xt7dfn10pc80 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7dfn10pc80/data/mets.xml Young, Bennett Henderson, 1843-1919. 1914 books b92-104-27766201 English Chapple, : Boston : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Confederate States of America. Army. Cavalry. United States History Civil War, 1861-1865 Cavalry operations. Confederate wizards of the saddle : being reminiscences and observations of one who rode with Morgan / by Bennett H. Young. text Confederate wizards of the saddle : being reminiscences and observations of one who rode with Morgan / by Bennett H. Young. 1914 2002 true xt7dfn10pc80 section xt7dfn10pc80

( ............. lVIt4( /sJ I. 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
Chapple Publishing Company, Ltd.
1914

brbirateb

Mamlen of the vutk

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

This page in the original text is blank.

CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTERI ............. .I.... .
FORREST AT BRYCES CROSS-ROADS, JUNE 1GTH, 1864

CHAPTER II ............. .... . 42
GENERAL HAMPTON'S CATTLE RAID, SEPTEMIBER, 1864

CHAPTER III .......... .... . . . 60
KENTUCKY CAVALRY FIGHTING WITH ROCKS, DoTG CREEK
GAP, MAY 8-9, 1864

CHAPTER I. . . ... 82
GENERAL JOSEPH WHEELER'S RAID INTO TEXNESSEE,
FALL OF 1863

CHAPTER V ... ... . . . .. 95
GENERAL JOHN H. MIORGAN S RAID INTO KENTUCKY,
JTLY -28, 1862

CHAPTERVI ... . 126
FORRESTS'S RAID INTO WEST TENNESSEE, DECEMBER, 1862

CHAPTER II ... 155
TEXAS HORSEMEN OF THE SEA, IN GALVESTON HARBOR,
JANUARY, 1863

CHAPTER VIII. . . . . ... 171
COLONEL ROY S. CLUKE'S KENTUCKY RAID, FEBRUARY-
MARCH, I1863

CHAPTER IX. . . ... . 195
SHEI.BY'S MISSOURI RAID, SEPTEMBER, 1863

CHAPTER X . .... ........... .. 2122
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
'Ii

viii CONTENTS
PAoPr
CHAPTER XIII ...... .. ........ 296
CAVALRY EXPEDITION OF THE TEXANS INTO NEW MEX-
iCo, WINTER, 1861-62

CHAPTER XIV .... . . . . . . . . . . . .316
GENERAL J. E. B. STUART'S RIDE AROUND MCCLELLAN'S
ARMY-CHICKAHOMiNY RAID, JUNE 12-15, 1863

CHAPTER XV ............... . .3.37
BATTLE AND CAMPAIGN OF TREVILIAN STATION, JUNE 11TH
AND 12TH, 1864

CHAPTER XVI .6.7.... . . . . . . . . . . . 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 XV1III .... . . . . . . . . . . . 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 ..3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .532
GENERAL J. E. B. STUART'S CHIAMBERSBuRr; RAID, OCTO-
BER 9, 1862

CHAPTER XXII ..5. 537
GENERAL JOHN B. MARMADUKE'S "CAPE GIRARDEAU
RAID," APRIL, 1863

CHAPTER XXIII .... . . . . . . . . . . 564
GENERAL WVHEELER'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 II. YOUNG .... Frontispiece
Commander-in-Chief, U. ('. V.
F ACIXO PAGE
MAP OF BRYCE'S CROSS ROADS. . . . 8
PORTRAITS OF GENERAL ABRAM BUFORD,
CAPTAIN 'MORTON AND GENERAL LYON, 24
FIGHTING AT BRY(E'S CROSS-ROADS . . . 40
PORTRAIT: GENERAL WADE HAMIPTON . . 56
KENTUCKY CAVALRY FIGHTING WITH
ROCKS .. . . .. . . . 72
WHEELER Blt':RNING FEDERAL WAGON
TRAINS, SEQUATCHIE VALLEY, JULY, 1862 88
PORTRAIT: GENERAL JOHN 11. 'MORGAN. . 104
In lhc earl!/ part of the WI'ar
MAP OF FORREST'S RAID INTO TENNES-
SEE, I)ECEM1BER, 186i. 13-2
PORTRAIT: GENERAL NATHAN BEDFORD
FORREST .1.50
PORTRAIT: GENERAL JOHN B. MAGRUDER. 166
PORTRAIT: GENERAL BENNETT HI. YOUNG . 182
What fifty years have done for the C'ommander-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
ix

ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING PAGTE
MAP OF STUART'S RIDE AROUND Mc-
CLELLAN .3....... .. .. .. .. . . 322
PORTRAIT: GENERAL WADE HAMPTON . . 354
MAP OF MIORGAN'S RIDE AROUND CIN-
CINNATI .................. 376
PORTRAIT: IMAJOR A. E. RICHARDS ... . 400
Commanding losby's men at .11t. Carnml fight
MAP SHOWING APPROXIMATELY NIOR-
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
WISDOMI'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 cIcCOOK, 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 pilrJ)ose, 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 MNarmaduke, 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 Roseerans, 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 '64, 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 he 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.
Shelby's Raid into Missouri in September, 1863, which
lasted thirty-six (lays and involved marching fifteen hundred
miles, an average of thirty miles per day, is a story of extra-
ordinary skill and endurance.
Stuart's Chickahominy raid around 'McClellan's army,
his march to Chambersburg and return, and the Battle of
Fleetwood Hill will ever command the admiration of cavalry
students.
Hampton's Trevilian campaign, his cattle raid, and the
management of General Lee's cavalry before Petersburg
point to him as a leader of wondrous enterprise, a soldier of
unbounded daring and a strategist of great ability.
The cavalry generals who have been chosen as the chief
subjects of this book all possessed, in a remarkable degree,
the power of winning the confidence of their followers and

xlv

FOREWORD

their loyal support under all circumstances. With Hampton,
men followed wherever he led, they never reasoned why they
should go, they only asked that they be informed as to the
will of their leader. And so it was true of Morgan, Stuart,
Forrest, Shelby and Wheeler. They all had the absolute
trust of their followers. No man beneath them in command
ever questioned their wisdom or their judgment in battle or
march. Bult when it calue to inspiring men with the spirit
of ahsolutc indifference to death and relentlessness in the
pursuit of the enemy, few would deny that Nathan Bedford
Forrest did this more effectively than any leader who was
engaged in the struggle. Generals Lee, Stonewall Jackson,
Albert Sidney Johnson, Joseph E. Johnston always com-
manded the respect, devotion, love and admiration of their
soldiers to such an extent that at any time they would have
marched into the very jaws of death, under their leadership;
but those who study the life and the extent of Nathan Bed-
ford Forrest's achievements will generally agree that in
inspiring his soldiers to fierce, persistent battle and absolute
indifference in conflict, few, if any, equalled him, none sur-
passed hin. The conduct of his soldiers at Bryce's Cross-
roads, where he fought first cavalry and then infantry,
sometimes mounted, most generally on foot, would show
that lhe could exact from men as superb service as any soldier
who ever led his followers into battle.
This suggestion as to Forrest does not detract from the
glory of ally other Confederate leader. We meet this almost
hypnotic influence in many phases of life other than military.
Those who study the actions and characteristics of General
Forrest and who looked upon the faces of the men following
him could but realize that by his bearing, example and
dash he got the best and bravest that it was possible for
human nature in war to give.
Romance, patriotism and love of adventure inspired the
cavalry of the Confederacy to follow their renowned leaders.
No man who has calmly read the stories of the conflicts and
marches of the Army of Northern Virginia, or the Army of

FOREWORD

Tennessee, or of the Army of the Tranis-Mississippi Depart-
ment can fail to be filled with wonder at the duties the
soldiers of these armies so cheerfully and so willingly per-
formed. Without pay, illy clad and poorly fed, yet they
were always brave. Though hungry in battle they were
always courageous; and in conflict they had only one aim,
and that was to defend their country and destroy its enemies.
There was much in the narratives of the South's past to
inspire cavalrymen with Lighthorse Harry Lee valor. Their
fathers and grandfathers had ridden with Marion and
Sumpter, had fought with Shelby, Preston, Sevier and
Campbell at King's Mountain, or had gone with Isaac
Shelby and General Harrison into Canada to fight the Bat-
tle of the Thames, or composed the dragoons who had gone
with Scott and Taylor to Mexico. The boys and young men
of the South had read and reread the accounts of what
these horsemen of the long ago had accomplished, of the
dangers they had faced and the laurels they had won, and
these records of a splendid past filled their hearts with
deepest love of their country, and fired their souls to make
achievements the equal of those of their renowned ancestry.
The most romantic and chivalrous side of both the Revolu-
tionary War and the War of 18112 had their happenings
with horsemen, and the most of those were either on the
Southern soil or came from the states which sympathized
with the South.
It was this anteceelent history that gave such impetus to
the Confederate youth to find, if possible, a place in the cav-
alry. The men of the South were not only familiar with the
use of firearms, but a majority of them were skilled horsemen,
and these two things combined brought to the Confederate
cavalry volunteers, active, adventurous, daring, reckless,
vigilant, chivalrous soldiers that were bound to perform the
highest type of military work.
In the American war, cavalry was to change its arms,
the sabre was to be almost entirely eliminated. In its place
was to come the revolver and the repeating rifle, the magazine

Xvi

FOREWORD

gun and the short Enfield. The holsters were to be aban-
doned. Instead, the belt with the six shooters and the sixty
rounds of ammunition. These new cavalrymen were not only
to serve as scouts, but to act as infantry, to cover military
movements, to destroy the lines of communication, to burn
stores, to tear up lines of railway, to gather supplies, to fight
gunboats, capture transports; all these without any equip-
ment of any kind, except their horses, their arms and some
horse artillery of limited range. In a large part, they were to
feed in the enemy's country, rely upon their foes for arms
and ammunition. They were to have no tents; no wagons,
except for ammunition; no cooking utensils, other than a
wrought iron skillet. These, with canteens and food found
on the march, were to prove their only means of subsistence.
They were to be trained to ride incessantly, charge stockades,
capture forts, take their place alongside of the infantry on
the battle line, and to build or defend hastily constructed
fortifications. No cavalry before had performed these
services and none will ever perform them again. The newer
conditions of warfare will change altogether the work that
will be required of cavalry. The improvement in firearms,
particularly in the artillery, would render the oldtime cavalry
superfluous and its use, under the past methods, a simple
slaughter without benefit.
These men, carried by horses with great celerity from
place to place, were to perform a distinct and different service
in war; sometimes in a single night they would march fifty
miles. Sometimes in a day they would march seventy-five to
ninety miles. They would destroy stores of supplies, wreck
railroads, burn water stations, demolish trestles, attack and
burn wagon trains. Their best living was to be obtained by
victory and the popular application to the fortunes of war
the maxim-"That they should take who have the power,
and they should keep who can."
To fit them for such service, a new system of drill was
instituted; half cavalry and half infantry, fighting on foot, in
open rank; the charge on infantry on horseback was to be-

FOREWORD xvii

come practically obsolete. They were, if occasion demanded,
to be dismounted, fight in entrenchments alongside infantry,
and charge batteries and abattis, the same as the infantry.
With boundless energy, unlimited enthusiasm and a measure-
less love of adventure, the horseman was to meet these new
requirements and frequently do all that infantry could do
and, in addition, do what cavalry had never done before.
In the West, this combined and new call for cavalry obtained
its birth and hold and received its first and most successful
development. It is urged that to General John H. Morgan
and his followers ought to be accredited the application
and successful demonstration of these new methods, which
were to add such immense value to cavalry work. No com-
mander ever before undertook to commit such tasks to
horsemen. But the Southern soldier, who first developed
all these qualities and performed these varying tasks, was
to open for the Southern cavalry service an unlimited field
for harassing, delaying, starving and even destroying
opposing armies.
The marvelous endurance of the men who followed
Forrest and Stuart and Morgan and Wheeler and Hampton
and Shelby and Green and McCullough and Price has never
been equalled. Storms and floods had no terror for these.
No enemy was safe from their avenging hand and no vigilance
could defy their enterprise. There were no alarms in any
work for these brave and tireless riders. Single riders and
even small troops of cavalry had made marches of a hundred
miles in a day, but it remained for generals like Wheeler and
Morgan and Forrest and Stuart and Hampton and Shelby
and Marmaduke and Green to demonstrate the potency and
tremendous value of cavalry in war, and lengthen the possi-
bility of a day's march.
For the first two years of the conflict, the Confederate
cavalry were practically supreme. Their enemies were slow
to absorb these new methods and to apprehend the advan-
tages of this new system. Stuart's Chickahominy raid, his
march from Chambersburg; Morgan's two marches of a

FOREWORD

thousand miles each; Forrest's pursuit of Streight and his
raid into Kentucky and Tennessee, under the most adverse
physical difficulties, in midwinter or early spring, and his
ride into Memphis, read more like fairy stories than the
performance of men composed of flesh and blood. Wheeler's
raid in Rosecrans' rear, his expedition into East Tennessee
and the endurance of his men are almost incredible. These
do not read like the performance of real soldiers, but more
like the make-up of a military dreamer. One may call over
the names of the great battles of the war, either east or west
of the Mississippi River, and while the account of these
engagements lose none of their brilliancy in comparison with
those of any war, yet they cannot surpass, nor in some
respects equal, the work performed by the cavalry. Fleet-
wood Hill (Brandy Station) ,Trevilian Station, Hanging Fork,
Chambersburg, Hartsville, Cynthiana, Shiloh, Mt. Sterling,
Brvce's Cross-roads, Parker's Cross Roads and Dug Creek
Gap. Marmaduke's and Shelby's Missouri raids and the
pursuit of Stoneman, Garrard and McCook, during the At-
lanta siege, are stories of valor, endurance and sacrifice that
lose nothing in comparison with the deeds of any other
organization of the armies of the Confederate States. In
exposure, in daring, in physical privations, in patience, in
cheerfulness under defeat, in willingness to do and dare, the
horsemen of the Confederacy must always command the
admiration of those who study military records.
An unusual proportion of the Confederate cavalry came
from eight states,-Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee,
Texas, Alabama. Mississippi and South Carolina. When
we call the cavalry roll, its names awaken memories of some
of the most heroic deeds known among men. Every Con-
federate state furnished a full quota of horsemen, and none
of them failed to make good when the crucial test came.
Alabama sent into this branch of service Generals
William Wirt Allen, James Hogan, Moses WV. Hannon, John
Herbert Kelley, Evander M. Law, John T. Morgan and
P. D. Roddy.

...i

FOREWORD

xix

Kentucky furnished Generals Abram Buford, George B.
Cosby, Basil WV. Duke, Charles W. Field, James N. Hawes,
Ben Hardin Helm, George B. Hodge, Joseph H. Lewis,
Hylan B. Lyon, John 11. Morgan, John S. Williams, W. C. P.
Breckenridge and R. M. Gano.
Missouri brought as part of her offering Generals John S.
Marmaduke, Joseph 0. Shelby and John G. Walker.
Tennessee gave Frank C. Armstrong, Tyree H. Bell,
Alexander W. Caniphell, Henry 13. Davidson, George G.
Dibrell, Benjamin J. Hill, Wv. Y. C. Humes, WV. H. Jackson,
John C. Vaughn, Lucius M. Walker and Nathan Bedford
Forrest.
Mississippi sent Generals Wirt Adams, James H. Chal-
mers, Samuel G. Gohlson, WV. T. 'Martin, Peter B. Stark and
Earl Van Dorn.
Georgia, Generals Robert H. Anderson, Charles C. Crews,
Alfred Iverson, P. M. B. Young.
Florida, General G. 'I. Davis and Colonel J. J. Dickinson.
South Carolina, M. C. Butler, Thomas F. Drayton, John
Dunnovant, Samuel XV. Ferguson, Martin WV. Geary, Thomas
M. Logan, W\ade Hampton.
North Carolina gave Lawrence S. Baker, Rufus Barriger,
James B. Gordon, Robert Ransom, W\illiam Paul Roberts.
Maryland, Bradley T. Johnson and Joseph Lancaster
Brent (the latter only an acting brigadier).
XWest Virginia, W\illiam L. Jackson, Albert Gallatin
Jenkins, .John MeCausland.
Virginia, Turner Ashby, Richard L. T. Beale, John
Randolph Chambliss, James Dearing, John D. Imboden,
William E. Jones, Fitz Hugh Lee, XV. H. F. Lee, Lumsford L.
Lomax, Thomas Taylor Munfod, William Henry Fitzhugh
Payne, Beverly H. Robertson, Thomas L. Rosser, J. E. B.
Stuart, WVilliam C. WVickham.
Louisiana, Daniel XV. Adams, Franklin Gardner, Thomas
M. Scott.
Arkansas, W\illiam N. R. Beall, W'illiam L. Cabell, James
F. Fagan, James McQueen McIntosh.

FOREWORD

The Indian Territory, Stand Watie.
Texas, Arthur Pendleton Bagby, Hamilton P. Bee,
Xavier Blanchard De Bray, Thomas Green, W. P. Harde-
men, Thomas Hamson, Ben McCulloch, James P. Major,
Samuel-Bell MNaxcy, Horace Randal, Felix H. Robertson,
Lawrence Sullivan Ross, W. R. Scurry, William Steele,
Richard Waterhouse, John A. Wharton, John W. Whitfield.
This one book must, in the very nature of things, be
limited to a few hundred pages.
It does not and cannot undertake to tell all that was
glorious and courageous in the service of the men who led
and composed the Confederate cavalry. There will doubtless
be some who will ask why certain battles and experiences
were omitted. The author may have selected, in some in-
stances, what would appear to many critics and readers not
the most notable events in the Confederate cavalry work.
He may have inadvertently left out names that ought to
have been mentioned, campaigns that were of vast impor-
tance, and battles that were full of sublime sacrifice and
marked by the superbeat skill.
The book is written with the bias of a cavalry man. It
is written by a man who knows, by personal experience only,
some of the things that happened where Forrest, Wheeler
and Morgan fought. He only knew personally three of the
men whose leadership and skill are detailed in the book.
He never saw Stuart but once, and Forrest a few times,
but he loves the fame of all these splendid men and has
endeavored to do each the fullest justice.
There were one hundred and four Confederate generals,
from brigadier up, who at various times led the horsemen
of the South. A volume could be written of the services of
each. A majority of them were equally brave and valiant,
but fate decreed some should pass under the fiercest light,
and win from fame its most generous awards. It may be
that hereafter other volumes will be written to tell, if not who,
what the Confederate horsemen were. One of the chiefest
aims of this volume is to give Confederate cavalry leaders

FOREWORD

xxi

and their followers their just place in the history of the great
war. There is neither purpose nor desire to take aught from
any other branch of the service. The Confederate infantry,
artillery and navy have each a distinct place in the struggle
of the South for its national life. Every Confederate loves
every other Confederate and glories in all that he did to
win the immortality of the Confederate armies. The cavalry-
man asks that his work may be recognized and that his
proper place shall be assigned him in the phalanxes of the
brave who stood for Southern independence. He covets
none of the fame that justly belongs to his comrades in other
lines. He only seeks that what he did may be honestly told,
and his achievements be truly recorded. He feels that he
did the best that he could and that he is entitled to a com-
plete narrative of that which he did and endeavored to do
for his country. He does not claim that he was braver or
more patriotic than his comrades who fought in other de-
partments. Lie only asks that the world may know the
dangers he had faced, the difficulties he overcame, the sacri-
fices he made, the sufferings he endured and the results his
work accomplished. A true account is his only demand, and
all the world will feel that this is his right.
The writer may not always be literally accurate in the
things he undertakes to recount in this book about Southern
cavalry. He may here and there have made slight mistakes
in the description of the marches and battles he has essayed
to describe. Relying upon books and participants, he could
not always get the things just as they occurred. Eye wit-
nesses often differ in discussing the same occurrence. There
are hundreds of dates and names recorded in these pages.
Error must have crept in, hut in the main the history is what
really happened, and these happenings alone will give Con-
federate cav-alry fame and renown in all ages and amongst all
nations.
They make up a great history of great leaders and valiant
soldiers, and they must surely add something to the store of
hunman heroism.

XXIi

FORI:WORI1

There is no desire to depreciate what men on the other side
did. In the later years of the war, the Federal cavalry appre-
hended the tactics and the methods of Confederate horsemen,
and they became foemen worthy of any steel. The third year
of the struggle, the mounts of the Southern cavalry became
less efficient and the disparity in arms and supplies more
and more depressing amongst the Confederates. The Federal
generals undertook then to cut Confederate lines of com-
munication, and to destroy their commissary depots and to
disrupt railway transportation. In such work, in 1864 and
1865, they laid heaviest burdens on the Confederate cavalry;
and in many instances the jaded and starving horses, the
illy-fed men, their scanty supply of ammunition put them
at great disadvantage, but they were, in face of all these
difficulties, game, vigilant, aggressive, enterprising and de-
fiant to the end; and from April, 1864, to April, 1865, there
was nothing more brilliant nor historic than the work of the
Confederate horsemen, performed under the most unfavor-
able conditions, to stay the tide of Federal advance and
success and to maintain to the end their nation's hope and
their nation's life.
If the sketches these pages contain shall add one leaf
to the Confederate Laurel Wreath, or bring to Confederate
fame fuller recognition, the author will be many times repaid
for the labor, expense and time expended in their preparation.
BENN ETF H. YOUNG.
Louisville, Kentucky.
1914.

CHAPTER I

FORREST AT BRYCE'S CROSS ROADS
JUNE 10TH, 1864

THE spring and summner of 1864 in Virginia,
TTennessee, 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 move-
ments 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.
After three years of constant fighting, their soldiers
were more thoroughly inured to the hardships of war,
better trained to face its dangers, and men on both
sides exhibited a recklessness in facing death which
marked the highest tide of courage.
Early in the war the cavalry became one of the
I

2 WIIZARDS OF THE SADDLE

most effective arms of the agencies of the Confederates.
With the vast territory in the WIest defended by the
Confederacy, with a frontier line twenty-five hundred
miles in extent, the marching speed of which mounted
men are capable, the cavalry of the South, at this
period, enabled them to do more, man for man, than
any arm of the South's defenders