Confederate Wizards of the Saddle
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CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY The Gift of NEWTON C. FARR Class of 1909 Cornell University Library E546.5 .Y68 1914 Confederate wizards of the saddle 3 1924 030 921 260 olin CONFEDERATE WIZARDS OF THE SADDLE The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030921260 Commander-in-Chief U. C. V. ^ _ -" Confederate Wizards of the Saddle Being Reminiscences and Observations of One Who Rode With Morgan By BENNETT H. YOUNG Commander-in-Chief of the United Confederate Veterans Association BOSTON Chappie Publishing Company, Ltd. 1914 Copyright, 1914, by Bennett H. Young to tift IN THE DAYS OF PEACE The Creators of Chivalry and Gallantry IN THE DAYS OF BATTLE The Inspiration of Faith and Courage IN THE DAYS OF BLOOD The Angels of Comfort and Mercy IN THE DAYS OF DEFEAT The Spirits of Hope and Help CONTENTS Page CHAPTER I 1 Forrest at Brycb's Cross-Roads, June 10th, 1864 CHAPTER II 42 General Hampton's Cattle Raid, September, 1864 CHAPTER III 60 Kentucky Cavalry Fighting with Rocks, Dug Creek Gap, May 8-9, 1864 CHAPTER IV 82 General Joseph Wheeler's Raid into Tennessee, Fall of 1863 CHAPTER V . 95 General John H. Morgan's Raid into Kentucky, July 4-28, 1862 CHAPTER VI 126 Forrests's Raid into West Tennessee, December, 1862 CHAPTER VII 155 Texas Horsemen op the Sea, in Galveston Harbor, January, 1863 CHAPTER VIII 171 Colonel Roy S. Cluke's Kentucky Raid, February- March, 1863 CHAPTER IX 195 Shelby's Missouri Raid, September, 1863 CHAPTER X 222 Battle and Capture of Hartsville by General John H. Morgan, December 7th, 1863 CHAPTER XI 248 Wheeler's Raid into Tennessee, August, 1864 CHAPTER XII 270 JOHNSONVILLE RaID AND FoRRESt's MaRINE EXPERIENCES, November, 1864 viii CONTENTS Page CHAPTER XIII 296 Cavalry Expedition of the Texans into New Mex- ico, WiNTEH, 1861-62. CHAPTER XIV .316 Genekal J. E. B. Stuart's Ride around McClellan's Army—Chickahominy Raid, June 12-15, 1863 CHAPTER XV 3S7 Battle and Campaign of Trevilian Station, June 11th AND 12th, 1864 CHAPTER XVI 367 Morgan's Ride around Cincinnati, on "The Ohio Raid," July, 1863 CHAPTER XVII 391 Richards with Mosby's Men in the Fight at Mt. Carmel Church, February 19, 1864 CHAPTER XVIII 416 Morgan's Christmas Raid, December 22, 1862, to January 2, 1863 CHAPTER XIX .... ... 452 Forrest's Pursuit and Capture of Streight, April 28- May 3, 1863 CHAPTER XX . 498 Battle of Fleetwood Hill, June 9th, 1863 CHAPTER XXI 532 General J. E. B. Stuart's Chambersburg Raid, Octo- ber 9, 1862 CHAPTER XXII 537 General John B. Marmaduke's "Cape Girardeau Raid," April, 1863 '. CHAPTER XXIII . .... 564 General Wheeler's Pursuit and Defeat of Generals Stoneman, Garrard and McCook, July 27-August 5, 1864 CHAPTER XXIV 601 Forrest's Raid into Memphis, August 21, 1864 ILLUSTRATIONS GENERAL BENNETT H. YOUNG .... Frontispiece Commander-in-Chief, U. C. V. Facins page MAP OF BRYCE'S CROSS ROADS 8 PORTRAITS OF GENERAL ABRAM BUFORD, CAPTAIN MORTON AND GENERAL LYON, 24 FIGHTING AT BRYCE'S CROSS-ROADS ... 40 PORTRAIT: GENERAL WADE HAMPTON . 56 KENTUCKY CAVALRY FIGHTING WITH ROCKS 72 WHEELER BURNING FEDERAL WAGON TRAINS, SEQUATCHIE VALLEY, JULY, 1862 88 PORTRAIT: GENERAL JOHN H. MORGAN . 104 In the early part of the War MAP OF FORREST'S RAID INTO TENNES- SEE, DECEMBER, 1862 132 PORTRAIT: GENERAL NATHAN BEDFORD FORREST 150 PORTRAIT: GENERAL JOHN B. MAGRUDER . 166 PORTRAIT: GENERAL BENNETT H. YOUNG . 182 What fifty years have done for the Commander-in-Chief PORTRAIT: GENERAL J. 0. SHELBY ... 198 MAP OF SHELBY'S MISSOURI RAID 202 MAP OF CAVALRY EXPEDITION INTO NEW MEXICO 304 PORTRAITS OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH SAYERS AND GENERAL TOM GREEN 306 X ILLUSTRATIONS Faoino page MAP OF STUART'S RIDE AROUND Mc- CLELLAN 32^ PORTRAIT: GENERAL WADE HAMPTON . 354 MAP OF MORGAN'S RIDE AROUND CIN- CINNATI ^"^^ PORTRAIT: MAJOR A. E. RICHARDS .... 400 Commanding Mosby's men at Ml. Carmel fight MAP SHOWING APPROXIMATELY MOR- GAN'S CHRISTMAS RAID 434 PORTRAIT: GENERAL JOHN H. MORGAN . 446 PORTRAIT: GENERAL STARNES 462 MAP SHOWING LINE OF FORREST'S PUR- SUIT AND CAPTURE OF STREIGHT, AND WISDOM'S RIDE 474 PORTRAIT: EMMA SANSOM 476 EMMA SANSOM MONUMENT, GADSDEN, ALA., AND SANSOM HOME 484 PORTRAIT: JOHN H. WISDOM 492 THE BLACK CREEK BRIDGE 492 MAP OF BATTLEFIELD OF FLEETWOOD HILL 524 PORTRAIT GENERAL J. E. B. STUART ... 532 PORTRAIT GENERAL MARMADUKE .... 556 PORTRAIT: GENERAL JOSEPH WHEELER . 572 "Fighting Joe" MAP OF WHEELER'S PURSUIT OF GARRARD AND McCOOK, AND IVERSON'S PURSUIT AND CAPTURE OF STONEMAN 578 FOREWORD 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 Visi- goths 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 men who filled the ranks had neither intelligence nor patriot- ism, and with each, war was a profession or pastime, devoid in most cases of any exalted purpose, even the dream of a conviction, or the faintest gleam of a principle. If the dead on that fatal field were numbered by the hundreds of thousands, their demise was a mere incident in the conflicts which were carried on for no truth, and in their loss the world suffered but little more than if as many beasts of burden had been sacrificed on some heathen altar to appease the God of War. The American war, in the middle of the nineteenth century, dealt on both sides with far different materials. Christianity, liberty, education, culture and refinement had reached a very high limit on the human scale. When the North and South faced each other, moved by patriotism and principle, the legions drawn from the. very best materials xii FOREWORD that the race could offer, with inherited courage, quickened by personal and social pride, and with memories and tradi- tions of great military achievements, and ennobled by ances- tral escutcheons of exceeding splendor, there met for battle such men as the world had never before seen, aligned for conflict. Half a century gives time to gather data, to measure losses, to calculate sacrifices, to weigh difficulties, to figure results, and to look calmly and justly at the history and the conduct of what must ever be classed as one of the great wars of the ages. The very fact that the South lost lends pathos and senti- ment to the story of what her sons accomplished. As time, aided by the scrutinizing finger of Truth, points out with impartial fairness what each did in this gigantic grapple between two Anglo-Saxon armies, we are enabled, even now, while thousands of participants remain, to judge, recount and chronicle with accuracy the most important events that marked this mighty struggle. Cavalry played a most important part in the Civil War. In fact, without this arm of the service, the Confederacy could not have so long maintained the unequal contest; nor the Federal Army have prevailed as quickly as was done. The story of the campaigns of Stuart, Wheeler, Morgan, the Lees, Forrest, Hampton, Ashby, Mosby, Green, Van Dorn, Shelby and Marmaduke, and their associates, gave war a new glamour, opened to chivalry a wider field for operation, painted to adventurous genius more entrancing visions, and made the service of men who rode to battle a tran- scendent power of which warriors had hitherto not even dreamed. So far as has been historically made known, there is no similar service performed by the cavalry of any period. General Morgan, with his command, made two distinct marches of one thousand miles each into a hostile country. Shelby is reported to have ridden fifteen hundred miles when he raided into Missouri in September, 1863. There FOREWORD xiii were times, probably, when Stuart and Hampton and their associates had fiercer conflict, but the strain was never so long drawn out and the calls on nerve and muscle and brain were never so severely concentrated as in these marches of Morgan and Shelby. General Wheeler, in his raid around Rosecrans, was twenty-five days in the rear of the enemy, menaced on every side, and his men fought with a courage that was simply transcendent. His marches were characterized by fierce fighting and covered a more limited territory, but his cap- tures and his destruction of property have few counterparts. No fair man, reading the story of General Dick Taylor's exploits, in the spring of '6C can come to any other conclusion than that he and his men were heroic, of abundant patience and exhibited almost unlimited physical endurance. The same can be said of Forrest. He did not ride so far as Morgan, Marmaduke or Shelby on a single expedition, but what he lacked in distance he made in overcoming diffi- culties and in the extent and constancy of conflict, and in the tremendous losses inflicted upon his enemy's property and troops.