Confederate wizards of the saddle /

by Bennett H. Young

Forrest and Wheeler and their subordinates had done all that men could do. They had pushed their columns to the limits of endurance. Their presence now became necessary to protect the flanks of General Johnston’s army and stand off Federal raids. They were too busy at home to justify attacks upon the enemy’s rear.

In the first few days of May, General Sherman began to feel his way towards the Confederate position. The Army of the Tennessee had wintered at Dalton, a place that General Johnston could not see was of any strategic importance, but its surrender would mean another disappointment of the national hopes, and a further impairment of confidence in the Confederate forces to resist the apparently relentless destiny that was pursuing the decimated legions that had so long and fearlessly challenged a further advance into a state, the possession of which was vital to the nation’s life.

Among the forces composing the cavalry of General Johnston’s army was Grigsby’s Brigade, composed of the 9th Kentucky, led by Colonel W. C. P. Breckinridge, and Dortch’s and Kirkpatrick’s battalions. These soldiers were among the best that Kentucky furnished. They were largely young men from the Bluegrass, few of them exceeding twenty-five years in age. They had come out of Kentucky in July, 1862, and October, 1862; had now received more than a year’s seasoning, and were by their military experiences fitted for the hardest and fiercest conflicts. They had left Kentucky well mounted. Grigsby had been on the Ohio raid and escaped the catastrophe which met General Morgan’s command in July, 1863, at Buffington Island. A portion of his regiment and a part of the 10th Kentucky Cavalry alone came back from that fatal ride. The 9th Kentucky, under Colonel Breckinridge, had not gone upon the Ohio raid. Grigsby was one of the best of the Kentucky cavalry colonels. He was born in Virginia, September 11th, 1818. He was just forty-four years old when he entered the Confederate service; brave, determined, fearless, enterprising, he established a splendid reputation, and when the Army of the Tennessee was before Chattanooga, he was given command of a brigade by General Wheeler, including the 1st, 2nd and 9th Kentucky Cavalry and later Dortch’s and Kirkpatrick’s battalions. In the retreat from Missionary Ridge, General Bragg designated Grigsby and his Kentuckians to cover the rear, and they did it with preeminent valor and intrepidity.

Later on, General Wheeler became so much attached to General Grigsby that he made him chief of staff; and in Tennessee, Georgia and the Carolinas, during the darkest and closing scenes of the nation’s struggle, he won superb commendation and became one of General Wheeler’s most trusted and vigilant lieutenants.

The 9th Kentucky Cavalry was essentially a central Kentucky product. It was recruited partly during General Morgan’s raid of 1862, in Kentucky, and was completed during Bragg’s occupancy of the state, in the summer and fall of 1862. It was commanded by Colonel W. C. P. Breckinridge who, when a mere lad at college, won a reputation as one of the most eloquent of the young men Kentucky had ever known.

He had been practicing law four years when the war began. In July, 1862, he recruited a company that became part of the 2nd Kentucky Cavalry, under General John H. Morgan.

When the Confederates returned to Kentucky, under Bragg, Captain Breckinridge was enabled to recruit a battalion, and this was subsequently consolidated with Robert G. Stoner’s battalion and became the 9th Kentucky Cavalry Regiment, of which Breckinridge became colonel.

By December, 1862, he was in command of a brigade in General Morgan’s famous Kentucky raid, which covered the Christmas of 1862 and New Year of 1863. Saved from the wreck of the Ohio raid, his regiment was part of the brigade commanded by Colonel Grigsby in Kelly’s Division of Wheeler’s Cavalry Corps.

The Kentucky brigade was engaged in many brilliant operations in Tennessee and Georgia. Part of it rode with Wheeler in his raid through Tennessee, in Sherman’s rear. General Wheeler, in his reports, was generous in the praise of the distinguished young colonel, afterwards known as the “Silver-Tongued Orator of Kentucky,” and representative of the Henry Clay district for a number of years in the United States Congress.

Two of the services rendered by the Kentucky brigade are to be sketched in this book. First, the brilliant fight at Dug Creek Gap, at the opening of the Atlanta campaign, and, second, its work in capturing General Stoneman, some weeks later.