Confederate wizards of the saddle /

by Bennett H. Young

Stoneman could ride faster than Iverson. He bade him do with Stoneman what he would do with McCook. Iverson had some Georgians and Kentuckians, all told, thirteen hundred men, but they were veterans. Many of these had been long trained in General Wheeler’s school and some of them in Forrest’s, and that meant that wherever they met an enemy there would be real, sure enough fighting. When Stoneman reached Macon he was surprised to find such intense opposition. He had expected to ride into the city with little ado, but when he saw the organized troops and temporary fortifications, and guns behind them, and men behind these, he appears to have lost his nerve. Between Stoneman and his subordinates there was not that sympathy and confidence that such an occasion as this demanded. Had Stoneman pushed on to Andersonville, he could have done the Confederacy tremendous and irreparable damage, but he hesitated and lost. He then realized that he had made a great mistake to ride away without McCook or Garrard. He had hoped and trusted that one or the other would follow him, and with forty-five hundred men, before the gates of Macon, there would have been little question of its capture. He understood now that his ambition had led him to disregard the plainest dictates of military prudence, and instead of going on and swinging around Macon to Andersonville, and then into Alabama, if necessary, on which line he could always keep ahead of the Confederates who were pursuing him, he resolved to retrace his steps and go back from whence he had come. The coming had been easy, but the going back was to be a far different and more difficult job. Iverson’s men, although handicapped by the bad condition of their horses, had been enabled, during the time Stoneman had lost around Macon, to come up with a strong vanguard. General Iverson was experienced, brave, vigorous and enterprising. He had not hitherto had the opportunities and confidence that a separate command gives, but he realized his responsibilities now, and he knew that continuous and savage attack was the only method with which he could win. He had kept himself well in touch with Stoneman’s movements. The people along the line were friendly to him, and there was no difficulty in his learning where Stoneman was and what Stoneman had.

When Stoneman turned about, he had only gone a few miles when he found the gray-coated men athwart his path. He had lost his head. He was brave, but he was not his greatest in disaster, which is a most important qualification in a cavalry general. He assaulted Iverson’s forces with moderate vigor. He found them unyielding. They met assault with assault. They returned shot for shot. They had artillery, and they knew how to use it, and General Stoneman quickly realized that he was now to have the fight of his life, and not only the fight of his life, but a fight for life.

Through the morning of September 1st, the battle was kept up, but in the afternoon the Confederates became more aggressive, and they assaulted Stoneman’s left flank, and drove it in, and from that moment Stoneman’s troops seemed to have parted with their courage and their faith of ultimate victory.

Colonel Silas Adams, with a brigade, went one direction; and Colonel Capron, with another brigade, went another, both riding hard and striving furiously to get away from their pursuers. Stoneman gathered a portion of his advisers around him and communicated to them his judgment. They unanimously agreed that he had lost. He made a heroic but very foolish resolve to fight with six hundred men, long enough to enable Adams and Capron to get the start of Iverson’s troops, and through this to make their escape.

It would have been more soldier-like to have let Capron or Adams fight in the last ditch while the leader rode away. It looked and sounded heroic for the commander to make such a sacrifice, but Federal generals like Pleasanton, Sheridan, Wilson or Buford, nor Confederate, like Forrest, Wheeler, Shelby, Morgan, Marmaduke, Stuart or Hampton, would never have entertained such a proposition. They would have kept all their forces together and fought it out in the last ditch. When the Confederates cut Stoneman’s command into two parts, they had won the victory, and turned his forces into scattered bands, whose chiefest aim was personal safety and escape.

Separated from Stoneman, Adams and Capron began a rapid retreat. They rode as fast as their horses could carry them, and only fought when there was no escape from battle.

It did not take long to arrange the details of General Stoneman’s surrender. He made it with tears in his eyes, and he was oppressed and humiliated at this sad and untoward ending of a campaign, which at its commencement opened to him vistas of glory and renown. It required but a brief while to conclude negotiations for Stoneman’s capitulation, and the ink was not dry upon the paper which set forth the terms, until General Iverson, with his powers quickened and the hopes of his men enhanced by the surrender of Stoneman, started Breckinridge and his Kentuckians in pursuit of the fleeing Federals, who, every moment, became less capable of resistance or battle. He marched his prisoners to Macon under escort. These had expected to enter the city as conqueror; instead, they came as dejected captives. Their dreams of glory turned into fixed visions of failure and despair.

Adams and Capron, in order to avoid those behind them, swung to the right, leaving the track which they had traveled from fifteen to twenty-five miles west of them, and through Eatonton and Madison and Athens they hurried with all possible haste to find safety. These raiders returned far more quickly than they had come. By their detours they increased the distance, but they increased their speed. Their tired horses were exchanged for the mules or horses of the people of Georgia, along the path, and they rode with exceeding haste. Familiar with the country and spurred to highest effort, with a desire to punish these invaders, Breckinridge, with the Kentucky brigade, rode hard after the fleeing Federals. A brief sleep here and there, and with cat naps on their horses, they pushed on with almost boundless energy, and the rearguard of the fleeing Federals, neither night nor day, was free from the assaults of the ragged Kentucky riders.

The bravest men, under such circumstances, become more or less demoralized. These Federal soldiers felt the depressing effect of the rout and defeat of Stoneman, and they dropped out, sometimes in companies and sometimes in squads, forgetting that their only safety lay in keeping together and presenting a bold and defiant rear to the advancing pursuers. So rapid was the march and so fierce the pursuit that the horses of the Confederates, even with the swapping they were able to do along the road for fresher mounts, either mules or horses, made their progress comparatively slow and tedious.

Adams made a shorter run and escaped with half his command. Capron veered more to the east. They united south of Athens. On the 31st day of August they rode with fiercest energy. Their tired steeds were spurred and belabored to the limits of mercy. The object was to get a few hours and some miles between them and the men who were following, so that they could lie down and take part of a night’s rest, preparatory to their final spurt into Sherman’s lines. At a little place called “Jug Tavern,” fifteen miles out from Athens, they felt that their labors had been rewarded, and they had enough space between them and their pursuers to enable them to make it safe to enjoy brief repose.