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.