CHAPTER VI.
General Wheeler’s Capture of the Commands of Generals McCook and Stoneman.
On the 27th of July, 1864, General Hood ordered Wheeler’s cavalry to the rear of Atlanta with a view of beating off a Federal raid commanded by Generals McCook and Stoneman, having for its purpose the breaking up of Southern communications, releasing the large army of Federal prisoners at Andersonville, destroying manufactories, etc. Before leaving Atlanta General Wheeler divided his cavalry of about five thousand into two columns, Generals Dibrell and Iverson going to the left after General Stoneman, and assuming in person the command of the column to the right sent after General McCook. Wheeler came up with McCook at Jonesboro, thirty miles below Atlanta, where his troops were engaged in destroying the railroad tracks. The Confederates at once charged them. After a short but spirited fight, they drove them off with some loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners. McCook retreated toward Newnan, Ga. He was hotly pursued all night long. At a bridge, just at daylight, we came up with a large picket of the enemy. We at once charged them and drove them off. The entire command hastened over the bridge and in a little while came up with the enemy. A battle ensued in which there was a considerable loss on both sides.
After a little while the enemy resumed their retreat toward Newnan, hotly pursued by the Confederates. We here discovered that they had been looting and burning our wagon trains, which we had not seen since we left Dalton, and which had been sent south three months before. McCook, on approaching Newnan, had been fired upon by a militia command stationed at the depot, which caused him to turn to the left and take position in a hilly and wooded locality near the town, awaiting the coming of the Confederates. The Confederates arrived in a little while, though in a somewhat disordered and straggling way, after two days and a night of hard and strenuous riding and fighting. As they came up, without general orders they went into the battle where the fight was raging hottest. The battle, I suppose, lasted two hours. At one time the enemy captured the line of dismounted horses of the Fourth Tennessee Regiment, when the Regiment wheeled about and recaptured them, killing, wounding, and taking prisoners. The Regiment lost quite a number here. Among the killed was James Turner, orderly sergeant of Company A. J. A. Stewart lost his right arm. Both were good soldiers and most excellent gentlemen. Fighting took place in several places on the field. A white flag was displayed, and General McCook and about fifteen hundred of his men surrendered with a battery of artillery; also about three hundred of our soldiers who were with the train were recaptured, among them being a soldier wearing the military coat of Capt. W. W. Thompson (the only brother of my wife), of the Fourteenth Tennessee Infantry, who was killed at Chancellorsville, Va. I had it in a box in our wagons that had been destroyed by the enemy, and the soldier had put it on with a view of saving it for me, which I greatly appreciated, for I was anxious to return it to his father and mother. Besides the fifteen hundred taken as prisoners, some five hundred of General McCook’s men escaped during the parley. They were pursued to the river, which they crossed after abandoning most of their horses. Some of the men threw away their arms and accouterments to lighten their bodies, it was supposed, for swimming the river. As we passed through Newnan on our return to the Army of Tennessee, the hospital on the streets was crowded to overflowing with wounded soldiers.
Generals Dibrell and Iverson were equally as successful in their engagement with Stoneman near Milledgeville, Ga., capturing him and his entire command. McCook and Stoneman, when their commands joined, were to make a joint attack upon the prison at Andersonville.
After this Wheeler’s Corps was ordered to rendezvous at Covington, Ga., to the left of Atlanta. He had destroyed the entire cavalry force of Sherman. He remained at Covington some days recuperating and having horses shod, when he was ordered upon his second raid into Middle Tennessee. He moved to the rear of Sherman at Atlanta, and, going north along the railroad, destroyed miles of track, depots, and bridges, and capturing some small detachments, with but little resistance until he reached Dalton. Here the enemy had built a strong fortress well supplied with cannon, and had a considerable force to defend the place. A line of battle was formed as if we were going to charge, and by a feint its strength was developed. It was wisely concluded that the booty was not worth the cost of capture. However, we succeeded in destroying a large lot of provisions that had accumulated there and a large camp of wagons, tents, etc., located in the suburbs of the town, which were abandoned by the occupants, who, we supposed, had taken refuge in the fort. Some of these occupants must have been quartermasters, for an enterprising soldier picked up a tin box that contained several thousand dollars in greenbacks.
From here we moved to the right, and, entering East Tennessee, we crossed the railroad at Strawberry Plains, sixteen miles above Knoxville. Here a cavalry force coming up from Knoxville attacked our rear; but upon turning on them, they were put to flight and were pursued to the outskirts of the city, killing and wounding some, capturing prisoners and horses, with the loss of a few of our men in killed and wounded.
After this Wheeler moved over into Sequatchie Valley, where the Fourth Tennessee was detached and sent to Tracy City with a view of capturing a force that was said to be occupying an unfinished fort. Upon reaching the place, Lieut. Col. Paul Anderson made his disposition for capture by detailing Lieut. W. H. Phillips, of Company F, with ten men to charge down the road leading to the fort in order to attract their attention, when Colonel Anderson would come up from the rear, where the fort was said to be unfinished and open, and capture it. Before reaching his position, Colonel Anderson discovered that the opening had been closed and that there were as many of the enemy on the inside of the log structure as he had on the outside. He at once dispatched a message to Lieutenant Phillips countermanding the order; but before it was delivered Phillips, growing impatient, charged as directed. The courier reached there in time to see Phillips upon the ground in front of the fort shooting at the portholes, and saw him scramble to his feet and stagger across the road into the timber where his comrades had sought protection. He had been terribly wounded in the breast and shoulder, showing evidence of paralysis from the wounds. A conveyance was impressed with a view of taking him and others who had been wounded with us; but after traveling a mile or two, Phillips was suffering so that he asked to be left at a house to die. His friends thought that he certainly could live but a little while. For six months after this he was reported in company reports as killed in action in Tennessee. To the surprise of every one, and just before the surrender, Phillips came marching into camp, very thin and feeble, but alive. He said that after he had been at the house a few days the Federals found him there; and when he was able to be moved, they carried him to the fort and had every attention paid to him, saying he was too brave a man to die from neglect. Phillips remained at the fort for some time. When he had convalesced sufficiently, a proposition was made to him that if he wanted to go home to his family he could do so if he would take the oath. This he declined to do, and asked to be sent north as a prisoner. He was sent to Johnson’s Island Prison. Being a very much disabled prisoner, he was sent on exchange to Richmond in March, 1865, reaching the camp of his regiment a few days before the battle of Bentonville. He died a few years ago a highly respected citizen, but never recovered from his severe wounds and suffered the remainder of his life.
The Fourth Tennessee Cavalry left Tracy City for Lebanon with a view of overtaking General Wheeler. A great many of our soldiers were permitted to go by their homes to remount themselves, pick up absentees, and obtain recruits if possible. I availed myself of this opportunity, thinking it was the last chance I would have to visit my family, residing in Gallatin, Tenn., whom I had not seen for nearly three years. An account of this individual raid I made upon Gallatin I here insert under the head
Behind the Lines.
I tell this incident, not so much to interest the present generation, who have lived so close to it and have heard for themselves from the enactors in the War between the States many and probably more hazardous undertakings than here related, but that the future generation may know the state of affairs that existed in this country about the homes of those soldiers who were driven from them and sought to see their families again after a forced exile of years.