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Being Reminiscences and Observations of One Who Rode With Morgan By BENNETT H. YOUNG Commander-in-Chief of the United Confederate Veterans Association BOSTON Chapple Publishing Company, Ltd. 1914...
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Forty-eight years and a half have passed, since the last drum-beat of the Confederate States was heard and the furling of their flag forever closed the most wondrous military tragedy of the ages. Numbers and character considered, the tribute the South paid to War has no equal in human records. Fifteen hundred years ago on the Catalaunian Plain, where Attila, King of the Huns, styled “The Scourge of God,” joined battle with the Romans under Oetius, and the Visigoths led by Thorismund, tradition has it that hundreds of thousands of dead were left on the field. The men who followed the cruel and remorseless Attila were a vast horde, organized for war, with plunder as the highest aim of a soldier’s life, and the Romans and Visigoths were men who followed war solely for the opportunity it afforded to enslave, rob and despoil those they conquered. On both sides the...
49 minute read
The spring and summer of 1864 in Virginia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia and in the Trans-Mississippi Department proved one of the most sanguinary periods of the war. During this time, Joseph E. Johnston made his superb retreat from Dalton to Atlanta, regarded by military historians as one of the ablest strategic movements of the campaigns from ’61 to ’65, and General Robert E. Lee, in his famous defensive campaign culminating in the decimation of Grant’s armies at Cold Harbor, had killed or wounded more than eighty thousand of General Grant’s followers, twenty thousand more effective men than Lee’s whole army numbered! In the Trans-Mississippi, between April and August, ’64, General Dick Taylor at Mansfield and Pleasant Hill gained glorious victories in attempting to stay the advance of General Banks into the heart of Louisiana; and Kirby Smith, Price, Shelby and Marmaduke in Arkansas still maintained a courageous front to the foe....
21 minute read
General Wade Hampton, in the history of the Civil War, must ever be acknowledged to be one of the really great leaders. Of distinguished ancestry and high personal character, and endowed with sublime courage, he early entered the contest, and it was not long before his aptitude for cavalry service was so developed and amplified as to induce the War Department to confine his talents entirely to that branch. As the second of J. E. B. Stuart, he not only earned renown for himself, but was also one of the potent factors in helping his chief to carry out his cherished plans and to win the conspicuous place he occupied in the annals of the great war. To succeed so brilliant a leader and so thorough a cavalryman as General Stuart, imposed upon General Hampton most perplexing tasks and placed him in a position which would thoroughly try out the...
26 minute read
General Joseph E. Johnston had one of the most varied and eventful careers of any general officer in the Confederate service. General Robert E. Lee was born January 19th, 1807; General Johnston was born February 3d, of the same year, making a difference in their ages of fifteen days. They were both Virginians, and graduated from West Point in the same class. General Johnston held the highest rank of any officer in the United States army, who resigned to take service with the Confederate government. Of the really great leaders of the men who wore the gray, he was perhaps criticized more than any other. Whatever were the charges against General Johnston, he was always able to defend himself with forceful ability, and with extreme plausibility to present both his theories and the conduct of his campaigns in a strong and vigorous way. Oftentimes, a student of the history of...
15 minute read
General Joseph Wheeler’s raid into Tennessee in October, 1863, has few parallels in cavalry campaigns. Removed from the excitement and delirium of war, many of its happenings appear incredible, and were it not for official reports of both sides, the account of it when read would be declared unbelievable, and deemed the result of highly wrought imaginings, or the Munchausen stories of some knight errant, whose deeds could not measure up to the creations of his ambitious fancy. Half a century between these occurrences and their narration only increases our wonder and admiration at the exploits of these courageous horsemen, who seemed to have known neither fatigue nor fear in the pursuit and punishment of their country’s foes. Viewed from either a strategic point, or considered in relation to the losses inflicted upon those who opposed them, this raid stands out in military history as one of the wonders of...
37 minute read
At Huntsville, Alabama, John H. Morgan was born on the 28th of June, 1825. He was descended from Virginia ancestry, his father having moved from Virginia to Alabama in early manhood. His father married a daughter of John W. Hunt, of Lexington, Kentucky, a man of wealth and high standing. The father moved to Kentucky in 1829 and purchased a farm close to Lexington. At that time his son, John H., was four years of age. The young Morgan grew up proud spirited, brave, manly, enjoying and rejoicing in the best things of life. He became a very companionable man. He distributed kindness wherever he went, and none ever came to him in need and went away empty handed. He was extremely generous in his judgment of men and sincere in all his friendships. In military dress, he was among the handsomest of men, six feet tall, weighing about one...
35 minute read
To the great Volunteer State, Tennessee, belongs the credit of having produced, in many respects, the most remarkable cavalry leader in the world—Nathan Bedford Forrest. He was born near Duck River, at a little hamlet called Chapel Hill, then in Bedford County, Tennessee, but now comprised within the boundaries of Marshall County. Scotch-Irish and English blood flowed through the veins of this great warrior. This strain rarely fails to produce courage, fortitude and enterprise. When Nathan Bedford Forrest was thirteen years of age, the financial affairs of his father, William Forrest, had gone awry. Leaving Tennessee with seven children, he entered a homestead in Tippah County, North Mississippi, a region which had just been opened to settlement through a purchase by the Federal Government from the Chickasaw Indians. The magical hand of immigration had as yet done little for this region. The Indians had hunted over the lands, but civilization...
42 minute read
General John Bankhead Magruder was born in Winchester, Virginia, on the 15th of August, 1810. He came of not only a distinguished but a martial family. Singularly attractive in personality, he entered West Point and graduated from that institution in 1830. Thirty-six years of age when the Mexican War began, he was not without a wide military experience, and on many battlefields had exhibited the superb courage which marked his entire career as a Confederate officer. He won fame at Palo Alto in the Mexican War, he earned a brevet at Cerro Gordo, and at Chapultepec and in the City of Mexico he added still more largely to his splendid reputation for gallantry and dash. Imbued with all the patriotic state pride and love of a native born Virginian, he early resigned his position in the United States army and took service under the Confederate government. By March 16, 1861,...
4 minute read
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...
33 minute read
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...
31 minute read
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...
26 minute read
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...
31 minute read
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,...
24 minute read
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...
27 minute read
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...
36 minute read
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...
30 minute read
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...
30 minute read
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...
38 minute read
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...
46 minute read
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...
56 minute read
The Federal forces were commanded by General Alfred Pleasanton, who was born in Washington City, June 7th, 1824. In 1844 he graduated from the United States Military Academy and became second lieutenant in the First Dragoons. He was at Palo Alto and at Resaca de La Palma. He was in the Seminole war and in operations in Washington Territory, Oregon and Kansas. In February, 1861, he became major of the Second United States Cavalry and marched with his regiment from Utah to Washington. He was in the Peninsula Campaign of 1862 and in July of that year was appointed brigadier general of volunteers. By September he was a division commander. He was at Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg and at Chancellorsville. His friends claimed that he stayed the advance of Stonewall Jackson on May 2d, 1863. He was at Gettysburg and subsequently transferred to Missouri. He was made a brigadier general in the...
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General Pleasanton had with him as second in command John Buford, who was born in Kentucky in 1825. He was graduated from the Military Academy at West Point in 1848, and became second lieutenant in the First Dragoons. He was in the Sioux expedition in 1855, in Kansas in 1856 and ’57, and in the Utah expedition in 1857 and ’58. In 1861 he was promoted to be a major and was designated inspector general of a corps in November, 1861. He was on General Polk’s staff in 1862. On the 27th day of July he was made brigadier-general and given command of a cavalry brigade composed of some of the very best of Federal cavalry, the 1st Michigan, the 5th New York, 1st Vermont and 1st West Virginia. He was wounded at the Second Manassas. In the Maryland campaign he was acting chief of cavalry of the Army of...
54 minute read
General George Wesley Merritt was born in New York City, June 16th, 1836. He went to West Point in 1855, graduating in 1860, and was assigned at once to the cavalry service. By April 5th, 1862, he was captain of the 2d United States Cavalry. He served on the staff of General Phillips and St. George Cooke; later, under General Stoneman. By April 3d, 1863, he had attained to the command of the 2d United States Cavalry. He saw the fighting at Gettysburg. He was at Yellow Tavern, where Stuart received his fatal wound. By June 29th, 1863, he had become a brigadier general. He was with Sherman in the Shenandoah campaign and in 1864 was made major general. He was one of the three Federal commissioners to arrange the terms of surrender at Appomattox. In June, 1898, he was appointed military governor of the Philippine Islands, and with an...
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With General Pleasanton also on that day was Benjamin Franklin Davis, who was born in Alabama in 1832, graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1854, and served with great credit in both infantry and cavalry in Mexico. In 1861 he sided against the state of his nativity. In 1862 he became colonel of the 8th New York Cavalry and was in command of a brigade of Federals in this engagement. With Wesley Merritt, D. McM. Gregg and Colonel A. N. Duffie, this made a splendid aggregation of cavalry experience and military genius. General Pleasanton had under him ten thousand nine hundred and eighty soldiers. The best the Federal Army had in cavalry at that time was at Fleetwood. The generals in command were brave, able and experienced. They had been prodded about what Stuart had been doing. Their pride and courage were involved and aroused, and they were...
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Major General William Henry Fitzhugh Lee was a son of Robert E. Lee and was born on May 21st, 1837. Graduating at Harvard when he was twenty years of age, he was appointed second lieutenant in the 6th Infantry, and he served under Albert Sidney Johnson in Utah and California. In 1859 he resigned his commission to operate his farm, known as the “White House,” on the Pamunky River, which became not only important as a strategic position, but famous in the history of the war. At the beginning of 1861, he organized a company of cavalry and later became a major in the new-made Confederate Army. In West Virginia he was chief of cavalry for General Loring. In the winter of 1861 and ’62, he was commissioned lieutenant colonel of the 9th Virginia, and in less than two months became its colonel. His regiment constituted a part of the...
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Another prominent leader on the Confederate side was William Carter Wickham, who was born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1820. He graduated at the University of Virginia in 1842. He was bitterly opposed to the war and voted against the Ordinance of Secession. He recruited, however, the Hanover Dragoons, was in the first battle of Manassas, and in September, 1861, was made lieutenant colonel of the 4th Virginia Cavalry, and in August, 1862, became colonel of that regiment. He rendered valiant service at the Second Manassas, at Boonsboro and at Sharpsburg. At Upperville he was wounded the second time, and took part in the Battle of Fredericksburg, December 12th, 1862. Elected to Congress in 1863, he remained with his regiment until the fall of 1864. He helped to stop Kilpatrick’s raid on Richmond and Custer’s attack on Charlottesville. He was in the Battle of the Wilderness and at Spottsylvania Court House,...
51 minute read
Brigadier General Beverly Holcombe Robertson was a graduate of the United States Military Academy in 1849, and became second lieutenant in the Second Dragoons. By hard service in the West he was promoted to first lieutenant in 1859, and was under Edgerton of the Second Dragoons in the Utah campaign. He severed his connection with the United States Army and became a colonel in the Virginia cavalry. He was sent to take command of Ashby’s cavalry. In September, 1863, he was assigned to the command of the Department of North Carolina, and took charge of the organization and training of cavalry troops. Immediately preceding the battle at Fleetwood, he was sent to reinforce Stuart. He was at Gettysburg and in the raid through Maryland. After returning from Gettysburg, the regiments comprising his brigade were so reduced that he sought service in another field, and was given command of the Second...
53 minute read
General John Randolph Chambliss was born in Greenville County, Virginia, in 1833, and graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1853. In July, 1861, he was commissioned colonel of the 13th Virginia Cavalry, and was under the orders of General D. H. Hill on the James River during the fall of that year. He was assigned to General W. H. F. Lee’s cavalry brigade, and was regarded as one of the most determined and intrepid fighters. After General W. H. F. Lee’s wound and the death of Colonel Sol Williams, Colonel Chambliss took command of the brigade. He was at Gettysburg and in the Bristoe skirmish. In December, 1864, he was commissioned brigadier general. In the cavalry battle at Charles City Cross Roads on the north side of the James River, he was killed on the 16th of August, 1864. His body was buried by his enemies, but was...
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General William E. Jones, another of the Confederate leaders, was born in Washington County, Virginia, in May, 1824. He graduated from West Point in 1848. He did splendid service in the West. At the time of the passage of the Ordinance of Secession by Virginia, he had organized a company of cavalry known as the Washington Mounted Rifles. His company was part of General Stuart’s command. He became colonel of the 1st Virginia Cavalry with Fitzhugh Lee as lieutenant colonel. In 1862 he was displaced by regimental election, and was assigned to the 7th Virginia regiment. He was at Sharpsburg and was promoted on November 8th to be brigadier general and was assigned to the command of the Laurel Brigade. In April and May, 1863, he conducted a daring and successful raid on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, west of Cumberland. From this expedition he joined Stuart, and at Brandy...
27 minute read
Another officer of deserved distinction was General Thomas Taylor Munford, who was born in Richmond in 1831. He graduated from the Virginia Military Institute in 1852. At the outbreak of the war he was a planter. He became lieutenant colonel of the 30th Virginia Mounted Infantry, organized in 1861. This was the first mounted regiment organized in Virginia. It was subsequently designated as the 2d Regiment of Cavalry, General Stuart’s regiment being the 1st. In the re-organization under Stuart, Munford became colonel. He was in the first fighting and the last fighting of the Army of Northern Virginia. His career as a cavalry officer was brilliant and notable. The discharge of all duties committed to him were performed with absolute faithfulness. When General Ashby died, General Munford was recommended by General Robert E. Lee as his successor. He received two severe wounds at the Second Manassas. He was in the...
4 minute read
On the 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th of October, 1862, General J. E. B. Stuart performed his most brilliant military feat in the raid on Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. Fording the Potomac on the morning of the 10th, at early dawn, he proceeded to Mercersburg and thence to Chambersburg. The crossing of the river had been skilfully and bravely done, and the march of forty miles to Chambersburg was no mean task in the fifteen hours which had elapsed since morn. Fair weather marked the day’s ride, and at 9 o’clock at night the brilliant cavalry soldier of the Army of Northern Virginia housed himself and men in the quiet and quaint old town, well up in the boundaries of the Quaker State. It was a new experience for the loyal men of the North to find the hungry Confederate raiders in their very midst and feeding themselves in their pantries and...
41 minute read
General John B. Marmaduke was a thoroughly born and reared Southern man. Descended from Virginia ancestry, he first saw the light on March 14th, 1833, at Arrow Rock, Missouri. Possessed of a splendid physique, with a common school education, he entered Yale. He was there two years and one year at Harvard, and then he was appointed to the United States Military Academy from whence he graduated when twenty-two years of age. As a brevet second lieutenant he went with Albert Sidney Johnston and aided in putting down the Mormon revolt in 1858. He remained in the West for two years and at the opening of the Civil War was stationed in New Mexico. Fond of military life, it involved much sacrifice for him to resign his commission in the United States Army, but he did not hesitate an instant and on the 17th of April, 1861, he severed his...
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General Kenner Garrard, the third man, was born in 1830 in Cincinnati, and was a great grandson of James Garrard, once governor of Kentucky. He graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1851, and entered the Dragoons. While on the Texas frontier, in April, 1861, he was captured and afterwards released on parole, but was not exchanged until 1862. During this period, he was commandant of cadets at West Point. After successful service in the Rappahannock and Pennsylvania campaigns, he was promoted to command a cavalry division of the Army of the Cumberland. It was not unreasonable for General Sherman to expect much of these three dashing and brave commanders. With more than nine thousand cavalrymen, General Sherman believed that they could march into any part of the South, and that no force the Confederates could muster could even greatly delay and surely not defeat them. General Wheeler had...
26 minute read
General William Allen was born at Montgomery, Alabama. He was made a captain of the 1st Alabama Cavalry, and then its colonel. He was in the Kentucky campaigns, and was wounded at Perryville in 1864. He was made colonel of the 6th Alabama Cavalry Regiment, then commissioned a brigadier general. In the closing days of the war, in Georgia, North and South Carolina, he evidenced great skill as a leader. Always cheerful, patient and brave, he did much to inspirit his men, when, to his foreseeing mind, it was a hopeless fight against heaviest odds....
35 minute read
General Robert H. Anderson, who also took a prominent part in these stirring campaigns, was born at Savannah, Georgia, in 1835. He graduated from West Point in 1857. He was on the frontier from 1857 to 1861, and was with the Georgia troops at Fort McAllister. His pluck and courage won him the command of the 5th Georgia Cavalry. After a little while, he proved himself so competent that he was advanced to a brigade commander; and, in the dark hours—from November, 1864, to April, 1865—in the closing scenes and in front of Sherman in his march to the sea, he bore a most conspicuous and valorous part. GENERAL JOSEPH WHEELER “ Fighting Joe ”...
1 minute read
General John H. Kelley was born in Pickens County, Alabama, in 1840. At the age of seventeen, he entered West Point. Within a few months of his graduation, Alabama seceded, and he went to Montgomery, enlisted in the government service and became second lieutenant in the regular army. He was sent to Fort Morgan; and, in October, 1861, became aide to General Hardee, with the rank of captain and assistant adjutant general. Later, he was made major, in command of an Arkansas battalion. Fearless, enterprising and courageous, he was promoted to colonel of the 8th Arkansas Regiment. He was then just twenty-two years of age. Conspicuous at Perryville, Murfreesboro and at the Battle of Chickamauga, he became commander of a brigade of infantry, under General Buckner. At Chickamauga, his brigade suffered a loss of three hundred men out of eight hundred and seventy-six. His great merit was recognized; and, on...
32 minute read
General Lawrence Sullivan Ross was Iowa born. His father moved to Texas during his early life. He entered a college at Florence, Alabama, but engaged in the Indian war and was wounded at the Battle of Wichita. In this battle, he rescued a white girl who had been with the Indians eight years, adopted her as his own child, giving her the name of Lizzie Ross. His courage was so pronounced and his skill so evident, that General Van Dorn and General Scott urged him for a place in the army. Not of age, he went back to the University and graduated, when he returned to Texas and enlisted as a private in the 6th Regiment. He became its colonel in 1862. At Corinth, he played the part of a hero—acting as a forlorn hope—he held the Federals at bay until the balance of the army escaped. For this great...
30 minute read
General Forrest, like most soldiers, had special animosities, and one of his was General Cadwallader Colden Washburn. It might be said that they were men of such disposition that they would certainly have instinctive dislike for each other. Both were brave and extremely loyal to the Cause they espoused, and neither saw much of good in those on the opposite side. As they came to face each other in Western Tennessee and Northern Mississippi, many things occurred to increase rather than lessen their antipathies. General Washburn was born May 14th, 1818, at Livermore, Maine. Beginning life on his father’s farm, he had a brief experience in a country retail store, then as schoolmaster, then emigrated west and studied law. In Milton, Wisconsin, in 1842, he began practice. The law was slow in that section at that period, and he became an agent for settlers desiring to enter public lands. He...
2 minute read
In the preparation of these sketches I have relied greatly upon Dr. John Allen Wyeth’s “Life of General Forrest,” one of the most entertaining war books ever published; General Basil W. Duke’s “Morgan and His Men”; Major H. B. McClelland’s “Life and Campaigns of Major General J. E. B. Stuart”; “Hampton and His Cavalry,” by Colonel Edward L. Wells; “Shelby and His Men,” by Major John N. Edwards; “Campaigns of Wheeler and His Cavalry,” edited by W. C. Dodson, and published under the auspices of Wheeler’s Confederate Cavalry Association; “Confederate Military History”; Captain John W. Morton’s “Artillery of N. B. Forrest’s Cavalry,” and the compilations of official records of the Union and Confederate Armies, published by the United States Government. This last work is one of the most remarkable of its kind ever issued by any government. It contains all despatches, letters and reports of every kind, bearing upon the...