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THE CAPTURE OF MONTGOMERY
General Wilson’s command remained at Selma about a week, making active preparations for its next stroke, which was to be against Montgomery, the former capital of the Confederacy. It was necessary to prepare a thousand feet of bridging to cross the Alabama River, then at flood tide and filled with floating débris. Equipments of every kind were looked after and the most careful refitting of the whole command took place, the Confederate stores taken offering abundant facilities for such important work. There had been horses enough captured to mount the whole command, together with a very considerable force of negroes for fatigue purposes. With Croxton’s brigade detached and moving by a circuitous route from central Alabama, through northern Georgia toward Macon, the final objective, the force of the main column was reduced to 11,000 men.
Upon reaching the outskirts of Montgomery they were met by the officials of the town and leading citizens, offering surrender without conditions. Then followed an astonishment for the people of this capital. The whole force, marching in close column, with its flags unfurled and music playing, made its way into and through the city without a marauder leaving its column or a soldier entering a private house in any quarter uninvited. And, so far as information came to the officers of the command, not an insulting word was spoken. The main portion of the command camped in the vicinity of the city, while its advance continued rapidly toward Columbus, skirmishing with the retreating enemy. There was a very considerable capture of steamboats loaded with military supplies at Montgomery. The halt there, however, was only for the night, and the next day the main column moved with the greatest celerity so as to secure a bridge for crossing the Chattahoochee either at Columbus on the direct road to Macon, or at West Point, further up the river.
By rapid movements, and bold and most brilliant fighting, both the bridge at Columbus and that at West Point were captured. Though both were prepared for burning and protected by heavy fortifications well manned by a defending force, the attacks against these were pushed so vigorously as to make it impossible for the enemy to fire them.
The bridge-head at West Point was protected by a strong redoubt with a deep ditch mounting two guns, one a thirty-two pounder, and the work manned by 265 men. This was twice attacked by direct assault, and carried the second time. The captures were 3 guns, 500 stands of small arms, 19 locomotive engines, and 240 cars loaded with army supplies, but the greatest importance of securing a crossing at West Point was that it opened a way direct to Macon, which could be used for the entire cavalry corps in case the attack at Columbus should fail.
The main column arrived at Girard, a small town opposite Columbus, early in the afternoon, finding a heavy line of fortifications protecting three bridges across the Chattahoochee. Under a vigorous attack upon the lower bridge the Confederates found it impossible to save it from capture unless it was destroyed, and set fire to the cotton and turpentine with which it had been prepared for burning.
It was then decided to make a night attack upon the central bridge, and the troops were arranged for this desperate work. The lines were very quietly formed, and moved up to within range of the intrenchments, and at a signal the assault began. The works were found to be strong and thoroughly protected with ditches and slashed timber. The enemy, while watchful, was not expecting a night assault from troops that had not reconnoitered the fortifications by daylight. They opened fire upon the charging columns, but in the darkness it was necessarily wild and uncertain.
The Union troops went over the works at many points, and all rushed in haste toward the bridge, which was the objective point of the attack. It was one of the most desperate and persistent night fights of the war, but so thoroughly organized was the attacking force that in spite of the darkness and confusion it was able to move with sufficient unity to preserve its columns and formations. Upon the penetration of the works both Union and Confederate soldiers swept over the bridge toward Columbus, and this was so crowded with the men of both forces that the enemy holding the works at the east end of the bridge, and commanding it with artillery, were restrained from firing till the Union forces made a rush upon them and gained possession, and Columbus was in full possession of General Wilson’s forces.
The next morning it was ascertained that the works had been manned and defended by 3000 Georgia militia under Generals Howell Cobb and Toombs. The capture of the city resulted in the destruction of a great quantity of war material, over 60 guns, the ram Jackson, mounting 6 guns, a large number of small arms, 125,000 bales of cotton, 15 locomotives, 250 cars, a navy yard and armory, 2 rolling mills, 1 arsenal and nitre works, 2 powder magazines, 2 iron works, 3 foundries, 10 mills and factories turning out war material, 100,000 rounds of artillery ammunition, and a great quantity of machinery used in the manufacture of war material.
THE CAVALRY AT COLUMBUS
Columbus was the great manufacturing center of the Confederacy, and this destruction inflicted irreparable damage. While little was known at the North of this sweep of Wilson’s columns through the industrial centers and military storehouses of the Confederacy, it is easy to understand that these fatal blows at vital points of interior military supply added to the demoralization and discouragement attending the evacuation of Richmond and the gathering storm about the armies of Lee and Johnson.
The column moved swiftly for Macon, and about eighteen miles out from it the officer in advance was met with a flag of truce carrying a note from General Beauregard notifying the commander of the forces of General Sherman’s truce with General Johnston, stating that an agreement had been entered upon that the contending forces were to occupy their present positions till forty-eight hours’ notice had been given of the resumption of hostilities. As General Wilson was eight or ten miles in the rear with his main command, the note was sent to him, and the officer in the advance pushed to and into Macon, taking possession of the city. When General Wilson arrived in the city he went at once to the city hall, where Generals Howell Cobb, Gustavus W. Smith, and others had been confined. General Cobb demanded that he and his command should be released, and that General Wilson should retire to where the flag of truce had met his advance. General Wilson declared that after receiving the note he had lost no time in pushing on to the head of his column, and found it in full possession of the city. He could not accept notification of a truce through the Confederate authorities, as they were not his channel of communication with General Sherman, and ended the conference by a positive refusal to acknowledge the armistice, to retire from the town, or to release his prisoners. When he announced this decision he said to General Cobb that he could conceive of but one adequate reason for the truce, and that was that Lee’s army had surrendered. Cobb, however, declined to give any information, but General Smith, to whom Wilson addressed the same remark, answered that Lee had surrendered, and that peace would soon follow. Thereupon General Wilson announced his decision to remain at Macon and conduct his future operations upon the principle that every man killed thereafter was a man murdered.
This interview was held on the 20th of April just before midnight, and was the first definite knowledge which Wilson’s column had obtained of the events which had occurred in Virginia.
The surrender at Macon included a large number of small guns and a great quantity of military stores and supplies. The next day the Confederate authorities opened communication over their own telegraph lines between Wilson and Sherman, and the former received orders from the latter to desist from hostilities pending an armistice. Soon after he received orders from the Secretary of War, through Thomas, to disregard this armistice and resume operations, but before this order reached him he learned that Johnston had surrendered all the Confederate forces east of the Mississippi, and that peace was assured.
The closing act of General Wilson’s campaign was the capture of Jefferson Davis by regiments from his command. Thus ended the most noted cavalry movement of the war.
The above is of necessity a very concise presentation of the salient points of General Wilson’s remarkable campaign, conducted alone by mounted troops. It is not claimed that the account is new. I have published it heretofore in extended form, though not in the press. This briefer story cannot but be a repetition of the facts and a synopsis of the fuller statement of them. It is a chapter in our war history than which no other is more replete with thrilling and brilliant incident, with skillful planning, and bold and successful execution. No purely cavalry campaign in our war approached it in these features. It is doubtful whether its parallel can be found in the cavalry annals of any modern nation. And to this general statement should be added that the officer who commanded it, who was its organizer and its controlling spirit, the one upon whom General George H. Thomas leaned as one of his most trusted lieutenants and advisers, was only twenty-seven years old.
It is not strange that Lee’s and Johnston’s surrender fixed the attention of the country and turned it away from General Wilson’s campaign. Had these two events been delayed a month the land would have rung with Wilson’s praises and with new honors for General Thomas. Indeed, had the withdrawal from Richmond and the events which so quickly followed it been only delayed in their beginning by a few days necessary to have informed the country of Wilson’s marvelous successes, it is certain that his breaking up of these interior storehouses of military material, and the destruction of these many plants for producing more, would have inseparably and largely connected themselves in the minds of the people with the eastern surrender as cause and effect.
It was a campaign whose success would have been the same had Lee been able to hold on to Richmond, and had Johnston so eluded Sherman as to prolong the contest in Virginia and North Carolina.
