GENERAL JOSEPH WHEELER’S RAID INTO TENNESSEE, FALL OF 1863
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 war, and assigns its
masterful leader and its no less masterful men a very high place
among the world’s cavalry heroes. Hard riders, fierce fighters,
insensible to fear, they hesitated at no undertaking assigned them,
and they never questioned, but were glad to go where their gallant
leader bade them march.
Wheeler, himself, seemed immune from death. Engaged in two hundred
battles and in six hundred skirmishes or smaller conflicts, he
escaped injury. Like Forrest, he led wherever he was present, and he
never hesitated to charge any line or assail any force that came his
way.
A partisan cavalry leader can never know fear or doubt. His chiefest
hope of success is based on the surprise of his foes, and quick,
reckless dash and bold onslaughts make up oftentimes for lack of
numbers. A soldier, who at twenty-five years of age had risen to be
a brigadier general, at twenty-six, a major general and commander of
a corps, and a lieutenant general at twenty-eight, and achieved such
great success and renown as General Wheeler, could neither be the
product of favoritism nor the output of accidental promotion. Behind
such rapid advancement, there must have been magnificent genius,
coupled with the fullest improvement of every opportunity that
crossed his path. He had no real failure in his career. Victory after
victory came to him as if sent by a biased fate; and a calm review of
his life by a just and impartial critic must force to the conclusion
that he was one of the most remarkable men of the wonderful period in
which he acted.
The Battle of Chickamauga, one of the fiercest of the great conflicts
of the war, was marked by an unyielding courage, a sullen and intense
obstinacy on both sides. That engagement again proclaimed the
determination of both sides to fight out the issues which the war
involved, until one or both antagonists, in the awful destruction of
men and resources, should be unable to longer continue the struggle.
The results, beyond the immediate relief from pressing invasion,
certainly did not compensate the Confederate armies for the dreadful
loss Chickamauga involved. Whether the Confederate leaders thoroughly
improved the partial advantages gained will remain an open question,
but the outcome imposed upon the Confederate cavalry new and greater
labors, which all history will declare were met with a courage and
enterprise, which added new laurels to their hitherto nobly earned
fame.
With Chattanooga still in possession, and with the Tennessee River
behind them, the Federal armies now were to face one of war’s most
dreadful foes. Hunger is a most potent general that no antagonist
chieftain can ignore. Supplies for the Federal armies were to reach
them either by the Tennessee River, or by the wagon trains starting
from points on the railroad, operated from the territory north in
Tennessee, and against these slow and tedious methods of feeding an
army, the Confederate cavalry were now turned loose, to burn, scatter
and destroy.
General Wheeler was given the entire command of the Southern horsemen
operating in this territory. Barely twenty-seven years of age, wisely
or unwisely, he was given prominence over Forrest and other cavalry
leaders, who had on many fields demonstrated dazzling genius and
exhibited sublime courage. Brave and patriotic as were the armies
of the Tennessee Department, yet as always where human ambitions
and services are involved, jealousy is bound to arise, and no sixty
thousand men can be aligned under a flag for any cause, where some
differences will not occur and where in leadership and assignments
some animosities will not arise. Some men are born to lead and some
to follow, and neither in Virginia, Tennessee, nor in the farther
West were the soldiers of the Confederacy exempt from those ills that
ever attend army organizations. This was somewhat intensified in the
army of Tennessee, which by the summer of 1863 had developed three
great cavalry leaders, Wheeler, Morgan and Forrest. General Wheeler’s
youth made against him in the consolidation of the cavalry by General
Bragg. His real virtues were obscured by the suggestion that his
almost unparalleled advance over the older men was the result of
official partiality, and not the just outcome of military skill
and his achievements. For a long while, this unfortunate condition
hampered both Generals Forrest and Wheeler. General Bragg saw the
solution of this most serious problem later and removed it so far
as he could, but there are those who think he unduly delayed action
in so critical a period and where transcendent opportunities were
at hand. With such a leader as General Forrest, at the time of the
October raid (which was led by General Wheeler), also turned upon the
enemy’s line of communication, it appeared to the men of that time
that only one result could have come to Rosecrans’ army, and that
would have been practical starvation and annihilation.
These personal differences were at the most acute stage when General
Wheeler was assigned a difficult and almost impossible task. It
is but fair to General Wheeler to say that, under these trying
circumstances, he acquitted himself with most commendable modesty
and delicate tact and, except in so far as he was required by
unpleasant orders, he did nothing to add to the seriousness of the
complications then existing. He was to accomplish a Herculean task,
one involving supreme risks to his own command and to General Bragg’s
entire army. The capture of General Wheeler’s cavalry at that time
meant calamitous results to the cause of the Confederacy,—reckless
courage, untiring work and supreme daring, with quickest perception
and thorough comprehension of surrounding conditions, made the call
upon the young general such as had never come to a man of his age
before.
The events succeeding the Battle of Chickamauga had placed upon
all the cavalry, under General Bragg, demands that were wellnigh
insupportable and which involved personal privations and soldierly
effort, which few men could endure. Both men and beasts had felt the
burden of these tremendous exactions during this brief but important
period. Less than two weeks had elapsed since that great engagement,
and from the horror of its closing scenes the cavalry, led by
Generals Forrest and Wheeler, had known neither rest nor release from
diligent and vigilant service.
Horses, unshod and broken down, driven to the limit of endurance;
men, illy fed and emaciated by the demand of those horrible
hours, were allowed no season of quiet, so necessary for physical
recuperation. Pity for their beasts, rendered dear to them by common
sacrifice and common danger, had a depressing effect upon the minds
of even those brave soldiers, now well trained to the difficulties
which war brings to every brave soul.
It was under these circumstances that General Bragg called upon
General Wheeler to cross the Tennessee and destroy the wagon trains,
which in long white lines dotted every road north of Chattanooga and
upon which, for food and ammunition, the Union forces were compelled
to rely. Calling his subordinates, and explaining to them the work
that General Bragg had mapped out, almost without exception they
pleaded for mercy to man and beast and for a brief season of rest
before such arduous and difficult tasks were assumed. Not a few
declared that it was impossible to meet such demands and that to
require such service, under existing circumstances, was not only
unwise but inhumane.
One of General Wheeler’s marked characteristics was absolute
obedience to orders, and he never permitted anything short of the
impossible to prevent their fulfillment. The quick answer to all
these objections was a general order to his command to prepare for
the raid and to cross the Tennessee River at once. In the early dawn,
with less than two thousand men, he forced a passage of the river
at Cottonport, thirty miles east of Chattanooga, in the face of a
force twice as large as his own, and with such vigor did he press the
enemy, who stood in his pathway, that he captured more than a hundred
prisoners and brushed them aside from his chosen line, as the wind
drives straw from its path.
Before the shades of night came on, two brigades under peremptory
orders joined him. They promptly followed in the path that he had
opened, and now, with three thousand eight hundred jaded horses and
tired men and a limited supply of ammunition, he stood alone, defying
a great army both in his rear and his front, and with a mighty river
flowing between him and his supports and comrades.
No soldier heart ever faced more difficult conditions or assumed
greater responsibility, and none ever met them with calmer courage or
more cheerful complacence. His men measured up to the demand of their
leader. In the past they had always taken care of themselves when
beset by enemies and danger, and now, under the valiant leadership of
General Wheeler, sustained by their indomitable will and unfailing
gallantry, they believed that in the end all would be well.
[Illustration: WHEELER BURNING FEDERAL WAGON TRAINS, SEQUATCHIE
VALLEY, JULY, 1862]
If there were hesitation and doubt, these were immediately flung to
the winds. There was no time to scan the darkening horizon. Gloomy
enough was the outlook if they listened to fear, but fear these
gallant men had never known. Some spoke of disaster, but the orders
of their superior stood out before the mind, and misgivings were
quickly drowned by the prospect of vigorous action. The brave man,
seeing danger, braces himself to face it and with resourceful powers
lays his plans to avoid it. General Wheeler’s pessimistic advisers
pointed out the consequences of failure and gave expression to
their serious fears of the result of so hazardous and so uncertain
a movement. Caution suggested to turn back while the way was open,
but General Roddy, with his brigade, had crossed the river some
miles below, and if all the enemy should concentrate upon him, they
would annihilate his command. The cavalry leaders of the Confederacy
were always faithful in the succor of their comrades, and no danger
could deter them from going to the help of those who were sorely
pressed. Stuart, Morgan, Forrest, Wheeler, Marmaduke, Shelby and
Hampton never forgot this cardinal principle of cavalry faith; and
Wheeler declared that he would not desert Roddy in this emergency
because of any risk that was open before his vision, and bidding
fears begone, he ordered a forward march through darkness of the
night in a drenching rain. He had encountered a Federal regiment of
cavalry and, pushing these aside, the appetites of his men, like
tigers tasting blood, were whetted for still fiercer work. On the
morning of October 2nd, hours before daylight came, he started out
in search of richest prey. One hour’s ride revealed the presence of
thirty-two wagons and two hundred mules and horses. There was nothing
General Wheeler’s command needed more than horses, and those welcome
additions to his mounts were to his troopers sure omen of greater
victories. This capture was concluded before the full orb of day had
come to cheer the victorious marchers. As the sun in glory rose over
the mountain tops, from a lofty elevation, there burst upon the view
of Wheeler and his followers a panorama of beauty and joy. Twelve
hundred wagons, with their covers whitened as snow, spread like a
gleam of silver down through the valley and across the hillsides and
over the mountain ridges, were crawling along the highway, laden with
supplies of the most tempting kind and weighted down with ammunition,
designed to take the lives of the men in gray, brothers of Wheeler’s
followers, who across the Tennessee were holding in check the Federal
army invading the Southland.
To many starving men, with but scant supplies in their cartridge
boxes, and still scanter in their haversacks, and now already aware
of the but short delayed breaking down of the steeds they were
astride, this scene presented an enrapturing vision.
But this glowing perspective had in it a gruesome and darkening
setting. A brigade of Federal cavalry marched in its van and another
in its rear, and to make the work still more repellent, a brigade of
infantry marched alongside its huge serpentine body and behind the
infantry rode a third brigade of cavalry, all intent upon the safe
delivery of this precious cargo to the Federal army, a few miles
away, camped beside the Tennessee River.
These Confederates had come out to hunt the tiger, and it was no
unreasonable or traitorous thought to fear that the conditions
might be reversed and at the end, the tiger might hunt them. What
Wheeler had searched for, Wheeler had found. The game was tempting
if dangerous to play, and when Wheeler, in the past, had come upon
the object of his search, he had never before in all his marches
and campaigns let it escape without a fight. There was neither time
nor occasion for arguing with fear. True, he was outnumbered two to
one, but he had never before counted that too great odds to grapple,
and so without even hesitation, he bade his following go in. It was
a long space, and many times the Federal guard could not protect
at every point—it measured at least twelve miles. Three columns
simultaneously broke in upon the slender line. The teamsters, never
very brave, terrified by the shout of battle and the din of rifle
and pistol shots, sought safety amidst the cargoes of the wagons, or
springing from the mules, ensconced themselves in the depth of the
surrounding hills and mountains and, from behind stones and trees,
watched the struggle for the ownership of the huge train they had
believed to be safe from any onslaught. Contact with the foe had
been so quick and so unsuspected that neither they nor their soldier
friends had opportunity for introspection, to figure out just what
was best to be done under the supreme scare that had without warning
pressed upon their minds. The Federal guards were not disposed to run
away without a fight. They had no time to mass and General Wheeler
gave them no opportunity of combining, so as to get the fullest
advantage of numbers, and in hammer and tong style both sides went
at each other, by gage of battle, to determine who should have
the immensely valuable train. The Confederates were a real hungry
lot, and their supply of horses greatly limited. They much desired
bread and steeds to ride, and the need of something with which to
shoot gave vigor to their every movement. Hunger and the possible
contingency of walking are a great incentive to a horseman’s fighting
qualities, and for two hours the contest went vigorously on. In this
case the hungriest were the gamest. They had also before their minds
a well-defined fear of languishing in northern prisons, in case they
failed to win, and with all this flood of thoughts coursing through
their minds, the men in gray fought with a desperation that presaged
victory, and after two hours the Federal guards gave up the contest
and retreated from the scene of struggle. With a thousand prisoners
in the hands of the ragged, hungry, reckless Confederate soldiers,
the whole wagon train was at their mercy. The victory won, the
savage work of destruction was now at hand. War, always dreadful, was
now to witness most distressful scenes. The imagination of countrymen
and frightened teamsters magnified the number of wagons composing
this immense train. Some said three thousand, some two thousand,
but it certainly contained more than one thousand, not counting the
sutlers, who, under the protection of this numerous military convoy,
were seeking the front to realize large profits from hunger and want
which depleted army supplies would pour into their capacious and
avaricious coffers.
As General Wheeler had not much more than two men to each wagon to
be destroyed, the burning of these became a gigantic task. The story
of the engagement would soon be noised about. Swift-riding couriers
would carry the details of the disaster and in a short while, Federal
reinforcement would be at hand to punish these adventurous and daring
horsemen, who in apparent disregard of both prudence and wisdom had
journeyed so far from their supports and so recklessly undertaken to
operate in the rear of a great army, which had two and a half times
as much cavalry as those bold raiders numbered and enough infantry
to watch and guard every ford across which they might undertake,
in their return to their own army, to reach the south bank of the
Tennessee. Needed supplies were quickly pulled from the horseless
wagons, rifles and ammunition were seized from prisoners or hunted in
the depths of the “Prairie Schooners,” and then the torch began its
baneful work. Wagons, mules and mounts for the victorious horsemen
were safely corralled. Mules, now as the engines for handling
supplies, had become contraband of war. The dumb, helpless creatures
were ready to adopt the victors as their masters and, without raising
constitutional question of the relation of the States to the Federal
government, would patiently take upon themselves the tasks and hunger
that the new ownership would demand. They could help the enemy, they
meant loss to the Federal treasury, they looked with their innocent
and inoffensive eyes into the faces of the powder-grimed captors
and seemed in their docility to plead for life and toil beyond the
Tennessee River, in the wagon train of the army that had risked so
much in the change of their ownership. Selecting the strongest, the
largest and best fed for use, the remainder were doomed to death.
All things, animate and inanimate, which could help the foe must be
destroyed. The supply wagons were all fired, the ammunition wagons
were reserved for later action. The smoke of burning timbers, cotton
covers and harness sent up a huge signal that betrayed the presence
of an adventurous foe and wrote upon the very heavens that fiercest
destruction was turned loose. This warning could not be stayed and
so, if escape was meditated, quick work must go on. The helpless
brutes were led aside, and those which were not to serve the new
master were condemned to a speedy death. A rifle ball at close range
was driven into the hearts of the beasts, or, held by the bridle,
a sharp bowie knife was drawn across their throats. The command
withdrew to a safe distance. A few chosen messengers were sent to
fire the wagons containing the ammunition. A feeble, flickering flame
started as the Confederate destroyers ran to each wagon and touched
its inflammable tops and sides, and then, with a speed quickened
by the fear of a fierce explosion, the torch bearers fled in haste
from the coming dangers, inevitable from a combustible outbreak.
General Rosecrans, when the huge column of smoke stood out against
the sky, seeming to pierce its very battlements, promptly sent out
reinforcements to help the guards who had in their custody treasures
of food, more valuable to his armies than a treasury filled with
gold. The Confederate horsemen stood these off until eight hours had
elapsed from the time of capture. The whole earth seemed to feel the
vibration of the millions of cartridges that were exploding with
the fierce heat, and the bursting of thousands of shells filled the
atmosphere with their hissing tongues of fire and shook the earth
with their ceaseless detonations.
Ere the sun, which rose in splendor upon the mighty train, as it
wound its way to the relief of its friends and owners, had set
behind the mountain height on its western side, the savage work of
destruction was accomplished. Its defenders were scattered. Its
beauty had vanished, only ashes and carcasses told the story of its
greatness and its destruction, and darkness closed in about the weird
surroundings, and the fateful events of the day were ended; and
Wheeler and his men, happy in victory, well supplied, and with a new
crown of laurels, in the stillness of the night rode away in search
of other and new adventures and in quest of more glory and increasing
fame.