place where he had started. Two companies were sent forward to secure information of conditions at Glasgow. One of these was commanded by Captain William E. Jones of the 9th Kentucky Cavalry. About this time the advance guard of a battalion of the 2d Michigan Cavalry entered the place upon the opposite side from that which Jones had come in. As both parties were looking for trouble, it did not take long to bring on a fight, and they met about the center of the town. Jones was mortally wounded, and William Webb, of Breckinridge’s regiment, one of the best men in Kentucky, fell in the conflict. In the melee Lieutenant Samuel O. Peyton, of the 2d Kentucky, was wounded, having been shot in the arm and hip. His foes, gathering around him, demanded his surrender. He fired his revolver, killing one of his assailants, grappled with the second, threw him to the ground and stabbed him to death with his knife. The Federals were not expecting such a reception or such resistance, and so within a very few minutes, they were driven away. Twenty-two prisoners, including a captain, were captured and paroled. The gage of battle had been thrown down and conflict must be expected at any moment. The command was in a territory where both garrisons and obstructing and opposing forces would be vigilant and aggressive, and where every energy of the Federal authorities was put under stern requisition to harass and delay or destroy this Confederate force, which on mischief and devastation bent, in the face of winter’s defiance, and far from supports, was offering battle’s wage to those who stood in their pathway of ruin and destruction.

The roads had now become better. There was a turnpike leading from Glasgow toward Louisville. Mysteriously Morgan’s coming had been known to the citizens. The entire length of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad was thickly studded with stockades, and every bridge of any importance had a full guard, and towns like Elizabethtown and Munfordsville, Bowling Green and Shepherdsville were all protected by strong garrisons. The great importance of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad as a means of feeding and supplying the Federal Army at Nashville and below, demanded that it should be fully and thoroughly defended, and no small force could hope to avail against this thorough preparation on the part of the Federals for the guarding of this essential highway.

Captain Quirk, in command of the advance guard and the scouts, had not gone very far until he found a battery across the road and supports on either side. An impetuous attack was the answer to this challenge, and it did not require very long to brush this obstruction out of the Confederate path. Johnson’s regiment had been sent in the direction of Munfordsville to threaten that place, but General Morgan turned his forces south and east of the Green River, which was not forded without much difficulty. The banks were steep and muddy and the water high enough to give great inconvenience. As there was a long railroad bridge at Munfordsville, a strong Federal garrison had been gathered at that point to defend it. His force was not large enough to assault the earthworks protecting this structure. General Morgan had determined to destroy the trestles at Muldraugh Hill, six miles north of Elizabethtown. The damage there would more than equal any he could inflict at Munfordsville. It was of importance that he should create upon the minds of the Federals the impression that he would assail the garrison at Munfordsville and force them to concentrate there, when his men should reach the Louisville & Nashville Railroad between Munfordsville and Elizabethtown, and bridges and culverts torn up, there need not be any particular worry about the Federal forces in the rear. Infantry would have to be moved along the railroad and they would stand a slight chance to catch Morgan and his horsemen on lines removed from the thoroughfare. Little sleep was allowed that night. On the morrow General Morgan had mapped out great work. He intended to take the stockades at Bacon’s Creek and Nolin River and destroy the bridges there. During the night a tremendous rain had fallen, and all day it still kept coming down in torrents. The cannon and caissons in the mud and slush made slow progress and prevented very rapid movement. A regiment had been despatched to Bacon’s Creek bridge, and at eleven o’clock the cannonading there was distinctly heard. It was necessary to reduce the stockade and capture the Federal garrison at that point in order to prevent the Federals from sending new troops to Nashville.

The force sent thither not returning delayed the march, and it was three o’clock before it got under way. General Morgan took the reinforcements that had arrived from the feint toward Munfordsville, and he went over with these to learn what was the cause of the detention at Bacon’s Creek. Upon his arrival, peremptory demand was made by him for surrender, and the Federal forces under Captain James of the 19th Illinois promptly complied. The stockade was immediately burned and the torch applied to the trestle. The garrison at Nolin was less disposed to fight than those at Bacon’s Creek, and these laid down their arms without resistance. The stockade and bridge were consigned to the flames. Great fires were built along the tracks of the Louisville & Nashville for several miles, the iron rails, torn from the ties, were placed upon these and were warped and bent so as to be unfit for use until carried to a rolling mill.

On the morning of December 27th General Morgan learned of the presence of a considerable force at Elizabethtown, and moved over to that place. When within a short distance of the town a most ludicrous communication was sent out under a flag of truce. It ran somewhat like this: “Elizabethtown, Kentucky, December 27th, 1862. To the commander of the Confederate forces: I have you surrounded and will compel you to surrender. I am, sir, your obedient servant, H. S. Smith, Commander United States Forces.” General Morgan smiled and chuckled. He informed the bearer of this extraordinary despatch that he trusted he would convey the impression to his commander that the positions were reversed, that it was the Federal forces that were to surrender and not the Confederates, and he requested their immediate capitulation, to which he received the rather unique reply that “it was the business of a United States officer to fight and not to surrender.” As nothing but a fight would satisfy the six hundred and seventy men under command of Colonel Smith, General Morgan prepared to give him what he wanted. Surrounding the town, skirmishers were thrown forward and the position of the enemy developed. He had taken position in brick houses on the outside of the town and resolved to have a street fight. The Federals had no artillery, and the Confederates had seven pieces. It was a very unequal contest. The Confederates marched boldly in. They had seen street fighting before. Colonel Cluke and Lieutenant Colonel Stoner, who later at Mount Sterling in February and March were to win additional fame, entered the town at the head of their men. A few well-directed shells convinced the Federals of the folly of resistance. The gallant Federal colonel still refused to surrender, but his men, rushing out, displayed the white flag, and left him to his fate. Six hundred and fifty-two prisoners, including twenty-five officers, were the result of this fight.

The great prize for which the Confederates were contending was yet six miles away. Two mighty trestles, one nine hundred and one a thousand feet long and ninety feet high, were the means by which the Louisville & Nashville Railroad climbed Muldraugh’s Hill and debauched on the Elizabethtown side of that small mountain range. The bridges and trestles heretofore destroyed were small in comparison to these two immense structures. Both of these trestles were defended by garrisons, and both were well fortified. These troops had been especially ordered to fight to the last ditch. Seven hundred men had been placed to guard these giant viaducts. They were the highest and most valuable on the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, and the Confederates had never been able to reach them before. Full stores had been collected at this point. On this expedition Captains Palmer and Corbett handled the artillery with consummate skill and bravery. Their well-directed shots in a brief while brought both garrisons to terms. The flames ascending high into the air told the story of the victory and triumph of the Confederate forces, and the columns of smoke lifting their shadows up toward the heavens proclaimed to the pursuers that the dreaded calamity had overtaken the all-important trestles which meant so much to the railway, and that they had gone down before the avenging hand of enemies. Small forces were sent out a few miles north toward Shepherdsville and destroyed some unimportant structures. General Morgan had wrecked the road now for something like fifty miles. Nothing inflammable had escaped the touch of his destructive torch. Having accomplished all they had intended to do, with Federal forces south and southeast and others in the path in every direction, he now faced the problem of safely escaping from these foes which beleaguered and beset him on every side. He had now reached one hundred and seventy miles into the enemy’s territory. He had destroyed twenty-three hundred feet of bridging and put the railroad out of commission for many weeks.

In cavalry experiences it is sometimes easier to get in than to get out. The whole country south and east of Morgan was aroused. The Federal commanders at Washington and Nashville were beginning to question with vehement pertinacity how Morgan had been allowed to ride so far and do so much damage without serious interruption. It was true that the defenders at Bacon’s Creek were not very numerous, that those at Nolin were less so, and that those at Elizabethtown and the Muldraugh trestles had no chance against the well-directed artillery of the Confederates, backed by thirty-five hundred cavalry; but up in Louisville, at Nashville, at Washington, Morgan seemed to be going where he pleased and doing what he pleased. At these centers, so far removed from the scene of his action, it appeared that those who were opposing him, or following, were neither diligent nor brave. The men at Washington, Louisville, or Nashville were not marching in the cold, or riding through the mud and the rain. They could not take in the surroundings of the men who were at work on the spot, and so they became both inquisitive and critical. General Morgan, however, was not underrating the efforts of his foes to minimize the damage he might do or to prevent his escape. Great soldier as he was, he foresaw what he must face and overcome when he turned his face southward and undertook to break through the cordon his enemies were establishing around him. He had before him for outlet a territory sixty miles wide, filled with numerous highways. Nearly all these were merely country roads, which when cut by his artillery and churned by the sixteen thousand feet of the horses his men were riding, would be only streams of mire.

MAP SHOWING APPROXIMATELY MORGAN’S CHRISTMAS RAID

Mud and slush would face him along any line he should march except one, and that was through Bardstown and Springfield, Lebanon and Campbellsville. Lebanon was on the railroad and it could be promptly and largely reinforced. The Confederate chieftain was too great a leader to be trapped. He realized that he must go higher up the Cumberland in the first place, and find another crossing, and in the second place to get out of the line of those who were bent on his destruction. The Federal leaders did not seem to be in a very great hurry. He turned southeast and on the night of the 28th of December camped on the Rolling Fork, a tributary of Salt River. This was a deep and ordinarily a sluggish stream, with high banks. The rain, a few days before, had filled its bed with angry currents and good fords were infrequent, and particularly fords that would let artillery over. There was a peculiar pride in part of the artillery that made the command ready to fight savagely for them. One of the pieces was a Parrott gun, a trophy of their valor at Hartsville. It was called “Long Tom” because of its extreme length. Closely associated with the victory at Hartsville, it became a great pet of the division, and was treasured as a mascot.

In the midst of the exciting surroundings of the campaign, a court martial had been sitting at intervals, as a little leisure could be spared, upon Lieutenant Colonel Huffman, in command of Gano’s regiment. General Morgan had given generous terms to those who surrendered at Bacon’s Creek, and he was displeased with Colonel Huffman’s apparent violation of these terms, and five regimental commanders, Duke, Breckinridge, Cluke, Hutchinson and Stoner, comprised this court. Marching all day and some nights, with an average of forty miles every twenty-four hours, with an occasional diversion of a fight, it was rather difficult for these judges to apportion exact justice to the offending officer. An hour would be taken at night and a little while during the rest of the day, but on this particular morning a full session was held and Huffman was acquitted. As the court martial was writing its finding, couriers came scurrying from the rear with the information that a large Federal force of infantry and cavalry was close at hand and had opened fire. The firing of the pickets and skirmishers was already audible. Some of the troops had crossed the Rolling Fork, but the others were on the same side with the Federals. Cluke’s regiment under Major Bullock had been sent to burn a railroad bridge, and to hold the enemy in check, but the enemy did not seem willing to be checked and they vigorously pressed his rear guard. If the fording of the Rolling Fork had been practicable at every point, it would be easy enough for those now defending it to ride across, but when Cluke’s men got down to the stream it was found there to be impassable. The fields and roads were full of bluecoats, and they were coming where Morgan’s men were. They were not advancing very eagerly, but all the same they were coming. The skirmishers along the fences and in the woods were delaying their progress as much as possible, but formalities seemed to be waived, and the Federals were pressing down upon the men on their side of the stream in large force. The Federal artillery, well managed, got the range of the ford where the Confederates were crossing and was throwing shells with accuracy and rapidity, which was splashing the water along the line where the men in gray must pass. About seven hundred men, including several companies of Cluke’s regiment, were on the west side of Rolling Fork. The Federal Army, composed of infantry and cavalry, was closing in upon them. With an enemy in front and the river behind them it looked especially gloomy for the men under Cluke. This 8th Kentucky Cavalry in camp, with a high type of soldierly pride, styled themselves “Cluke’s War Dogs,” and it looked now as if the “war dogs” were to get all the war that they could possibly desire.

At this moment General Duke was struck on the side of the head by a fragment of a shell and rendered unconscious. A brave and agile soldier sprang behind him and held him on his horse and carried him over the stream. The skirmishers were plugging away at each other at close range. One of the enemy’s batteries was proving especially destructive, and Captain Virgil Pendleton of the 8th Kentucky was ordered to charge this battery. He killed the cannoneers or drove them from their guns, and this silenced these destructive agents for a quarter of an hour. This brave captain was struck by an exploding shell from other guns of the enemy and seriously and dangerously wounded. Ninety days later he was killed while charging through the streets of Mount Sterling.

Colonel W. C. P. Breckinridge assumed command of the Confederates on the side with the Federals, and with great skill and gallantry helped bring them out of the perils that were thick around them.

Seconds were lengthened into minutes. The strain was intense. It was a critical moment for the Confederates not yet over the stream. Another assault by the Federals meant capture or death or a plunge into the deep, icy waters of Rolling Fork. At this juncture the Federals suddenly retreated. No one has ever been able to explain this let-up at this opportune time for the advancing hosts, nor been able to guess why the men in blue failed to attack and scatter their foes when victory was so easy and only needed the closing in to insure its certainty.

Hope appeared to be departing, and when it looked darkest, some of Cluke’s men, by riding into the stream, had found a possible but difficult ford. This had been experimentally discovered. The emergencies forced the men to ride out into the water. They had no guides, and fortunately someone had found by testing that there was a way of escape, and in the lull the rearguard of the Confederates hurried across the stream. The bulk of the casualties fell to Cluke’s regiment. They had sustained their reputation as “war dogs.” They were proud that the enterprise of their leaders, their luck, and their courage had brought them safely through.

General Morgan now turned detachments loose upon the bridges upon the Lebanon Branch; some of these were destroyed. This would prevent reinforcements from rapidly reaching Lebanon. The stockade at Boston and other small structures were burned. On the night of the 30th the division camped at Bardstown, and by three o’clock next day it bivouacked at Springfield, nine miles from Lebanon. The fierce cold, the long ride, the severe strain, physical and nervous, demanded a brief halt. The leader realized that Morgan’s men were human. He apprehended the seriousness of the situation. Over at Lebanon, stretched far away along the pike up towards Campbellsville and Muldraugh’s Hill, the Federals were waiting to contest the only good road by which he could reach the Cumberland River. If he could get around Lebanon to Campbellsville, he calculated that over the pike from Campbellsville to Columbia he could make a forced march that would enable him to outride the Federals, who were taking a short cut from Glasgow and surrounding towns, to head him off from Burksville on the Cumberland River.

The Federals had been massing forces at Lebanon. The glare of the camp fires could be seen from Springfield, where Morgan was resting for the great spurt. Enemies were there in such numbers that General Morgan dared not attack the town. They were reported eight thousand. Harlan, who had crossed swords with him at Rolling Fork, was in his rear. Colonels Halisy and Hoskins and their eight thousand men were in his front. The night was intensely dark, and the thermometer was below zero. The turnpike between Springfield and Lebanon was full of Federal pickets, backed up by infantry, that were double Morgan’s numbers.

Early in the night Colonel A. R. Johnson of the 10th drove in the pickets on the Lebanon road and attacked them with such fierceness that a cavalry regiment which was stationed six miles from Lebanon, on the Campbellsville road, was called in to help defend the town. The withdrawal of this cavalry regiment opened up a possible way of escape for Morgan without a fight. At Springfield there were many friends and sympathizers. They were honest and safe advisers. Had Morgan’s men been fresh and his horses not wearied, the situation would have been less perplexing to the dauntless general. From every direction enemies were fast approaching and, stirred deeply by the criticisms of superiors, were closing in to destroy the Confederate leader.

The hour had now come for Morgan again to demonstrate the force of his genius and the extent of his resources. He saw that the best way of escape was the longest way; that he could not whip the eight thousand Federals at Lebanon and he must manage to get around them. He determined to make a detour to the right of Lebanon, pass the Federal Army there, then swing back on to the road which led from Lebanon to Campbellsville and rush to the latter place with all possible speed. He calculated that by outwitting the enemy and by a forced march, he would reach Campbellsville before his escape would be discovered and before the Federals could get in his front to seriously interfere with his going.

An appalling night’s experiences were now to face the bold raider and his hardy followers. They were without even hope of succor or support. Here Morgan could rely only upon himself and those who were with him to rid his path of the dangers, which, if he doubted or hesitated, would be unsurmountable.

As the Federals at Lebanon did not come after him he decided to remain at Springfield until eleven o’clock at night. This would give time for sleep for the men and opportunity to rest and feed the beasts. By the hospitable firesides of sympathizers, the Confederates warmed their benumbed limbs and the patient brutes were allowed to feed and munch to their fill. To multiply troubles, the temperature, already cold, had become colder. Sharp, penetrating winds whistled through the naked trees and whirled around the corners of the houses, warning the wise to seek and keep shelter. Wintry blasts notified the soldiers of what might be expected if they dared defy their suggestion. The mercury in the thermometer nestled several degrees below zero and hid far down in the tube as if afraid to expose itself to the cold. Morgan’s enemies had not learned exactly where he was, but they knew he was about and they knew that they were in his front.

General Boyle, commander of the Kentucky Department, telegraphed Abraham Lincoln in Washington: “Morgan is fleeing precipitately. He has paid dearly for what he has done.” The wires were kept busy by the Federals, prophesying what would happen to the bold raiders. Superiors were assured that disaster was bound to overtake Morgan within a few hours. Fate had decreed that these prophecies were not to be verified.

Everybody knew that really great work had been cut out for the night. No order was required to tell the men of this. The long rest at Springfield of eight hours was a sure augury that a furious night march was in store. The men prepared themselves as best they could. At the hospitable little town of Springfield, in cavalry parlance, “square meals” were available. This meant that one could eat enough at a sitting to tide over forty-eight to seventy-two hours without hunger’s interference. A common sense of danger filled the minds of all the soldiers at this resting place. They knew that heavy work was expected, certainly a night’s ride, facing the winds that cut to the marrow and cold that struck into the joints, and maybe a battle or attack in the darkness. They had wrapped blankets about their bodies and covered their feet with strips of cloth. The strain was too great for a few, and here and there a man or so had succumbed to the terrific pressure of the elements and had fallen out of line; but in thirty-nine hundred men that such a small number were unable to meet these difficulties was a great tribute to both the physical and mental vigor of these horsemen. They warmed themselves and satisfied their appetites to the limit, and with the bravado of true cavaliers, they bade care flee away and fears begone as they mounted into their saddles. They were not afraid to face any emergency, even all that the dreadful night ahead had in store for man and beast.

The aid of the best available guides was secured. These bundled themselves up as if they were in Lapland. At eleven o’clock on the night of the 30th, General Morgan set out on his journey around his enemies. He counted darkness as his best ally. It was nine miles from Springfield to Lebanon and nine miles from Lebanon to St. Mary’s, where he must pass the Federal trocha, and then it was fifteen miles from St. Mary’s to the point where General Morgan could hope in safety to strike the turnpike from Lebanon to Campbellsville. This meant a loss of fifteen miles, with jaded horses and tired men. Before General Morgan left Springfield he had a strong line of skirmishers drive in the Federal pickets. These stacked rails for a mile through the fields and then fired them. The reflection of the flames on the sky caught the eyes of the Federal pickets. The Union commanders came to the conclusion that no men would dare march through the wind and cold of such a night and Morgan was where the flames were blazing, and that on the morrow, to get by, he must engage them in combat. The mud roads which the Confederates must follow to St. Mary’s and to Newmarket were uneven, frozen, ragged. The cold was so intense that it partially stupefied the beasts. The men were compelled to dismount to keep themselves from being frost bitten, and walk beside their stumbling steeds. It seemed as if humanity could not stand the dreadful punishment that nature was inflicting upon these intrepid men. The game was too fierce for a few, and these by sheer exhaustion fell by the wayside. The horses in sympathy with their masters hung their heads low. Icicles gathered on their manes and breasts, covered their bridles and halters, and dangled from their nostrils. Ice coated the beards and moustaches of the men. Half the time they walked by their steeds, stamping their feet, swinging their hands and beating their bodies to drive away the stupor which extreme cold imposes upon flesh and blood. There was no loud word spoken. Commands, if given, were uttered in soft tones, and all were directed to ride, walk or march in absolute silence. These things added much to the hardships of the night’s work. If they could have jollied each other, or cheered or enlivened the hours with badinage, it would have somewhat relieved the oppressiveness of the continually lengthening miles. The men obeyed the orders in patient submission to the severe calls of the moment, and uncomplainingly bore the burdens that patriotism exacted of them in the dire emergency that war’s fortunes had decreed they must endure. Man and beast seemed to be well-nigh overwhelmed with the chilling air. It was a long, long night, and one that no man who had undergone its terrors would ever forget. Morgan’s men had suffered many hardships and were yet to know many more, but with one voice they declared that this march around Lebanon to St. Mary’s and back to the Campbellsville Pike was the most fearful experience they had ever suffered, except, when ninety days later, they rode the sixty miles from Saylersville to Mount Sterling with Cluke, on March 20th, 1863.

At half past six o’clock day began to dawn. The guides were bewildered or indifferent and had lost their bearings. When the light enabled them to take in the surroundings, it came out that the command had only made something like two miles an hour, and instead of being well on the road towards Campbellsville, they were only two and a half miles from Lebanon. The Federals in camp had laid upon their arms all night. They could sleep and cover up their heads and rest with some degree of comfort in their tents, but they were not astir very early, and they had no accurate knowledge whither Morgan had gone. It was a glad moment when light lifted the burdens from the weary marchers. The sun riding from the east through the clouds assured these nervy horsemen that the terrors of darkness no longer overshadowed them. Once again on the macadam highway, the horses seemed glad and quickened their pace. Increasing speed, with its accelerated motion, brought warmth to their bodies and cheer to their masters’ hearts. At nightfall the command was safe at Campbellsville. They pondered over the terribleness of the past night’s experiences, but the enemy was behind, and this repaid them for the sufferings and agony they had endured.

On the march up the long hill where the turnpike, by constant but easy and tortuous gradients, reaches the tablelands around Campbellsville, the county seat of Taylor County, occurred one of the real tragedies of the war. Colonel Dennis J. Halisy commanded the 6th Kentucky Federal Cavalry. He had charge of the advance in pursuit of Morgan. He was a bred fighter, young, ambitious, game to the core, and as adventurous as he was game. Halisy was following Morgan’s rear guard with the Federal horsemen, picking up the stragglers, if any could be found, and pushing the Confederates as strongly as prudence would allow. Captain Alex. Treble and Lieutenant George B. Eastin were both officers of the 2d Kentucky Confederate Cavalry. These lagged behind the rear guard in search of adventure, anxious to show that nobody retreating was afraid, and not unwilling for a fight, if favorable opportunities came their way.

The top of Muldraugh’s Hill, which overlooked the plain below, where Lebanon, St. Mary’s and Springfield had been passed, was reached a brief while after midday. Treble and Eastin were superbly mounted. Both were over six feet tall, wiry, vigorous men, whose nerves and muscles had been hardened by the exposure and training of severest military experiences. Coming along an open stretch, a thousand feet away, these two young soldiers observed Colonel Halisy and three officers quite far advanced ahead of the Federal column. They were both proud, born brave and dauntless, and they resented the idea that two Kentucky Confederate cavalrymen would run away from a fight with four Federals. Placing themselves behind a sudden turn in the road, they waited for the pursuers to appear. Both skilled revolver shots, they were confident that by a sudden onslaught they would kill two of those following and then grapple with the remaining couple and win out. If they had reasoned they would have, hesitated, but in that period of the war, the courage and pride amongst the Kentucky boys who went south did not consume time reasoning nor making many figures in calculating the hazards and dangers of rencontres, and so they resolved to stake their lives, or at least their liberties, on the issue with these foes, who appeared equally indifferent to peril.

GENERAL JOHN H. MORGAN

Curiously, as Halisy and his lieutenant came close upon Treble and Eastin, their two companions fell back to the head of the column and thus left the battle two and two.

Swinging out into the road as Colonel Halisy and his aide approached, the two officers in gray fired at their opponents. They were greatly surprised and disgusted that neither shot took effect. Four men, too brave and too intrepid to run away from a foe, grappled on their horses. They pulled each other from their mounts and fell, side by side, to the ground. Treble seized his foe and pushed his head into a pool or stream of water, from whence, half drowned, he asked quarter. Eastin had Halisy underneath him, and with his pistol at his head, forced him to surrender. The Federal colonel yielded but still held his pistol in his hand. As he arose from the earth, quickly cocking his revolver, he fired at his captor, but the bullet only grazed the cheek of the Confederate, who in turn instantly fired his weapon and killed Halisy. The conflict, the struggles, the shots, attracted the attention of the advancing Federals, who rushed to the rescue of their leader and comrade. Hastily taking the colonel’s sword and the pistols of the two men, Treble and Eastin galloped off to join the Confederate rear guard, which was now nearly out of sight. The Federals claimed that Colonel Halisy had been shot without provocation after he surrendered, but subsequent investigation showed that such a charge was totally unfounded and that Eastin was fully justified in the course he pursued. Just six months later, Captain Treble, having been transferred to Chenault’s regiment, was killed at Green River Stockade on July 4th, 1863, on the road between Campbellsville and Columbia, twenty-two miles from the scene of this conflict, as Morgan was commencing the Ohio Raid. In the assault on the Federal fortification Colonel Chenault was killed, and Major James B. McCreary, now governor of Kentucky, assumed command of the regiment. He rode down the line to notify Captain Treble that he was to act as lieutenant colonel, and in case he—McCreary—fell, to take charge of the regiment. As Treble rose from the line and waved his hand to salute his superior, to let him know the order was understood, he was struck by a shot from a Federal sharpshooter and fell dead at McCreary’s feet. Strangely enough, when Major Brent of the 5th Regiment, sent by General Morgan to get information as to how things were going, rode forward, as he lifted his hand to salute Colonel McCreary, he was shot through the brain and fell dead at his side.

Eastin, after a brilliant and highly adventurous war experience, became a learned and distinguished lawyer in Louisville, a member of the Kentucky Court of Appeals, and after a long and splendid career, died in Louisville in 1896. He was beloved and honored wherever he was known. He was courteous, gentle, brave and loyal in all phases of life and was universally mourned when he died at the early age of fifty-four.

The Federals, fortunately, had laid by large supplies of commissary stores at Campbellsville, and in these captured goods there was enough to satisfy, clothe and feed man and beast. Strong pickets were ordered out on every road so that there could be no possible surprise. The wear and tear of the day previous had been so dreadful that General Morgan resolved to give his horses and men time to recuperate. True, it was a risk, but the voice of humanity as well as necessity appealed for a brief respite to those men who so uncomplainingly had borne up under a physical strain that, in all the great war, where cavalry had done what no other cavalry ever did, had rarely been equalled and never surpassed. It was twenty-two miles to Columbia. The artillery had good roads and fresh horses, and they could keep any pace the cavalry might set. Caution spoke of a night march, but mercy protested, and mercy prevailed, and for eight hours riders and beasts slept as only the weary and cold could sleep. The day had not broken when the call of the bugles bid the sleepers rise and prepare for another struggle against nature and its adverse forces. There were enemies who were bravely and vigorously marching to thwart their escape from the state, and hem them in on their homeward ride.

When the command ascended a hill on the Columbia Road, heavy cannonading was heard. It was the sounds which were coming from the far-off battlefield of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, ninety miles away, and it fell like a pall upon the minds and hearts of these men far up in the Kentucky mountains. These dull, rumbling tones proclaimed that Bragg and Rosecrans on Stone River were grappling with each other in gigantic conflict.

When at three p. m. the division rode into Columbia, the marchers breathed more freely, as the first danger post was passed. Only a couple of hours was given for rest and food. The Cumberland River, the real line of safety, was thirty miles away. General Morgan, not sure that his foes might not yet intercept him, bade the men get ready for another all night ride. It was still bitter cold, the road to be traveled was rough and broken, but the voice of safety was whispering that over the Cumberland alone could absolute security be found. The leader loved his men. He realized how loyal, brave and patient they had been in the ten days since they had ridden out of Alexandria. It was a hard order to issue, but everything was at stake; he dare not, with all his love for his brave riders, compromise his duty to the Cause he and they loved so well, and for which they were placing their lives in constant jeopardy.

At night, in the darkness and bitter cold, the division rode into Burksville on the Cumberland River. No enemy appeared. The spirits of the men returned. Even the beasts seemed to catch the hopefulness of the hour, and by the night of the 2d of January the Cumberland River was crossed. The raid was ended. The expedition had been successful and the command was safe. The pursuit was not resumed, and so, leisurely marching down through Livingstone, they reached Smithville, Tennessee, on the morning of January 5th. Here they rested for several days to allow the men and horses to build up and to forget the dreadful experiences of the terrific march. They had been absent seventeen days. They had ridden five hundred miles, captured eighteen hundred and seventy-seven prisoners and stores indescribable, and of tremendous value. Twenty-six had been killed and sixty-four were wounded and missing. A few had fallen out of the line of march around Lebanon and been captured, but less than two and a half in every hundred were lacking when, on the south bank of the Cumberland, an inventory was taken and a roll call made. These thirty-nine hundred horsemen had been roughly handled and battered both by their foes and by the fierce elements, but they had borne it all with heroic fortitude and were not only ready but anxious at the earliest moment to try another issue with the enemies of their country.

Chapter XIX
FORREST’S PURSUIT AND CAPTURE OF
STREIGHT, APRIL 28-MAY 3, 1863

The Battle of Murfreesboro closed on January 2d, 1863. The Army of the Cumberland under Rosecrans and the Army of the Tennessee under Bragg made no important moves or advances until late in the spring. Both armies had suffered a tremendous shock and great decimation, and it took them some time to recover from the effects of that frightful conflict.

Among the most enterprising Federal officers in the Army of the Cumberland was Colonel Abel D. Streight. Born in Wheeling, New York, in 1829, he was at this time just thirty-four years of age. He had recruited the 51st Regiment of Indiana Infantry, and his regiment had been a part of the Army of the Cumberland for some months. The story of success of the Confederate raids of Wheeler and Forrest and Morgan and Stuart had kindled the desire among some of the Federals to carry out similar operations.

During the time that Rosecrans and Bragg were waiting to get ready for another great battle, Streight conceived the brilliant plan of moving a cavalry brigade up the Tennessee River by boats to a point near Tuscumbia, Alabama, and there disembarking, march a little south of east to Rome, Georgia, a distance of a hundred and sixty miles. Although an infantryman, he had pondered the marvelous raids of the western cavalry and he longed to imitate the example of the horsemen. He calculated that along the route of his march, both coming and going, he could play havoc, and destroy at will all manufactories and other property which could be, directly or indirectly, used for the maintenance of the war. It required a man of great genius and transcendent courage at that period of the war, who had no more experience than Streight, to organize and carry out such a scheme. He argued if Forrest in Mississippi, Wheeler in Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia, and Morgan in Tennessee and Kentucky, could successfully win out in their raids, he also might hope for equally good fortune. It was as bold if not a bolder feat than any Confederate cavalryman up to this time had undertaken. Streight deserved in this expedition more than fate accorded him. There had been some Federal companies recruited in the northern part of Alabama. Quite a portion of the people in that part of the state were disloyal to the Confederate cause. Frequent invasions of the Federals had developed this spirit of resistance to the authorities of the Confederacy and also promoted enlistments.

Streight had come in contact with these companies of cavalry which had been recruited while refugeeing from Alabama. They would be thoroughly familiar with the route Streight intended to travel. Without the assistance of guides like these, such an expedition would be impossible. He had heard of the disloyalty of these people, and he was sure they would be glad to welcome his coming into their midst, and would in considerable numbers flock to his standard.

In a little while, Colonel Streight, who in sleep or waking pondered his plans, had so far worked out his project that he put it on paper and submitted it to his superior officers. They were delighted with the possibility of such an expedition, capable of doing such tremendous damage to the Confederacy, and his superiors concluded if Streight was willing to risk his life and his reputation, the Federal government could afford to risk a couple of thousand troops, as many mules and a cannon or two. His associates encouraged him in every way possible, commended and applauded him, and told him the government was ready to place at his disposal all the resources necessary to conduct such a campaign.

He was regarded by his superiors as the most daring and enterprising man of the hour, and not a word of caution was sounded in his ears. No echo of possible failure, or faintest warning escaped the lips of those with whom he counseled. If they questioned, naught of their doubts came to him.

In order that Streight’s command might start fresh and be prepared to make a great spurt, his brigade was organized at Nashville and it was proposed to transport it from there on eight or ten large steamers, down the Cumberland River to the Ohio, thence to the mouth of the Tennessee River and up the Tennessee for several hundred miles to Eastport, Mississippi, and from this point to enter upon the real work of the expedition. The fact was emphasized that under this system of transportation, men and horses would start on the campaign absolutely fresh and ready for a headlong rush of ten days. It was calculated that possibly even more time could be consumed in the daring work which had been assigned for this adventurous command. In these days, on both sides men were prepared to take boundless risks. Their hopes and not their fears were their guides. It was decided that Streight might choose his own troops. He selected his own, the 51st Indiana Regiment. He felt that it was reliable. To this he added the 73d Indiana, under Colonel Gilbert Hathaway, hardly less brave and resourceful than Streight, the 3d Ohio and the 80th Illinois, and two companies of Alabama cavalry, with a small battery. They made up a force of two thousand men. Nobody ever seemed to think it was necessary to advise with cavalry officers. Streight wanted to make the raid and he felt that he could accomplish what he had proposed and he consulted only with infantrymen. These officers, who had had no cavalry experience, decided that mules would be more reliable than horses, that they could do better service in the mountainous country through which the expedition would pass, in that they could live on less and were hardier. When they came to this conclusion, they made their great mistake. It was strange that men with the experience and judgment of the Federal officers who were advising Colonel Streight would permit him to start out with untrained animals. At Nashville, they gave him a few hundred mules, some two years old, many unbroken, and a number of them in the throes of distemper. As the expedition was to be one of spoliation, the impressment of horses was to be an essential for success. The troops and such mules as could be spared were placed on steamers and brought down the Cumberland River, to a landing called Palmyra, and there they marched through to Fort Henry on the Tennessee River. This march ought to have been done in a few hours, but it required four days. Streight’s men were sent out in every direction in squads and singly to scour the whole country and impress every mule that could be found. They spared nothing that could walk or which could be saddled, and they took everything of the horse or mule kind that was attainable in the territory through which they forayed. With all this diligence and impressment they were still short of mounts. They had saddles and bridles, but they had no animals on which their equipment could be placed. After re-embarking at Fort Henry, with a convoy of a brigade of marines, and several gunboats, Streight reached East Port, Mississippi, where he put his men ashore and dismissed the boats.

General Granville M. Dodge, in command of the Federals in that locality, had been directed to give Streight every possible assistance. Dodge was twelve miles away from where Streight landed, but the leader of the expedition immediately rode over to where Dodge was. The Federals numbered some seven thousand or eight thousand men. Colonel P. D. Roddy, with a small brigade of Confederate cavalry, intercepted the advance of Dodge’s troops. It was the plan that Dodge should make a feint for a few miles into Alabama. This would protect Streight until he got started on his march, and would also terrorize the Confederates by threats of an invasion by a larger force.

At Eastport, the troubles of Colonel Streight began. Mules when broken are patient workers, but they are very uncertain performers, and when thirteen hundred had been corraled they all set up a loud braying. For a while this puzzled and disturbed the Confederates, but in those days Confederate cavalrymen were very quick-witted and they took in the situation and stole across the picket lines covering Streight’s men and mules, crawling in amongst them, and began hooting and yelling and firing their pistols and guns. This was a new experience for these long-eared military appliances; they immediately stampeded, and at daybreak Streight found four hundred of his best mules gone. This was precious time wasted. He spent thirty-six hours in recovering his lost property, but more than half of the mules never came back. They had been picked up by Roddy’s scouts, who thanked God for this addition to their mounts.

Roddy and Colonel William A. Johnson, with three small Alabama regiments, were plugging away at Dodge’s advance, and so thorough were their efforts that it took practically four days to reach Tuscumbia. Here Streight brought up his own men and mules, and Dodge gave him six hundred mules and some horses, together with ten thousand rations of bread and six wagons. The Federal leader realized the tremendous task that he had undertaken. He looked over all those who were to go with him, and saw to it that the faint-hearted and the physically ailing dropped out of his column.

Colonel Streight, with all his courage, was afraid of one man. That man was General Nathan Bedford Forrest. Dodge told Streight that Forrest had crossed the Tennessee River, and Streight knew well that if this was so, it meant trouble. The most precious hours of Streight’s life were the 24th, 25th and 26th of April. The delays made on those days were his undoing. The Confederates had not yet apprehended the Federal purposes. They knew where Dodge was, and they brought some cavalry down to impede his march, but they did not know that Streight was behind Dodge and that in a few hours, like a meteor, he was to be hurled down into their territory under orders to make a raid of more than one hundred and fifty miles into the very heart of the Confederacy, to destroy there what no money could replace, and which was absolutely vital to the maintenance of the Confederate armies at the front.

It was passing strange that the Federal government, with men wise in so many military ways, and so many West Point men—like Sherman, Halleck and Grant—would permit Streight’s enthusiasm to induce authority to enter upon such an expedition without the most complete preparation. Under the most favorable conditions, the odds were at least even, and the Federal soldiers were certainly entitled, in view of the risk they assumed, to the very best their government could give. Instead, Streight got the worst. He started short of horses and mules, and, although brave, intrepid and ambitious, he could not make a raid without reasonably good mounts. Streight was anxious to go. He felt that if he succeeded, he would become renowned, and forge at once to the front as the greatest of Federal cavalry leaders.

Still lacking animals, it was decided that Streight should move out in front of Dodge’s forces and pounce upon the unsuspecting planters and farmers in contiguous territory. Several hundred of his men were still unmounted. Russellville was the county seat of Franklin County, Alabama—eighteen miles south of Tuscumbia. By swinging down these eighteen miles, it would permit the scouts from his command to penetrate ten miles farther, and impressment was driven to the extremest limits. Some animals escaped, but many were taken. Turning directly east, Streight moved up to Moulton—twenty miles distant. This gave him still more territory for impressment and confiscation, so that when he reached Moulton he had only a few men who had not some sort of a beast to ride. Upon the day following, Streight left Moulton, and on the morning of the 29th of April, Forrest was just sixteen miles away at Courtland. By this time, Forrest had thoroughly divined Streight’s plan. He hurried in behind him and resolved to make escape impossible. Streight had left Moulton in the night, and by the time Forrest reached Moulton his trail was a little cold. Forrest told his soldiers that whatever else got wet, the cartridges were to be kept dry. As he rode out of Courtland, a cold, drizzling rain set in, but there was nothing could dampen the ardor and enthusiasm of the pursuers. They were man-hunting, and that always makes the drive furious. With hard riding, Streight had reached Sand Mountain. He had bravely struggled to get on, but bad roads, bad weather, inferior mounts, and the wagons and artillery held him up. He was not sure that Forrest was behind. He earnestly hoped he was not. Streight rested all night, while Forrest was riding most of the night. He had only twelve hundred men and Streight sixteen hundred. There was never a time when Forrest needed more faith in his men. He had that faith, and he knew that if he could put his followers to the test, they would be found always dependable. Nobody thought about leadership or suggested anything to Forrest. The men who rode with him believed that he knew everything, and all they asked was to be allowed to follow where he led. Forrest, rushing his men all the night of the 29th and the morning of the 30th, came close upon Streight’s command without their knowledge. Both men had started just at the dawn of day, and both were dreadfully in earnest. Streight’s men were already marching up the tortuous road to the crest of Sand Mountain. As the head of the column reached the summit, the bursting of a shell at the bottom and the driving in of the pickets told Streight that the man he feared was at his heels and had already begun to harass and harry. No sooner had the sound of the guns been heard than Streight, with the instincts of a soldier and the courage of a warrior, rushed back to the rear. He wanted to be where the danger was greatest and the conflict keenest. General Dodge had promised Streight to hold Forrest in check; and, if he got away, to pursue and nag him. He failed to keep his pledge.

In the beginning, Forrest underestimated both the courage and resources of his antagonists. Up to this period in his career, he had never struck anything that was so game and so wary as this intrepid brigade of Streight’s. He had not then realized that they were dauntless soldiers—led by a man as brave as the bravest. His first idea that they would become a lot of fugitives who had neither skill nor courage was soon dissipated. Captain William Forrest, brother of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, was in command of the advance guards and scouts. With a valor born of unlimited courage, he rushed up to the fleeing Federals, now climbing the sides of the mountain. He manifested neither fear nor discretion. He had absorbed his brother’s genius for quick and fierce assault. In a little while he ran into an ambuscade skillfully designed by Streight, who had left Colonel Sheets of the 51st Indiana in the rear. A minie ball broke Captain Forrest’s hip, and he fell in the midst of his enemies. Forrest had been accustomed to reckless use of his artillery. It was not often that his enemies disturbed him, but on this occasion he lost two of his pieces, and, right or wrong, he felt that the young lieutenant in charge of these pieces had not exactly measured up to his standard of determination. He requested later that this young officer be assigned to some other command. This brought about an altercation; the young officer attacked Forrest and shot him—as was supposed to be—mortally. Forrest, ferociously pursuing his antagonist, killed him. In death they were reconciled: the patriotic young officer expressing joy that his shot had failed of its purpose, that Forrest was to live and he to die.

Fighting, fleeing, feinting, ambuscading, hammering was now the order of the day. With his military experience and from fragmentary statements of his captives, Forrest knew that Rome was the destination of Streight. He understood what its destruction would mean to his people and to his country, and he resolved first, that Streight should never reach Rome, and second that he should never escape from the Confederate lines into which he had so boldly and fearlessly moved. At and about Rome, the Confederacy had unlimited treasures—there were foundries and manufactories of arms and munitions of war.

To his famous and gallant brother, Forrest gave only one command. He assumed that he and his forty scouts would need no sleep—at least they could have no rest—and so he told his brother to keep right on down the road and get up close to see what the enemy was doing. Streight made the mistake of ever taking any wagons at all. Climbing these narrow mountain roads with these impediments, his speed was greatly hindered. He had not gotten two miles from the top of Sand Mountain when he saw he must fight. Forrest’s order to “shoot at everything blue and keep up the scare” was driving his men with the courage of demons to attack every blue coat, wherever it was found. He had only one thousand men. He advanced them fearlessly and recklessly. Streight’s men fought vigorously and viciously. For a few moments they threw a considerable portion of Forrest’s forces into disorder, and with a gallant and splendid charge, scattered the advance guard of the Confederates. When Forrest was told that his guns were lost, he was beside himself with rage. He had too few men to use horse holders. He directed his men to tie their horses in the forest, and then ordered every soldier to the front. The effect of the loss of his guns upon his men he felt might destroy their morale, and he assembled his entire force and led them in a charge on the Federal rear. While Forrest was making these preparations to retake his guns, Streight’s men were all ready to remount their mules and ride in haste along the Blountsville Road. Streight had heard much of Forrest, and he was pleased with this repulse and the capture of Forrest’s guns. He congratulated himself that he could make a good showing even if he faced Forrest’s veterans.

GENERAL STARNES

Something like fifty of Streight’s men had been killed or wounded, and he left his own lieutenant, Colonel James W. Sheets of the 51st Indiana, mortally wounded on the field. There was no time for burial services, regrets, tears or ceremonies. While Sheets was mortally wounded, Forrest’s brother was desperately wounded. The Indiana colonel was left in the hands of his captors, and his lifeless body was consigned to a coffinless tomb. He died as brave men wish to die—at the front, with his face to his foes.

Forrest had sent two of his regiments by gaps parallel with Day’s Gap, to attempt to head off the Federals. In this, they failed because of the long detours they were compelled to make. Forrest now detached a portion of his command to ride parallel with Streight and west of him, and to be sure that he would not be permitted to retrace his steps toward Dodge’s protecting forces at Tuscumbia. It was well into the day before Forrest and his escort and his two regiments were able to overtake Streight again. He was once more repulsed. They fought and battled with unstinted fury until ten o’clock at night, and then Streight silently stole away. The Federals held their ground with unflinching courage and far into the night, when their only guide was the flash of their guns. Forrest had one horse killed and two others wounded under him in this encounter. A flank movement impressed upon Streight the danger of his position, and he hurried away, leaving his dead and wounded in possession of his foes, and Forrest retook his guns. They had been dismounted, spiked and the carriages destroyed; but he had them, and, though useless, he had regained them from his foes.

Streight had a great helper with him, a man who had not so much experience, but he had as much courage. This was Colonel Gilbert Hathaway, of LaPorte, Indiana. In August, 1862, he had recruited a regiment which was mustered in at South Bend. He and his command had been at Stone River, and there paid very heavy toll. His soldiers were well drilled and seasoned. Colonel Sheets had gone down at the front with the 51st, and since he fell, Streight laid heaviest burden upon Colonel Hathaway. Streight had now behind him a man who knew neither faintness nor fear, and when he rode away, Forrest and his men rode savagely behind him. Two or three hours had elapsed, when the impact in the rear was so fierce that Streight decided to use another ambuscade to stop, if possible, until daylight, the impetuosity of the pursuers.

With the obscurity of the night, Streight had used great skill and genius. Forrest called for volunteers to ride into the Federal lines and develop their fire, so that he might fix the position of his foe. Lots of men volunteered, but three were selected. They rode in knowingly to the death trap that had been arranged with such care and cunning. All three came out of a storm of shot and shell untouched. No sooner had the scouts informed General Forrest of the position of the enemy, than he ordered forward a piece of artillery, filled almost to the mouth with canister. Noiselessly, the artillery was pushed up to the Federal position, and then by the moonlight, the inclination of the gun was fixed so as to reach where Forrest had been told the Federals were. It was three o’clock in the morning, an hour that tries men’s nerves. A second piece of artillery was brought into requisition. This disturbed Streight and his men, and they were called in and hurried on to Blountsville. From Day’s Gap to Blountsville was forty-three miles. It had been a march of fighting and ambuscading, marked on both sides with noblest courage. At Blountsville, there was yet hope for Streight. If he drove due north, he was only thirty miles away from Guntersville, on the Tennessee River. There he might be safe; but Streight had started out to go to Rome, and to Rome he resolved to go at all hazards. Forrest felt that the troops he had despatched from Sand Mountain to head Streight off would meet him, if he veered from the line to Rome. Streight, true to his plans and promises, kept on the road he had mapped out to follow. Forrest had now been riding forty out of forty-eight hours, and for more than a third of the time he had been fighting. Seeing that Streight had now resolved to keep upon the direct course toward Rome, Forrest did the wisest thing that any cavalry officer could do. He concluded to rest his animals, and give his men two hours’ sleep. The horses were unsaddled and fed the last shelled corn that they had packed on their weary backs from Courtland.

Streight gave his men no rest, and at ten o’clock, upon the morning of the first of May, he rode into Blountsville. Strange scenes were enacted in that little town on that May Day. People from the surrounding country had come into the village to enjoy the festivities of such a holiday. They had driven or ridden their best horses and mules. There was food enough in town for Streight’s men to eat and enough fresh animals to assure every man in blue a mount. The pleasures of the picnic were rudely shattered; robbed by hungry Federals of baskets or lunches, they scattered like bird coveys, and from the homes of friends, hidden behind fences, or peering from the bushes with grief, rage and indignation, they witnessed their family steeds unhitched or unsaddled, harnessed with cavalry equipments, forced into the Federal column, and galloped away with the hated soldiers on their back. Girls, with tears raining down their cheeks, saw their pet saddle horses fade into the dim distance. The older men groaned in spirit, and the young men writhed in anguish to realize that the mounts which had long been their chiefest pride were thus ruthlessly taken from their possession. This first of May was the dreariest and saddest that ever came into the lives of Blountsville folk.

Refreshed with food and a momentary rest, the Federal leader realized that all impedimenta must be thrown away; that to escape Forrest, he must march with quicker gait and move with longer strides. Rations and ammunition were counted out to the men. A portion of the contents of the wagons were packed upon mules. He parked his wagons and set them afire. They had hardly begun to burn when the 4th Tennessee Regiment, under Starnes, charged into the village and drove out Streight’s rear guard. Streight had rested two hours, but he had rested the wrong two hours. Forrest’s men were fresh from their two hours’ sleep. Streight’s rear guard was constantly and vigorously pursued and attacked. Federals concealed in the bushes fired into the advancing column. Here and there a man fell wounded, maybe dead, and dying or disabled horses were the markers that were revealing to the pursued and the pursuers the savageness of war, but none of these stayed the men who were harrying the Federal rear guard.

Blountsville was ten miles from the Black Warrior River. The road had become wider and smoother, but Forrest’s pursuit became still more aggressive. Protecting the crossing by heavy lines of skirmishers on each side of the river and pointing his two howitzers westwardly, a spirited resistance was made by Streight, but Forrest’s men, seemingly never tiring, charging again and again, finally broke the line. It was five o’clock in the afternoon of May 1st when the last Federal forded the Black Warrior River. Men sleeping on their horses, here and there dropping from their steeds by either fatigue or sleep, reminded General Forrest that he had about reached the limit of human endurance, that there were some things even his trained riders could not do. Reserving one hundred men for pursuit, he now permitted his soldiers to go into camp for three hours. Scant forage furnished his horses a small ration, but his men preferred sleep to food, and they laid down to profoundest slumber. This gave Streight surcease from battle until nine o’clock next morning, but unwisely he drove his men every moment of the night. He reached Black Creek, four miles from Gadsden, but he reached it with his men fearfully worn and depressed. Forrest, true to his instincts and his knowledge of the powers of human resistance, let every man he could spare from picket duty enjoy a brief undisturbed repose. He calculated that he could release some from aggressive assault and sent one of his regiments to the rear and told them to sleep. Streight had marched during all the night. Forrest had rested three hours, and he was thereby enabled to begin pursuit with increased vigor. Riding at the head of his men, he spurred them on to supremest effort, to reach Black Creek and save the bridge. He hoped to push Streight so hard that he would not find time to wreck or burn the structure spanning that stream.

At Blount’s Farm, ten miles from Gadsden, one of the dismal tragedies of the expedition was enacted. On the first day of May, at 4 p. m., Colonel Streight reached Blount’s Plantation. There were only fifteen miles between him and Gadsden. This plantation furnished abundant forage for his horses. While the horses fed, the soldiers ate; a portion standing attentive in line ready to obstruct the advance of the Confederates. This rear guard was again vigorously attacked by Forrest. In resisting this advance, Colonel Gilbert Hathaway was mortally wounded. Forrest had become wary of ambuscades, and was so cautiously watching for them that Streight declined to waste his time in further preparing them. The rear guard was under the direction of Hathaway. This soldier Streight was now cherishing as his best helper. This Federal hero, leading his men in a charge, fell with his face to the foe, crying out, “If we die, let us die at the front,” and there he went down, covered with the glory and honor which fame always accords to the brave. There was only time for comrades to request a decent burial for the brave Indiana colonel who had died so far away from home, and had been cut down in the full pride of his splendid career. These officers had known different experiences from the Confederates. They had been accustomed, when men of rank were killed, to handsome coffins and the consoling ornaments and trappings which robbed death on the battlefield of some of its terrors. The owner of the plantation was asked to provide a metallic case for the remains of the dead soldier. He mournfully said, “There are no metallic cases in this country.” “Then give him a plain pine coffin,” pleaded the Federal officer, now exposed to and endangered by the fire of the advancing Confederates. “We have no coffins,” replied the man, sadly shaking his head. “Then take some planks and make a box and bury him and mark his grave.” “You have burned all my planks,” replied the man, “and I have nothing with which to make even a box.” “Then,” he pleaded once again, with the bullets whistling around his head and with the Confederates immediately in sight, “wrap his body in an oil cloth and bury him, for God’s sake, where he may be found,”—and this the magnanimous planter agreed to do. He faithfully kept his pledge, and in the Alabama garden he gave sepulture to the gallant soldier. The Federal officer, with his enemies at his heels, and with the Confederate bullets buzzing about his person, waved the dust of his comrade a last sad adieu, and putting spurs to his horse galloped away and left the dead hero with his enemies to make and guard his tomb.

Far down in Walton County in Southwestern Georgia, a plain, hard-working farmer of Scotch-Irish descent, known among his neighbors as Macajah Sansom, lived at a little town called Social Circle. He heard of richer land in Alabama bottoms and decided to migrate. The youngest child in the family was Emma Sansom, born in 1847.

The change was not propitious for the father, and in 1859, seven years after his change of home, he died, leaving a son and two daughters to the care of his widow. In 1861, the lad, Rufus, the oldest of the family, heard the call of his country and went away as a member of the 19th Alabama Infantry, to defend its rights. The little farm was left to the oversight of the mother and her two daughters. War’s ravages had not reached where they lived. The son and protector had been away twenty months, and all this desolate family knew of war was what Rufus had written of his campaigning and the narratives brought back by an occasional furloughed neighbor, or some who in battle had lost a leg or an arm, and returned disabled, bearing in their persons memorials of how terrible was real war.

The father had settled on Black Creek, four miles west of Gadsden, on the highway from Blountsville to Gadsden. On one side of his farm was an uncovered wooden bridge, plain and unsightly, but saved the passers-by from fording the deep, sluggish stream that essayed to halt man and beast on their travels across this new and thinly settled country. The dead father had built a small doubled, one-storied frame house from lumber sawed out of the pine trees that grew in luxuriance on the hills, a short distance back from the Creek. These two girls and their mother had but little of this world’s goods. Some cows, chickens, a few pigs and a horse constituted all their possessions. They loved their country, and they gloried in the courage of the young man who was so faithfully and bravely fighting at the front. Joseph Wheeler was the first colonel of the 19th. This regiment had been at Mobile and later at Shiloh, where two hundred and nineteen of its members had been killed and wounded. It had marched with Bragg into Kentucky and down through Mississippi, and later in the valley of Stone River, at the Battle of Murfreesboro, where one hundred and fifty-one of its members were killed or received wounds. In his simple, guileless, homely way, he had written the awful experiences through which he and the neighbor boys had passed, and the mother and sisters were proud of him and loved him for the dangers through which he had come, and what he had done made them zealous for the cause for which they had sent him away to endure and dare so much. Each mail day—for mails did not come often into this isolated territory—they watched and waited for the letter to tell what the brother was doing at the far-off front. A fifth of the neighbors and friends who made up the Gadsden company were filling soldier’s graves in Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi and Alabama, and these defenseless women were afraid to open the letters that were post-marked from the army lest there should come tidings of the death of the one they so dearly loved.

By the afternoon of May 2d, the pressure of Streight and his men by Forrest was at its fiercest tension. Guided by his two companies of Alabama refugee horsemen, Streight had been told if he could only cross Black Creek and burn the bridge, that he might hope for a few hours’ respite, and if he could not feed his weary men and wearier beasts, he could at least let them sleep enough to restore a part of their wasted energy, and from a few hours’ repose get new strength for the struggles and trials that yet faced them in this perilous campaign upon which they had so courageously come.

The rear guard was the front of the fighting, and there the plucky and indomitable Federal leader was pleading with his soldiers to stand firm and beat off the pitiless onslaught of the relentless Confederates, who seemed devilish in their vehement and impetuous charges. He had chosen men of valor for this work, and they nobly responded to his every call.

Sitting in their cottage, mayhap talking of the soldier brother, there fell upon the ears of these defenseless home-keepers strange sounds: the galloping of horses, the clanging of swords, frequent shots, sharp, quick commands. They wondered what all this clamor could mean, and rushing to the porch, they saw companies of men clad in blue, all riding in hot haste toward the bridge over the creek. They were beating and spurring their brutes, who seemed weary under their human burdens, and in their dumb way resenting the cruel and harsh measures used to drive them to greater and more strenuous effort. The passers-by jeered the women, asked them how they liked the “Yanks,” and told them they had come to thrash the rebels and run Bragg and his men out of the country. They said “Old Forrest” was behind them, but they had licked him once and would do it again.

The well in the yard tempted them to slake their thirst, and dismounting, they crowded about the bucket and pulled from its depths draughts to freshen their bodies and allay the fever that burned in their tired throats. They asked if they had any brothers in the army; and not to be outdone, the women said they had six, and all gone to fight the Yankees. Two cannon went rumbling by. The men on their horses were belaboring them with great hickory wythes, and were driving at a mad pace to get over the wooden bridge. Some of the blue-coated men came in and searched the house for guns, pistols, and opened and pried through the drawers of the wooden bureau, and looked in the closets and presses and under the beds; but they found nothing but a side saddle; and one, more malignant than the others, drew his knife from a sheath dangling by his side, and slashed and cut its skirts into small pieces and threw them upon the floor at the feet of the helpless women.

The line grew thinner. In double and single file some stragglers were all that was left of the men in blue, and then the rear guard came, and over the creek the women saw the cannon on the banks, the horses unhitched, and the little Federal Army dismounted, scattered out among the trees and bushes and standing with guns in their hands, waiting for somebody else to come. They saw the men tear the rail fence down, pile the rails on the bridge, and then one started into the house; and, seizing a piece of blazing coal from the chimney place, ran in haste to the bridge and set fire to the brush and rails, and the flames spring high into the air. They looked down the road and wished that some men in gray would come and drive away these rude soldiers who had disturbed the peace of their home, ungallantly destroying their property, and cutting into fragments their saddle which had come as a gift from the dead father whose grave was out in the woods near the garden gate. As they looked down the road, they saw one single blue-uniformed man riding at highest speed, rushing along the highway as if mad, waving his hands and beating his tired mount with his sword. Just behind him, at full speed, came other men, shooting at the fleeing Federals. In front of the humble home, the single horseman suddenly stopped and threw up his hands, and cried, “I surrender. I surrender.” Then up to his side rode with rapid stride a soldier in gray. He had some stars on his collar and a wreath about them, and he said to the women, “I am a Confederate general. I am trying to capture and kill the Yankee soldiers across the creek yonder.”

Standing on the front porch of the house, these women watched these startling and surprising proceedings. The leader who was pursuing this single soldier in blue sat on his panting steed at the gate. The young girls knew that the gray uniform meant friends, rescue, kindness, chivalry. They walked to the fence and outside the gate touched the bridle of their deliverer’s steed and patted his foam-covered neck, and looked up into the face of the stern soldier, without fear or dread.

MAP SHOWING LINE OF FORREST’S PURSUIT AND CAPTURE OF STREIGHT, AND WISDOM’S RIDE

With tones as tender as those of a woman, the officer who had captured the Federal vidette said, “Do not be alarmed. I am General Forrest, and I will protect you.” Other men in gray came riding in great haste and speedily dismounting left their horses and scattered out into the forest on either side of the road. The youngest girl told the Confederate general that the Yankees were amongst the trees on the other side of the creek, and they would kill him if he went down toward the bridge. She did not realize how little the man in gray feared the shooting. Now the flames from the burning rails and bridge timbers began to hiss and the crackling wood told that the bridge was going into smoke and ashes and no human power could save it from ruin and destruction.

The leader said, “I must get across. I must catch these raiders. Can we ford the creek, or are there any other bridges near?” “There is no bridge you can cross,” the younger girl replied, “but you and your men can get across down there in the woods. If you will saddle me a horse I’ll go and show you where it is: I have seen the cows wade there and I am sure you, too, can cross it.” “Little girl,” the general exclaimed, “there’s no time for saddling horses. Get up behind me”; and, seeing a low bank, he pointed her there. She sprang with the agility of an athlete upon the bank, and then with a quick leap seated herself behind the grim horseman, catching onto his waist with her hands. The soldier pushed his spurs into the flanks of the doubly burdened horse and started in a gallop through the woods, by the father’s grave, along the path indicated by his youthful guide.

The mother cried out in alarm, and with ill-concealed fear bade her child dismount. General Forrest quietly said, “Don’t be alarmed; I’ll take good care of her and bring her safely back. She’s only going to show me the ford where I can cross the creek and catch the Yankees over yonder before they can get to Rome.” There was something in the look of the warrior that stilled fear for her child, and with eager gaze, half-way consenting, she watched them as they galloped across the corn field. They were soon lost to sight in the timbered ravine through which the soldier man and the maiden so firmly seated behind him now passed out of view. Following the branch a short distance, General Forrest found that it entered Black Creek three-fourths of a mile above the bridge. Through the trees and underbrush, as she saw the muddy waters of the stream, she warned her companion that they were where they could be seen by the enemy, and they had better get down from the horse. Without waiting for the assistance of her escort, she unloosed her hold from his waist and sprang to the earth.

EMMA SANSOM

The soldier, throwing his bridle rein over a sapling, followed the child, who was now creeping on her hands and knees along the ground over the leaves and through the thicket. The enemy saw the two forms crouching on the soil and began to fire at the moving figures in the bushes. Fearing that she might be struck, the soldier said, “You can be my guide; but you can’t be my breastwork,” and, rising, he placed himself in front of the heroic child, who was fearlessly helping him in his effort to pursue her country’s foes. Standing up in full view of the Federals, she pointed where he must enter and where emerge from the water. Her mission was ended. The secret of the lost ford was revealed. Streight’s doom was sealed. The child had saved Forrest in his savage ride, ten miles and three hours’ time, and now he felt sure that Rome was safe and that Streight and his men would soon be captives in his hands. As they emerged into an open space, the rain of bullets increased; and the girl, not familiar with the sound of shot and shell, stood out in full view and untying her calico sunbonnet, waved it defiantly at the men in blue across the creek. The firing in an instant ceased. They recognized the child’s heroic defiance. Maybe they recalled the face of a sister or sweetheart away across the Ohio River in Indiana or Ohio. They were brave, gallant men, the fierceness of no battle could remove the chivalrous emotions of manly warriors. Moved with admiration and chivalrous appreciation of courage, they withdrew their guns from their shoulders and broke into hurrahs for the girlish heroine who was as brave as they, and whose heart, like theirs, rose in the tumult of battle higher than any fear.

Forrest turned back toward his horse, which was ravenously eating the leaves and twigs from the bush where he had been tied. The bullets began whistling about the retreating forms. She heard the thuds and zipping of the balls; and, with childish curiosity, asked the big soldier what these sounds meant. “These are bullets, my little girl,” he said, “and you must get in front of me. One might hit you and kill you.” Two or three went tearing through her skirt. General Forrest was greatly alarmed for the safety of his protege. He covered her more closely and placed his own body as a bulwark to defend her from shot or shell. He trembled lest he might be compelled to carry her back dead in his arms to her mother and sister, and he groaned in spirit and thought what could he say to the stricken mother if her child were killed. Death for himself had no terrors. He had faced it too often to experience even a tremor, but the strong, brave man shuddered lest harm should come to the child who had, with so stout a heart, served him and his country. Riding with quickening speed, he galloped back to the house. He tenderly placed his hand upon the red cheeks of the girl, now glorified in his eyes by her wonderful courage. He bowed to the mother and sister. He requested the daring lass for a lock of her hair, and gave orders to instantly engage the foe. He sent aids to direct the artillery to the newly-found ford, and while they were moving with all haste into position, he drew from his pocket a sheet of unruled paper and wrote on it:

Headquarters in Saddle,
May 2d, 1863.

My highest regards to Miss Ema Sansom for her gallant conduct while my forse was skirmishing with the Federals across “Black Creek” near Gadisden, Allabama.

N. B. Forrest,
Brig. Gen. Com’d’g N. Ala.

In half an hour this simple-hearted, untutored country child had won enduring renown. She had risen to the sublimest heights of womanly courage—written her name on fame’s scroll in most brilliant letterings, and taken company with the world’s noblest heroines. The opportunity came her way, she took advantage of all it brought, and reaped a harvest of immortality—the most generous award that fate could bestow.

Emma Sansom married October 29th, 1864, C. B. Johnson, a private in the 10th Alabama Infantry. She, with her husband, moved twelve years later to Calloway County, Texas. Her husband died in 1887, leaving her to care for five girls and two boys. She died in 1890 and sleeps in the Lone Star State.

The Gadsden Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy erected a monument to her memory, which was dedicated in 1906. It rests on a stone base, with a statue of General Forrest with Emma Sansom riding behind. It was built on the banks of the Coosa River in the city park and has carved on the base, these words:

In memory of the Gadsden, Alabama, girl heroine, Emma Sansom, who, when the bridge across Black Creek had been burned by the enemy, mounted behind General Forrest and showed him a ford where his command crossed. He pursued and captured that enemy and saved the city of Rome, Georgia. A grateful people took the girl into their love and admiration, nor will this marble outlast the love and pride that her deed inspired.

The Sansom farm is now the site of Alabama City—a hustling, vigorous cotton town. Gadsden has grown to be a flourishing city, the result of the development of the Alabama iron and cotton trade, and an electric line connects the two places. The Sansom house still remains. The family have been widely scattered. A mill worker rents the old home. The father’s grave, with its stone monument which was erected to his memory, is in a cottage yard nearby; but these sad changes cannot dim the glory of Emma Sansom’s fame, or depreciate the love and admiration of the men and women of the Southland for the patriotic courage of the mountain lass.

Within less than thirty minutes after the time that Forrest had saluted Emma Sansom, his artillery was in place, and the Federals on the east side of Black Creek were driven away. It was short work to cross the stream. The guns, with ropes tied to the tongues, were hauled down to the bank of the stream; the ropes were carried over and hitched to two artillery horses; and, through the rough ford, the cannon were pulled across.

These were covered with water; but that did not hurt the guns. The ammunition was taken out of the caissons, handed to the soldiers who rode across carrying it in their arms, and, when on the other side, it was quickly replaced. No sooner was a portion of the advance guard across than they took up a furious gait, pursuing the Federals into Gadsden.

No time was given for Streight and his men to do damage there. It was now well toward noon of May 2d. Forrest had kept well in touch with the troops which were traveling parallel with Streight. They were not up, but they were in reach. His escort, by wounds, fatigue and death, had been reduced one-half. The brave Tennesseans, under Biffle and Starnes, melted away until there were but five hundred left. Some had fallen in fatigue and sleep from their steeds. Others were wounded and died by the roadside. Streight now realized that there was no escape for him to the west: he must go to Rome. He hoped still to outride his relentless pursuers.

Gadsden, on May 2d, 1863, produced both a heroine and a hero—Emma Sansom and John H. Wisdom.

The Federals reached Gadsden about twelve o’clock, m. They came into the town on the main Blountsville Road, and they came with much haste. The author had passed through the town five months before, when on sick leave. It was an insignificant village and had little to tempt an enemy or to feed a friend. He rode by the Sansom home, stopped for a meal, a drink at the well, talked to the mother and two daughters—little dreaming that the younger would, in less than half a year, spring into a world-wide prominence.

The failure to stay Forrest and his followers at Black Creek had disspirited some of Streight’s officers and men. These had lost something of their buoyancy of march, and dark forebodings loomed up in their minds. They rode as fast as their wearied mounts would allow, the three and a half miles from the Creek to Gadsden. Emma Sansom, by revealing the lost ford—the track the family’s cows so long had used—saved Forrest much of time and ride. Hardly had the men in blue dismounted in Gadsden before, a mile out, they heard the clatter of Enfields and the shouts of conflict. They had long hoped for a brief rest. They were confident Forrest would be delayed at least three hours at Black Creek. They were now to learn that Forrest’s delays were most uncertain quantities.

A small stock of provender for beasts and food for man had been collected from the surrounding country by the Confederate commissaries; but the country was illy provisioned and there was but little to either impress or buy. The vigorous onslaught of the Confederate vanguard soon drove the Federals out of the town and the new-comers promptly extinguished the fires that Streight’s men had kindled.

General Forrest, always well up to the front, rode rapidly into the village. He divined that Streight might push on a detachment towards Rome and mayhap do savage work there before he and Streight might reach the river. He called for volunteers to ride to Rome, cover the sixty miles’ space intervening between Gadsden and Rome, and prepare the people there for the coming raid. The younger men had long since gone to the front. The astute Confederate general was no mean judge of human endurance. Amongst his wearied men and jaded steeds he doubted if there was one who would cover the sixty miles in time to save the town; but to Rome a messenger must go with all speed.

The weight of evidence seems to show that Forrest sent a messenger of his own. There is no account of the route he traveled, and no report ever came back to tell whether he reached Rome. There were men other than Forrest who loved their country and who would nobly respond to its call.

John H. Wisdom, familiarly known in that country as “Deacon Wisdom,” because of his connection with the Baptist Church, owned the ferry across the Coosa River at Gadsden. Here the river runs north and south, and two roads lead to Rome—one on either side of the stream. Streight chose the one on the west. The ferryman had gone out into the country in his buggy early in the morning, and when he returned at three o’clock in the afternoon, he proceeded to hunt for his boat, which had disappeared. He could find no trace of this, and finally, two neighbors shouted across the stream, telling him that the Yankee raiders had come into Gadsden and turned his boat loose and sunk it, and that they were headed for Rome.

The deacon had heard of the large foundries and manufactories at Rome. He had never been there, but he knew their value to his country was beyond count, and in an instant he caught the burden of a great mission. He bade his neighbors tell his wife and children good-bye and to say that he had gone to Rome.

He had read the story of Paul Revere’s Ride. “Now something greater than that,” he said, “is passing my way. Revere rode eighteen miles, I must ride sixty-seven and a half miles, and two-thirds of the distance along roads of which I know nothing. I hear voices speaking. They tell me it is my time now—that fate is beckoning me,” said the bronzed, wiry ferryman. “I must show myself a real man.” With the simple faith of a child of God, he turned his eyes heavenward. He had heard what David has said of Jehovah, and he prayed thus: “Now, God of Israel! Thou Who dost neither slumber nor sleep, in the darkness of the coming night, keep me and help me do this thing for my country and my people.” The humble ferryman in an instant had been transformed into a hero.

He sprang into his buggy, and his horse, hitherto used to kindly and gentle treatment, felt the cruel lash upon his sides, as with relentless fury his master forced him along the rough highway.

Wisdom calculated that it would take twenty hours for Streight to reach Rome. He believed that he could do it in half the time. He knew the road for twenty-two miles. Beyond that he must trust to the signboards, to the stars and to the neighbors. The darkness had no terrors for his brave heart. There were no telegraph wires, no telephones, and horses were the only means of rapid transportation. Upon his steed, and such as he might borrow by the way, he must now rely to save his nation from irreparable ruin. There was no time to feed the beast that had already traveled twenty miles. He led him to the river and let him drink. Moments were too precious for more. The weather was propitious and the panting of the weary animal in the wild dash showed how intent was the master in his purpose to thwart his people’s foes. This steed had probably come from Kentucky, where speed and endurance were part of a horse’s make-up, and now he must demonstrate that blood will tell. Wisdom measured the powers of his animal and exacted from him all that safety and prudence would admit. There were not many houses on the wayside, but wherever the hurrying messenger saw a man or a woman or a child, he cried out—“The Yankees are coming, and they are on the way to Rome!” Some were incredulous. Many took his warning words to heart and hid their horses and mules in the forest and buried their treasures in the earth. The messenger had no time for roadside talk. He felt that he was on the King’s business and must tarry not by the way. His answer to inquiries was a wave of his hand, then lashing his reeking steed, and, madman-like, hurrying on.

(Upper) EMMA SANSOM MONUMENT, GADSDEN, ALA. AND (Lower) SANSOM HOME

By five forty-five he had covered just one-third of the distance. He had made twenty-two and one-half miles. The detours he felt impelled by safety to make had increased the distance. He had gone about ten miles an hour. If he could find two horses as good as his own, he could reach Rome before dawn. He looked at the sun and wished that, like Joshua of old, he might bid it stand still.

At the little village of Gnatville, he endeavored to secure a change of steeds. The best he could find was a lame pony belonging to the widow Hanks. He unhitched his weary, foam-covered, panting horse and led him into the stable. The buggy spindles were burning hot and it must be abandoned. He must now ride if he would save Rome. Borrowing a saddle and mounting the lame pony, he listened to the many appeals from the widowed owner to go slow. He then started toward Cave Spring. When out of sight of the pony’s mistress, he stirred him to greater effort. Night was now coming on, and the way was exceedingly lonely. He watched every crossroad, and now and then a fear passed his mind that he might miss the way. In these days, in Northern Alabama, there were few who traveled by the stars. Five miles of vigorous riding and whipping brought the horseman with his limping mount to Goshen, a little past sundown. Here he found a farmer and his son returning from their daily toil with two plough horses. The deacon pleaded with him for a horse, and the father finally saddled the two and told the messenger he could ride one, but his boy would go with him and bring them back. Darkness now overshadowed the way. The boy looked upon the forced ride with distrust and counseled a slower gait, but the more the lad protested, the fiercer Deacon Wisdom rode. In the stillness and silence of the night, they dashed along in a swift gallop for eleven miles. The riders exchanged but few words. The jolting of the fierce gait allowed no waste of breath. Here the messenger bargained with Preacher Weems for a fresh horse. If he was to ride nine and one-third miles an hour, no animal that could be picked up by the way would last very long. The boy returned with the led horse, but he had an idea that his companion of the long ride was an escaped lunatic.

Wisdom cared little for what those he passed thought of him. He had a message and a vision. All else was now shut out of his mind. He rode on to John Baker’s—eleven miles further—and here he got another mount. No sooner was the messenger out of sight of the owner of the horse than he rushed into a swifter gait, and going down hill at a gallop, the horse stumbled and Wisdom was thrown violently over his head, landing in the middle of the road. He lay for a few moments unconscious, while the beast stood near, munching the bushes in the fence corner. Thought came back, and, half dazed, he pleaded with God to let him continue his journey. The thought that he might now fail burdened his soul with profound grief. He rubbed his limbs, pressed his temples, relaxed his hands, reached down and drew up his feet. In a few minutes complete consciousness and motion returned. Crawling, he reached the horse, and with his hand on the stirrup, he pulled himself half way up and finally after much effort he managed to get into the saddle again. Once again mounted, he held the reins with firmer grip, but still relentlessly drove his steed.

Twelve miles more brought him within six miles of Rome. It was now half past eleven o’clock at night. He told his errand and asked for another horse. The farmer gladly granted his request, and whipping into a gallop, Wisdom soon saw the lights of Rome. He anxiously peered through the darkness to see if the great wooden bridge over the Oostenaula was still standing. He could distinguish no flames or beacon lights of destruction along Streight’s pathway, and he knew then that he was the first to Rome. A great joy welled up in his heart. He had not spared himself, and he had saved his country.

He had started late, but he started fresh. He had, as Forrest would say, “gotten the bulge on the blue coats,” and had beaten them in the game of war.

From three-thirty in the afternoon until twelve o’clock was eight and one-half hours. He calculated that he had lost, in changing horses and by his fall in the road, an hour and thirty minutes. That gave him seven hours’ actual driving and riding time. He had made an average of over nine and a third miles in every hour he had been in the buggy and in the saddle. He had been faithful to his country’s call.

There were no citizens to receive him. He trotted through the deserted streets of Rome to the leading hotel, kept by G. S. Black, and in impetuous, fiery tones made known the cause and reason of his coming. He pleaded with the landlord that there was no time for delay, that everybody must awake and get busy and drive back the Yankees. The inn-keeper told him to ride up and down the streets and tell the startling news. It was a strange sight and strange sound as this weary horseman shouted in the highways of Rome, “The Yankees are coming! The Yankee raiders are coming to burn up the town.” Some believed, some doubted, but still the tired man cried out and with shrill calls he yelled, “Wake up! Wake up! The Yankees are coming!” Rome was not as big then as it is now. Half dressed, scurrying hither and thither, old men and boys came rushing out on the sidewalk to inquire the details of the startling story of the Federal invaders. The women and children, slower of movement, soon joined the excited throngs, and with speechless wonderment hung with breathless interest upon every word that fell from Deacon Wisdom’s lips. The court house and church bells rung out with dismal warnings. These sounds terrified even brave hearts, but to the mothers and their clinging offspring, they appeared as omens of woe and disaster. Rome was stirred as never before, and for the moment there was dismay and direful dread.

There were some in this appalling hour who knew what to do. One-armed and one-legged soldiers and convalescents were there, and in a moment they became the recognized leaders. Squirrel rifles, shotguns and old muskets—such as were left—were pressed into use and a little railroad from Rome to Kingston made rapid trips, bringing in all who were willing to help defend the town.

A little way out from Rome was the bridge across the Oostenaula River. It was the only gateway from the west into the city. Negro teamsters were awakened, horses and mules were harnessed and hitched to wagons, the warehouses were broken open and everybody began to haul out cotton bales and pile them along the highway by which Streight must ride to reach the bridge or the town. The sides of the bridge were filled with straw, and great stacks were piled on the roof. The straw was saturated with turpentine, so that when the test moment came, if the soldiers could not beat back the assailants, a flaming bridge would bar the way of the blue-coated invaders into the city. At least, it would stay their coming until the implacable Forrest, in their rear, might reach the scene of action.

Captain Russell, the Federal vanguard leader, had ridden as hard as he could ride with his weary men and his tired steeds. A little after sun-up, he approached the stream west of Rome, and when he looked he saw cotton breastworks and soldiers with guns behind them. On the hill outside the town he met an old negro woman and inquired if there were any soldiers in Rome, and she answered, “Yes, Massa, de town am full of sogers,” and then he knew that he had lost and that the day ride and the long night ride, with all their suffering, had been without avail; that, though he had done all that he and his followers could do, fate had decreed that Rome should be saved. The defenders began to exchange shots with the invaders. The men at the bridge fired the cannon. The Federals answered with their carbines, but the casualties were few. Russell, with his two hundred followers, had done all men could do. They had come as fast as they could march; they had acquitted themselves as intrepid heroes; but John H. Wisdom, the brave, hardy Baptist deacon, in the language of Forrest, had “gotten there first,” had beat them to the town and told them of their coming. Fate had decreed that Streight must fail, and Russell, with a heart full of sorrow and disappointment, faced about and rode back to meet his chief. While Russell looked over the river at Rome, Streight was fighting at the Black Creek Bridge. The people of Rome presented Deacon Wisdom with a silver service, still preserved by his descendants as a priceless treasure, and they sent to widow Hanks, the owner of the lame pony, a purse of $400.

Darkness, Streight’s best friend, began to hover over his weary and depleted brigade. He had directed Russell to ride over all barriers and to let nothing deflect him on the road to Rome. If he failed, he hoped Russell would succeed. Russell, through the long, long hours of the night, faithful to his orders, rode and rode and rode. After six hours of tireless effort, Russell reached the Chatooga River. He found a small ferryboat and managed to get his men over; but he forgot a most important thing. He failed to leave a guard to protect the little craft so that his comrades could find some means of crossing when they arrived. The citizens calculated the value of the craft and poling it down the stream, hid it where Streight’s men, in the dark, would never discover its whereabouts.

Streight rode all night and struck the Chatooga River where Russell had crossed some hours before. He realized that he must go higher to get over. He found a bridge above; but it cost him a weary, dreary night’s march. Several times his detachments lost each other, and it was not until daylight in the morning of the 3d of May that he got his last man across the river. He burned the bridge. He made no halts. He had marched twenty-eight miles from Gadsden under appalling difficulties. Most men would have stopped and either surrendered or died in the last ditch; but Streight had started to Rome, and to Rome he was bound to go. In this last effort, he reached Lawrence. A little way off, near the Georgia line, he ordered his men to halt; but there was no use for an order to halt. Nature, the greatest of captains, issued its command; and, while their ears were open, they heard and heeded no voices, but sank down on the ground—unconscious and powerless in sleep.

Streight had found some provender: his horses were as weary as his men. Still brave and hopeful, with a few of his iron-hearted and almost iron-bodied officers, he rode through the camp, picking out here and there a man, who with a stronger physique than his comrades had stood the pressure of the tremendous ride and incessant fighting. These he directed to feed the horses of their less vigorous companions. A little while before going into camp, Streight passed another ordeal. A squad of his returning soldiers told him the story of Captain Russell’s failure. There were no foes in front of Russell. Streight was between him and the pursuers. He had hoped great things from this vanguard, and when he learned that Russell had turned back, even his brave soul began to question whether, after all he had dared and suffered, he must at last fail.

The scouts told him that Russell had seen Rome, but as an ancient negro said, “Dat Rome is plum full of sogers and dem big guns is a p’intin’ down all de roads.”

Russell had lost out, and his mission, upon which he had gone with high hopes and bright expectations, had failed, and with a heart burdened with disappointment and chagrin, Streight’s messenger had turned his face back to the west.

He understood how Russell might have ridden through to East Tennessee, or marched north to the Tennessee River, but Streight was glad he had not deserted his commander and had come back to face with courage any disaster or ruin that the end might bring.

No thought of yielding came into Streight’s mind. If he had chosen to map out the future, rather than surrender, he would have preferred death on the field amid the carnage and storm of conflict. No call of patriotism, no appeal of duty, no echo of glory could reach the ears of his men, now dull with sleep, or bodies overwhelmed with weariness. In the midst of these sad and harassing surroundings, with two-thirds of his command asleep on the ground, his persistent enemies again appeared on the scene. They looked to him to be tireless, vindictive, and with a strength more than human. Streight, still game, fearless, called upon his men to respond to the rifle shots which came whizzing from the guns of the Confederate advance. No order or pleading could move the men, now unconscious with sleep. With a touch of mercy in this supreme hour, when they were put into the line of battle, they had been told to lie down with their faces to the foe. When the foe came, they were reposing prone upon the earth, with their guns in their hands, cocked; but the motionless fingers had no will power behind them to pull the triggers; and thus, ready for battle; ready, if awake, to die—but unconscious and silent, they lay immovable and helpless. Streight walked through the ranks of his once valiant soldiers; and, pleading with tears in his eyes, begged them once more to rise and defend themselves from the foe—men, who, like mad devils, had relentlessly pursued them for one hundred and twenty hours.

JOHN H. WISDOM AND THE BLACK CREEK BRIDGE

In the midst of this direful extremity, Forrest appeared at the head of his vanguard a few hundred feet away. He was surprised that only a few shots were fired by the enemy, and that of those he was fighting and pursuing, there rose up only here and there an isolated form. He sent forward a flag of truce, demanding surrender. This Streight refused; but consented to imparl with the Confederate chieftain. These two brave men met between their lines. Forrest told Streight he had him surrounded, and that therefore resistance was useless; that it could only result in loss of life, and that, in view of the experiences of the past few days, it might be that no prisoners would be taken. Streight inquired how many men he had with him, to which Forrest replied, “More than enough to whip you, and I have more coming.” Fortunately, Forrest’s artillery appeared upon the scene. They came slowly, lashing and slashing the exhausted beasts as they dragged the heavy guns through the sand. Streight requested that they should not come nearer; but out in the road they made the appearance of more guns than Forrest really had. Streight, disturbed and still defiant, but not despairing, rode back and called a council of war. In saddened tones, rendered even sadder by fatigue and exhaustion, his officers advised surrender. They were as brave as Streight, but they had less to lose. They took a more rational view of the desperateness of the surroundings, and without a dissenting voice advised a capitulation. Fearlessly and dauntless of spirit, Streight still urged a last conflict. He pled with them for one more fight, telling them that Forrest’s men were as tired as they were and they ought not to yield with fourteen hundred soldiers in line; but the burdens of wearied nature depressed their brave spirits and they said, “We had better yield.”

With a calmness and courage born of a spirit that knew not fear and with grief depicted on every lineament, if not with tears streaming down his cheek, he told his comrades that he yielded to their judgment; but he would never vote to give up the fight. Forrest was glad enough to get the surrender. He granted most honorable terms, retention of side arms and personal property. The sleepers were awakened and marched out into an open field and stacked their guns, and Forrest’s weary, tired men, marched between them and their only hope. Disarmed, there was nothing to do but accept the sad fortune of a defeat. Defeat it was; but these men were glorious even in defeat. Streight had only one request to make—that his men might give three cheers for the Union, and this was done with lusty shouts and enthusiasm in the Alabama forest. These brave men, valiant and loyal even in defeat, flung into the faces of their triumphant foes hurrahs for their cause and their country.

Streight says, “Nature was exhausted. A large portion of my best troops actually went to sleep while lying in the line of battle under a heavy skirmish fire.”

Confederates and Federals were marched into Rome. To the Confederates, it was the greatest triumphal march of the western war. Brave men pitied the misfortune of the Federal raiders. They deserved, though they had not achieved, success.

War’s wrecks were yet to be collected: there were Federal and Confederate wounded along the line of this remarkable march who were witnesses to war’s savageness. The surgeons had hastily dressed wounds and amputated limbs; but somebody must now go back and gather up and care for these ghastly evidences of the horribleness of battle; and, with these, ended one of the most remarkable of all the experiences in cavalry service on either side from 1861 to 1865.

Streight was carried to Richmond and confined in Libby prison, and with one hundred other officers escaped through a tunnel in February, 1864. Hid by friends for a week, he finally reached the Federal lines; and, undaunted, returned to his regiment. He was offered command of Chattanooga; but, still brave and active, he declined the post and asked to be assigned to active service in the field. He was yet to see more of war. He was at Dalton when it was besieged by Wheeler. He was at the Battle of Nashville in the winter of 1864, and commanded a brigade in that memorable conflict. He was mustered out of the service in 1865, returned to Indianapolis, Indiana, and opened a furniture manufactory, and afterwards developed a wholesale lumber business. A man of such tremendous energy and physical endurance was bound to be successful. Elected State Senator from Marion County, of which Indianapolis is the county seat, he introduced a bill for the erection of the magnificent capitol since constructed at Indianapolis. In 1880 he was candidate for governor; but was defeated by Albert G. Porter. He died at his home near Indianapolis in 1892, in the 63d year of his age. He was never fully appreciated by his countrymen; and, when the story of his raid shall be fully and fairly told, he will take a high rank among Federal heroes.

General Joseph E. Johnson once said of Forrest that if he had received a military education, he would have been the greatest figure of the war. General Sherman declared Forrest was the greatest cavalry genius in the world’s history. It was his judgment that if Forrest had been educated at West Point, it would have spoiled him; that he was greater as an untutored military genius than if he had received the benefits of the most thorough martial education.

North and South, the story of Streight’s pursuit filled the people with wonder. In the South, to wonder was added an admiration which became almost idolatry. The men and women of the Confederacy might well adore this marvelous soldier. They placed him on the highest pedestal. He was so great and so brave that they saw none of the defects of his character, and nothing could make them believe but that he was all that was good and true and patriotic and grand. They looked upon him as a fierce, intrepid, determined, successful cavalry soldier, who was ever courageous of heart, in whose bosom fear never found place, and before whom difficulties melted away whenever the touch of his transcendent power passed their way.

---

Harper Brothers, the publishers of Dr. John A. Wyeth’s “Life of General Forrest,” kindly granted permission for copying several illustrations from that splendid work.

Chapter XX
BATTLE OF FLEETWOOD HILL,
JUNE 9th, 1863

The Battle of Chancellorsville was fought on the 3d of May, 1863. It stands in military history as one of the remarkable battles of the world. It was a great victory in one sense for the Confederate Army, but on that fatal field died Stonewall Jackson, one of the wonderful soldiers of the ages.

Amidst the gloom of an unsuccessful campaign, and when defeat was apparently impending about his hosts, a brave European general gathered around him his several commanders and asked of them a detailed enumeration of the forces that could be depended upon in the approaching conflict. Conscious of the inferiority of numbers, the reports were made, with countenances and words showing the profound fear of misfortune on the coming day. Distressed by this despondence, the unterrified leader rose and striking the table with his hands, vehemently cried out: “How many do you count me?” Instantly the scene changed. His courage restored the waning valor of his followers. In all battles the Confederate soldiers in Northern Virginia, who came in contact with General Jackson, counted him alone a mighty host.

In May and June, 1863, hope was still radiant in the hearts and minds of the defenders of Southern independence. The superb defense of Vicksburg, as well as Port Hudson, indicated that the possession of the Mississippi was yet a debatable proposition, and that the division of the Confederacy by the capture of that mighty stream would be long delayed. The crushing of Hooker at Chancellorsville demonstrated that none of the efficiency and power of the Army of Northern Virginia was gone. Beyond the Mississippi, the position of the army there made it certain that many months would come and go before the Union forces would be able to get very far south of the Arkansas River.

Soldiers as brave and self-reliant as the men of the Army of Northern Virginia had grounds of hope that ordinary soldiers could not feel. They were made of the best metal and fashioned in the finest mold, and thus could hope when others might despair.

The first sting of the death of Stonewall Jackson had abated. General Stuart had won honor when Jackson had fallen, and there were many, many great soldiers in this army of Northern Virginia who felt the uplift of faith in God, and these could but believe that in the end, some way, another leader would be developed to help General Lee in the future, and be to him what Jackson had been in the earlier campaigns of that loved commander.

The Battle of Fleetwood Hill, sometimes called “Brandy Station,” was almost entirely a cavalry contest. It was fought on the 9th of June, 1863. Some of the most important as well as desperate scenes of the battle were on what was known as “Fleetwood Hill.” This was the center of a once beautiful estate. War had despoiled some of its grandeur, but even in its ruin it was magnificent. The storm of conflict raged from dawn to late in the afternoon, with unabating fury. Men on both sides seemed immune to fatigue or fear, and for fourteen hours, as if endued with supernatural energy and power, struggled amidst dust, smoke, starvation and wounds and death with unflagging fury, in the maddening work of ruin and destruction. This hill was adorned by a colonial mansion. The ground about it rose with gradual ascent until it reached the top of the eminence, from which point there fell upon the gaze of the beholder one of the most beautiful views in Virginia. This country had hitherto been rendered famous by some of the greatest of military achievements known to men. Later it would add new titles to historic greatness with the names of Second Manassas, Spottsylvania and Cold Harbor, but on this day it was to crown the cavalry of both the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac with a glow that would never dim.

Culpepper Court House was the county seat of Culpepper County, and within the limits of this county was situated Fleetwood Hill. It was fifty miles from Washington, and Brandy Station was five miles south of the north fork of the Rappahannock River. From Kelley’s Ford on the Rappahannock River to Brandy Station was five and a half miles; from Kelley’s Ford to Stevensburg was seven miles; from Brandy Station to St. James Church was one mile and a half; and from Brandy Station to Beverly’s Ford on the Rappahannock River was four miles. From Fleetwood Hill to St. James Church was one mile, and from Kelley’s Ford to Beverly’s Ford, three miles.