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[Illustration: Portraits of:
Col. BAXTER SMITH Lt. Col. PAUL F. ANDERSON
Maj. W. S. BLEDSOE Adjt. GEO. B. GUILD]
╔════════════════════════════════╗
║ ║
║ _A BRIEF NARRATIVE OF THE_ ║
║ ║
║ _Fourth Tennessee_ ║
║ _Cavalry Regiment_ ║
║ ║
║ _WHEELER’S CORPS, ARMY_ ║
║ _OF TENNESSEE_ ║
║ ║
║ Illustration ║
║ ║
║ _By GEORGE B. GUILD_ ║
║ ║
║ _NASHVILLE, TENN._ ║
║ _1913_ ║
║ ║
╚════════════════════════════════╝
╔════════════════════════ Dedication ═══════════════════════╗
║ ║
║ _To those comrades “who went with us but_ ║
║ _came not back again,” many of whom_ ║
║ _are sleeping in their blankets_ ║
║ _in unknown graves on the_ ║
║ _battlefields where_ ║
║ _they fell_ ║
║ ║
║ ──────── ║
║ ║
║ The rough board that perhaps a comrade placed at the ║
║ head to direct the footsteps of inquiring friends ║
║ has long since rotted down; and the little mound they ║
║ spread above their soldier breast has been leveled by ║
║ the plowshare or the long years that have passed since ║
║ then. But there the wild flower sheds its sweetest ║
║ perfume to the morning air, and the song bird warbles ║
║ its lay to the setting sun, and at night the stars of ║
║ heaven, as they climb the Milky Way, look down and grow ║
║ brighter as they pass. ║
║ ║
╚═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTORY
I. ORGANIZATION AND EARLY MOVEMENTS
Outpost Duty at Franklin, Tenn.--Battle of
Murfreesboro--Retreat to Shelbyville.
II. FROM FORT DONELSON TO CHICKAMAUGA
Fort Donelson--Woodbury, Tenn.--Trousdale’s Ferry
on Caney Fork River--Resisting Rosecrans’s Advance
on Shelbyville and Tullahoma--Bragg’s Retreat to
Chattanooga--Wheeler’s Cavalry at Rome, Ga.--Battle
of Chickamauga.
III. WHEELER’S RAID INTO MIDDLE TENNESSEE IN 1863
IV. IN EAST TENNESSEE
Return to the Army of Tennessee at Missionary
Ridge--Report of Lieutenant Colonel Anderson on the
Battle of Chickamauga--Battles of Lookout Mountain
and Orchard Knob--Missionary Ridge and Ringgold, Ga.
V. CAMPAIGNING IN GEORGIA
Gen. Joseph E. Johnston Succeeds General Bragg
as Commander in Chief--Remarks about General
Bragg--General Sherman Advances on Dalton, Ga.--March
to Atlanta, Ga.--Battles of Resaca and Kingston--New
Hope Church--Kennesaw Mountain--Marietta and
Atlanta--General Johnston Superseded by General Hood.
VI. GENERAL WHEELER’S CAPTURE OF THE COMMANDS OF GENERALS
McCOOK AND STONEMAN
Raid of General Wheeler into Tennessee in 1864--Behind
the Lines.
VII. IN TENNESSEE, VIRGINIA, AND HARASSING SHERMAN
March through East Tennessee--Battle of Saltville,
Va.--Return to Atlanta, Ga.--Sherman’s March to
the Sea.
VIII. THE SOUTH CAROLINA CAMPAIGN
Remarks about General Hood--Battle of Aiken,
S. C.--Battle of Fayetteville, N. C.
IX. IN NORTH CAROLINA
Change in Brigade Officers--Gen. Joseph E. Johnston
Succeeds General Hood and Assumes Command in North
Carolina--Battle of Averyboro, N. C.--Bentonville,
N. C.
X. FURTHER MOVEMENTS IN NORTH CAROLINA, AND THE BEGINNING
OF THE END
Reorganization of the Army at Smithfield,
N. C.--General Johnston Ordered to Greensboro,
N. C.--Meets Confederate States Officials--General
Johnston Confers with General Sherman, and an
Agreement Made to End the War.
XI. THE END OF THE STRUGGLE
Surprise of the Army at Information of
Surrender--Sherman-Johnston Capitulation Rejected at
Washington--Another Agreement Looking to a Surrender
on Terms Given General Lee at Appomattox--General
Johnston’s Farewell Address to the Army--General
Wheeler’s Address to the Cavalry.
XII. CASUALTY LISTS
XIII. GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON AND OTHER OFFICERS
XIV. AN ADDRESS AND A SPEECH
XV. A FEW FACTS FROM HISTORY
XVI. AFTER THE WAR
XVII. GENERAL BRAGG’S KENTUCKY CAMPAIGN IN 1862
(By Baxter Smith)
XVIII. MEMBERS OF THE REGIMENT NOW LIVING
APPENDIX
INDEX
INTRODUCTORY.
Since the surrender of the Confederate army, in the spring of 1865,
I have been frequently asked by members of the Regiment to write
its history. I have always promised, but have failed to comply till
now I find myself attempting it forty-seven years afterwards. Many
of those who survived the surrender have died. Some have removed
to parts unknown, and a very few remain from whom I can obtain
necessary information. So I am forced to write mostly from a personal
recollection, without memorandum or note. This I regret; for it
forces me to speak of some, while I have forgotten others equally as
worthy of mention. I offer this as my apology for an imperfect record.
It has been my effort to write a narrative of my own Regiment.
Necessarily it can be of but little interest to the public, although
it embraces a cursory history of the Army of Tennessee, of which it
was a part. I see that some repetition appears in its pages, growing
out of a predisposition to emphasize some facts, which I ask you to
excuse.
CHAPTER I.
ORGANIZATION AND EARLY MOVEMENTS.
The Fourth Tennessee Cavalry did not assume regimental form until
General Bragg had returned from his Kentucky campaign, in the fall of
1862. It was made up of detachments that had served under different
commanders since the beginning of the war. At its organization Baxter
Smith was made Colonel; Paul F. Anderson, Lieutenant Colonel; W.
Scott Bledsoe, Major; J. A. Minnis, Adjutant; W. A. Rushing, Sergeant
Major; Marcellus Grissim, Quartermaster, with R. O. McLean, Bob
Corder, and John Price his assistants; Captain Bone, Commissary,
with Lieut. J. A. Arnold and Captain McLean his assistants; Dr. W.
T. Delaney, Surgeon, with Dr. Tom Allen his assistant; Rev. W. W.
Hendrix, Chaplain; Sergeant Finney, Ordnance Officer; J. A. Stewart
and James B. Nance, Regimental Buglers; Bob Gann and Bennett Chapman,
Wagon Masters.
The commissioned officers of the companies were:
_Company A._--Captain, D. W. Alexander; First Lieutenant,
Rice McLean; Second Lieutenant, J. N. Orr; Third Lieutenant,
Charles Beard. Recruited in Marshall County, Tenn.
_Company B._--Captain, C. H. Ingles; First Lieutenant,
Joe Massengale; Second Lieutenant, Joe Massengale; Third
Lieutenant, G. W. Carmack. Recruited in Sullivan County,
Tenn.
_Company C._--Captains, Frank Cunningham[1] and George C.
Moore; First Lieutenant, James Hogan; Second Lieutenant,
R. S. Scruggs; Third Lieutenant, Samuel Scoggins. Recruited
in Smith County, Tenn.
_Company D._--Captain, J. M. Phillips; First Lieutenant,
Bob Bone; Second Lieutenant, J. T. Barbee; Third Lieutenant,
J. A. Arnold. Recruited in DeKalb and Wilson Counties, Tenn.
_Company E._--Captain, H. A. Wyly; First Lieutenant,
H. L. Preston; Second Lieutenant, W. S. Sullivan; Third
Lieutenant, John Fathera. Recruited in Cannon County, Tenn.
_Company F._--Captain, J. R. Lester; First Lieutenant,
C. S. Burgess; Second Lieutenant, W. H. Phillips; Third
Lieutenant, James Williamson. Recruited in Wilson County,
Tenn.
_Company G._--Captain, J. W. Nichol; First Lieutenant, Dave
Youree; Second Lieutenant,--McKnight; Third Lieutenant,
J. A. Sagely. Recruited in Cannon and Rutherford Counties,
Tenn.
_Company H._--Captain, Sam Glover; Lieutenants, Green,
Light, William Gaut, and William Fields. Recruited in
Hamilton County and Bridgeport, Ala.
_Company I._--Captain, Bob Bledsoe; Lieutenants, William
Hildreth, J. W. Storey, Foster Bowman, and Elliott.
Recruited in Fentress County, Tenn.
_Company K._--Captain, Jim Britton; Lieutenants, W. Corbett
and Dewitt Anderson. Recruited in Wilson, Sumner, and
Davidson Counties, Tenn.
_Company L._[2]--Captain, J. J. Parton; Lieutenants, Henry,
Russell, and Tillery. Recruited in Knox County, Tenn.
The Regiment was assigned to a brigade composed of the Eighth Texas,
Eleventh Texas, First Kentucky, and Fourth Tennessee Regiments and
Malone’s Alabama Battalion, Col. Tom Harrison as Senior Colonel
commanding the brigade, Maj. Gen. John A. Wharton commanding the
division (Gen. Joe Wheeler’s Corps, Army of Tennessee), and sent to
Franklin, Tenn., on outpost duty. General Bragg, with the infantry
force, was at Murfreesboro, confronting General Rosecrans’s Federal
army at Nashville.
It is well enough to state here that there were two Fourth Tennessee
Cavalry Regiments in the army--Colonel Stearns’s Fourth Tennessee
and Colonel Smith’s Fourth Tennessee. They had been serving in
different departments of the army, one under General Forrest and the
other under General Wheeler, most of the time, and we did not know
the fact until late in the war. Both had made character under that
name, and each tacitly agreed to remain as they had been known, which
they did. At the date of the organization of the Fourth Tennessee
Cavalry Regiment it numbered one thousand men, rank and file, made
up principally of stout, healthy, and vigorous young men. As stated,
our first service as a regiment was at Franklin, on General Bragg’s
front and left flank, some twenty miles from Murfreesboro and
eighteen miles from Nashville, where we were kept busy for some two
months or more in picketing, scouting on all the roads leading toward
Murfreesboro from Nashville, occasionally having some hot contests
with the enemy, killing, wounding, and capturing some, and losing
some ourselves. At one time we scouted toward Nashville in the night,
and remained all day in the vicinity, expecting the enemy to come
out, as was their custom, on foraging expeditions, which they failed
to do. But before leaving we concluded to give them a closer dare. In
the evening we came up the Charlotte Pike as far as what is now West
Nashville, and, going up Richland Creek, we came in contact with a
force of the enemy at Bosley Springs, and, charging them, drove them
back to the Harding Pike, capturing some and pursuing the others to
where the old penitentiary wall stood, on Church Street. We remained
in line a short distance down the road till near sundown; but no
enemy appearing, we repaired to our station at Franklin.
The enemy made frequent scouts in the neighborhood of Franklin,
sometimes resulting in quite a battle. I remember that in one of
these Captain McMillin, a brother of Ex-Governor McMillin, was
killed. He was on a visit to some acquaintances in the Regiment,
and went out with the Regiment to meet one of these scouts of the
enemy.
In the latter part of December, 1862, Rosecrans marched on
Murfreesboro. The Regiment skirmished with his advance till he
reached the place. Capt. J. R. Lester, of Company F, was desperately
wounded in one of these skirmishes. We thought at the time that his
wound was mortal, but he returned to his company in a few weeks, and
served with them till the surrender at Greensboro, N. C. When Colonel
Smith as Senior Colonel assumed the command of the brigade, Capt.
J. R. Lester was made his Inspector General, and surrendered as such.
On reaching Murfreesboro we were placed on the right of our line
on the Lebanon Pike, where General Bragg supposed the enemy would
first attack; but changing his plans during the night, he attacked
with his left flank about daylight. A terrific battle ensued here.
It seems the enemy at the time was moving to attack Bragg from that
flank, and the two armies unexpectedly met in deadly conflict. The
battle raged in all its fury for hours. Charge after charge and
countercharge was made time and again, with heavy losses on both
sides. The Confederates, steadily advancing, gradually forced the
enemy back, capturing many pieces of artillery and small arms,
with many prisoners. Among the captured was General Willich and his
German Brigade. Gen. Jim Rains, of the Confederate army, and General
Sill, of the Federal army, were killed in one of these assaults.
Before night the Federal army was forced back to the Nashville
Pike, at right angles to the position they held when first attacked.
The Confederates had gained a great victory. The loss of each was
about equal--say, ten thousand. Six thousand Federal prisoners were
captured, and several batteries of artillery, besides thousands
of muskets and ammunition. The next morning every one expected
the battle to be renewed, and were much disappointed that General
Bragg did not follow up his advantage, instead of which he remained
inactive for several days. In the meantime he ordered General
Wheeler, with his cavalry corps, to the rear of General Rosecrans,
toward Nashville. All along the way to La Vergne we were picking up
prisoners, and everything indicated a defeat and rout of the enemy.
At the latter place we came up with a long train of wagons moving
toward Nashville with an escort of several thousand cavalry. We
engaged them, and, after a considerable battle, they retreated. We
captured and destroyed some two hundred wagons, some prisoners were
taken, and a good many men on both sides were killed and wounded.
Many of Rosecrans’s men had reached Nashville, reporting that his
army had been badly beaten. Still no movement had been made by
General Bragg at Murfreesboro. The enemy had taken advantage of this
inactivity by collecting together their broken columns and taking
position on high ground on the banks of Stones River, and crowned
it with a number of batteries--fifty-seven pieces--well protected,
awaiting the movement of General Bragg. On the first day of January
he attacked this well-fortified place of the enemy with the single
division of General Breckenridge. After a most gallant assault by
Breckenridge, he was repulsed with heavy loss. That night the cavalry
of Wheeler occupied the works of the infantry when they withdrew
toward Shelbyville. General Bragg, it seems, had sent off during
this lull in movements all of his wounded and the prisoners he had
taken. At daylight on the 2d of January, 1863, Wheeler’s cavalry also
withdrew, following the infantry toward Shelbyville. No pursuit was
made. The Federals were as much surprised as the Confederates at the
result, and it was sometime during the day before they could realize
the fact of the withdrawal of Bragg’s troops. Much adverse criticism
was made of General Bragg’s failure to take advantage of the victory
he had obtained in the first days of the battle, and especially of
the assault he made against the well-prepared works of the enemy,
when it should have been with his entire army instead of a single
division. Such was the opinion of the humblest soldier in his army.