USA > Ohio > Four years in the saddle. History of the First Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Cavalry. War of the Rebellion, 1861-1865 > Part 22
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it from end to end. They are certainly loaded with grape and cannister, because they have not fired a shot. If we go on the bridge mounted, the first discharge will cut down the head of the column and fill it up with dead horses, and it will be impos- sible to get the balance of the command over - the dead horses will choke up the bridge; and it is far better to dismount here, cross on foot, and then be prepared to hold the town until Upton throws his division in." Colonel Eggleston at once assented, ordered a left oblique on the impulse of the moment, and we rode in on the pavement, in shelter of the houses, while orders were at once given to dismount and fight on foot. While these prep- arations were going on, it was suggested to throw a few sharp- shooters at this end of the bridge to cover the guns and shoot down the gunners while we were forming in front of it for the charge. This was immediately done, and while the column was forming in the road ready for the charge, one of the men on the bridge shot down one of the gunners; as he fell, he pulled the lanyard, the gun was discharged, and immediately the flame from the gun caught the bridge, which had already been satu- rated with turpentine and cotton, and in a moment it was in flames from end to end. So quickly did the flames spread that the men standing at this end of the bridge caught the breath of the fire in their very faces. This change in the method of attack saved the whole battalion; for whatever number of the battalion had attempted to cross the bridge, no man would have ever gotten out of it alive. The bridge itself was four or five hundred yards long. But more than this: on the further side of the bridge, just beyond the centre, the plank had been removed for about fifty feet; so it was intended to trap the col- umn and have it precipitate itself into the Chattahoochee. The entire battalion would have gone down into the Chattahoochee, which is here navigable; horses and men would have plunged through this chasm, repeating on a smaller but more terrible scale the sunken road of Ohain. The fire was intended only for those who might have drawn up their horses and otherwise escaped this death trap.
While there were no immediate results from this charge, that it was made at all under the circumstances attested the courage and the morale of the regiment. In order to determine the character of this charge and of the men who made it, it must be remembered that this was a city of nearly twelve thou- sand people, that the column that made this charge knew that thtere were two thousand men defending the city, either across the bridge they were to carry, or in the earthworks that cov- ered the upper bridge. They also knew that they were moving „by the flank of earthworks containing more than twenty-five guns in position that could be seen, and otherwise equally as well manned and armed. It was as if you were to launch three
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hundred men alone into an intrenched camp of over two thou- sand. This was what the First Ohio Cavalry undertook to do. And when they went plunging down the road with their horses at full gallop and sabers drawn, every officer and man who went on that charge expected to charge squarely across the bridge and into that town. That they did not, and that they escaped the dire calamity and the terrible trap which was planned for them, was only a matter of good fortune, or rather one that came from an intelligent suggestion of a better method and line of attack. So that the regiment is entitled to have the credit of charging a fortified town defended by two thousand men with its nearest support a mile away. Captain Kirkendall, with his usual coolness and gallantry, rode at the head of the column of Company D.
While we were massed in the town, one Aden Harper, of Company D, rode out of the little town of Girard and across the bridge over the little creek which separated the earthworks from the town of Girard, and rode almost up to the works, and then rode back again. It was a gallant and an inspiring thing to do.
After the bridge was burned, this portion of the regiment received orders from General Alexander to retire gradually be- yond the crest of the hill and rejoin the brigade there. This was done and the brigade proceeded to invest the works upon the right. In the meantime Upton had prepared to make an assault upon the left. He had moved Winslow's brigade of his division across the road and concealed it in the woods, expecting to make an attack before nightfall; but unexpected delays in making the movement so retarded it that the brigade was not in position till long after dark. There was a deep creek, called Mill Creek, almost impassable, that lay between the second bri- gade and the enemy's works. This was amost a dry creek, but had been cut down by storms and rains in a soil that washed easily, until the sides were very abrupt, and it was almost im- possible for any man to get down one side and scale the other. Alexander waited till after nightfall for the charge to be made upon the left; the assault being given there, he had orders to throw our brigade in on the right. He had been down along the front and thought the attack had been abandoned, and had retired about six or seven hundred yards in the rear of his line, when suddenly, as if hell itself had broken loose, we heard the rattle and roar of the guns, musketry and cannon, and saw the flames from the guns leaping into the night. Upton had dis- mounted eleven hundred men, and himself at the head, assaulted the works. The order was immediately given for our brigade to advance, but we found it almost impossible to get across the ravine, and drifted down to a lower crossing. In the meantime the guns roared, the musketry crashed, the flames leaped out
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from the mouths of the guns, even while the gallant soldiers of the First Brigade were storming over the enemy's works. In less than fifteen minutes from the beginning of the assault Upton himself rode over the works with the eleven hundred men who had carried it against twenty-seven hundred of the - enemy. It was one of the most brilliant assaults in human history. Nothing but the night attack and the darkness saved the assaulting column from almost absolute destruction.
The result of this capture was twenty-four guns in position, west of the upper railroad bridge, and twelve hundred prisoners, by actual count, six seven-inch rifie guns on the iron-clad Jack- son, and forty-four other guns in addition to those captured in the works, making, in all, seventy guns.
The Second Brigade, on account of the difficult ground in front of it, had but little share in its capture. After the capture of the works we found that the upper bridge had also been sat- urated with cotton and turpentine, the same as the lower bridge; but our men followed the retreating enemy so closely that they did not have time to fire it. Immediately General Upton placed an officer with men on the bridge, with orders to permit not even a match to be lighted or pipe to be smoked in crossing the bridge. One single spark of fire would not only have ignited the bridge, but would also have burned every one of the men upon it. The bridge was saved, and that night our column crossed into Columbus, for which we had gallantly fought, and fairly won.
In three days we had marched through Montgomery, Ga., to Columbus, a distance of eighty-four miles, fought a battle, and captured a fortified town. It is a record of celerity and courage unsurppassed in the annals of cavalry warfare.
We found at Columbus the rebel iron-clad ram, Jackson, ready for sea. This was destroyed, together with the arsenal; some ten thousand bales of cotton were burned; and on the eighteenth day of April we started on the march to Macon, one "hundred and four miles distant. Macon was a fortified town that Sherman, in his march to the sea, not caring to fight a battle without a base, avoided, sweeping to the left. It had been thoroughly fortified in view of the fact that it might be one of the points which Sherman might attack after the capture of Atlanta. There were in place some sixty to seventy field guns. This was our next point of attack.
On the march that day we heard for the first time of the assassination of Lincoln and the attempted assassination of Mr. Seward. The men were in an ugly mood; and if we had had any fighting to do, I doubt but that the bitterness in our hearts would have been reflected in less humane modes of warfare. It was a good thing for us that the end was come, for many a
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soldier might have done a deed that he might have regretted thereafter.
On April 20 Lieutenant-Colonel Frank White, of the Seven- teenth Indiana, was in the advance, and when within about six or seven miles of Macon he met a large body of troops under General Robertson, stating that General Lee had surrendered to General Grant at Appomattox, and that there was an armis- tice between General Johnson and General Sherman and that armistice extended to the troops under command of General Wilson. Colonel White himself did not know whether it was true or not, or whether it might be a ruse of the enemy to delay the attacking column. He said, "I don't know anything about that. I am a soldier, and my orders are to go into Macon, and I am going in. I will give that flag of truce just five minutes to get out of the road, and if it doesn't keep out of my way I will run over it." Having given five minutes, White started the head of the column toward Macon, and passed the General who was in command of the party carrying the flag of truce so closely that they had to take to the woods.
The enemy not expecting an attack, and expecting that the truce would be observed on our part, did not prepare for an attack until White charged into the town. Wilson immediately followed with a portion of his troops. General Cobb insisted that this was a violation of the armistice and that he must with- draw to the position where he was at the time that he first heard of the truce between Johnson and Sherman. This Wilson refused to do, and at one time it seemed as if there would be a collision between the small body of troops that Wilson had in Macon and the troops under Cobb. But this was averted, and the next day, April 21, Wilson took possession of Macon with his entire cavalry corps, paroling Cobb and his officers; thus capturing Macon and ending the great Wilson raid, that was, without parallel, the greatest of all raids known to history.
We captured at Macon sixty pieces of artillery, three hun- dred and fifty officers, and two thousand enlisted men.
If this mounted expedition had occurred at any other time it would have been the subject of more favorable comment than any other expedition of mounted soldiery in history. But it came after the great events that began at Petersburg, ending in the capture of Lee at Appomattox, the surrender of Johnston to Sherman, and the assassination of Lincoln, and the close of the great war, and was practically lost sight of by all except those who were engaged therein. This column left Chickasaw Landing on the twenty-third day of March and entered Macon on the twentieth day of April. It had marched during that time six hundred miles; had forded both branches of the Black Warrior, one of them at a place that the oldest inhabitants declared was not fordable; one portion had forded the Cahawba River; they
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had marched for three days over a sterile and mountainous country, devoid of forage for the horses; they had fought at Montevallo; routed the enemy at Ebenezer Church; stormed and captured the fortified town of Selma; bridged the Alabama at a flood, the pontoon bridges being three times broken in the attempt; captured Montgomery, the cradle of the Confederate government; stormed the fortified town of Columbus, and cap- tured Macon.
This was a thirty days' campaign; but we lay at Selma from the second until the tenth of April and spent two days at Colum- bus, Ga., making the actual number of days engaged in the march twenty, instead of thirty; so that we averaged thirty miles a day for the actual time marching, including the time occupied in fighting, and assaulting these towns. The First Ohio in all its history has no more glorious page than the part it bore in this great expedition.
GENERAL UPTON RECOMMENDS AS FOLLOWS.
First Lieutenant J. A. O. Yeoman, First Ohio Cavalry, and Acting Assistant Inspector-General, Second Brigade, Fourth Division, for his many and repeated acts of gallantry and inde- fatigable courage, energy and perseverance exhibited on all occasions during the campaign, to be Brevet Captain. (Official Record of the Rebellion, Series I, Volume XLIX, Part I, Page 477.)
Headquarters Second Brigade, Fourth Division, M. D. M., Macon, Ga., May 3, 1865. Major J. W. Latta, Assistant Adjutant-General:
Major: I have the honor to request that First Lieutenant J. A. O. Yeoman, First Ohio Veteran Volunteer Cavalry, may be brevetted for gallantry in the charge at Montevallo, in the fight at Ebenezer Church, in the advance on Columbus, when he followed the enemy so closely with two men as to prevent their burning the bridges. He also behaved with his usual con- spicuous gallantry in the charge into Girard. Lieutenant Yeo- man is an officer of education, a good disciplinarian, and has been of great value as the Inspector-General of this brigade.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
A. J. ALEXANDER, Brevet Brigadier-General.
(Indorsement.)
Headquarters Cavalry Corps, Military Division of the Mississippi,
Macon, Ga., June 27, 1865.
Respectfully forwarded, approved and strongly recom-
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mended. There is no more gallant officer in service than Lieu- tenant Yeoman.
J. H. WILSON, Brevet Major-General.
(Official Record, Series I, Volume XLIX, Page 502.)
Headquarters Cavalry Corps, Military Division of , the Mississippi,
Macon, Ga., May 3, 1865.
No. 68. 1. Under the provisions of the convention agreed upon between Major-General Sherman and General Johnson on the twenty-sixth of April, Colonel B. B. Eggleston, First Ohio Cavalry, is designated to receive the surrender of the Confed- erate troops at Atlanta. He will proceed to that point without delay for the purpose of carrying out the terms of the convention.
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J. H. WILSON, Major-General.
Headquarters U. S. Forces, Atlanta, Ga., May 5, 1865.
General Judah, commanding U. S. Forces, Kingston, Ga .:
- General: I have the honor to submit the following item of news, which I have just received from an intelligent U. S. soldier, who has been for some time a prisoner. His name is Michael Lightner, Fifty-fourth Pennsylvania Infantry. This soldier left Washington, Ga., day before yesterday at 4 P. M. and arrived here at 12 M. to-day. He states that Jefferson Davis was at Washington, Ga., on the third and that he (Davis) left that point at 12 M. of the same day. Said soldier fell in with Davis and his cavalry at the Catawba River, N. C., at the railroad crossing, where Davis remained two days. Then he marched in company with them, for three days, passing through Chester- ville, Abbeville, and thence to Washington. He represented Generals Bragg and Breckenridge in company; also Wheeler's cavalry fifteen hundred strong. The cavalry refused to go far- ther south unless paid, whereupon they were paid $30 each in gold, with the promise of $100 each when they had crossed the Mississippi River. He is supposed to have $15,000,000 in coin, and wagons, perhaps fifty. I have no mounted men here as yet, but will have my regiment to-morrow evening.
B. B. EGGLESTON, Colonel First Ohio Cavalry, Commanding Post.
Resaca, May 6, 1865.
Major S. B. Moe, Assistant Adjutant-General:
A Sergeant and three men have just arrived from Atlanta. They left there last night. Colonel Eggleston, First Ohio Cav- alry, by order of General Wilson, reports to me that he occupies the place with two companies; rest coming on. He also sends
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me a very interesting communication, which I will forward by mail to-morrow, in which his informant, an intelligent C. S. sol- dier, states that he traveled with Jeff. Davis for three days, passing through Chesterville, Aberdeen, and thence to Wash- ington, Ga., where he was on the third. Generals Bragg and Breckenridge are with him. Wheeler, with fifteen hundred cav- alry, was with him. They refused to go farther unless paid. Davis gave them $30 each, with promise of $100 more when they crossed the Mississippi River. He is supposed to have had $15,000,000 with him, and about fifty wagons. My information was therefore correct. I think Davis must be overtaken unless he drops his specie.
H. M. JUDAH, Brigadier-General, Commanding.
Macon, Ga., May 6, 1865.
Brevet Major-General E. Upton, Augusta, Ga .:
Go ahead, but put no price upon his head; offer simply for his apprehension and delivery and on the condition, that the reward shall be paid out of the treasure to be captured with the fugitive. Lieutenant Yeoman, of Alexander's staff, has sent in from Greensborough substantially the same information that you have obtained. Catch Jeff. Davis, if possible, and act as you think best.
J. H. WILSON, Brevet Major-General. Atlanta, Ga., May 7, 1865.
Major-General Wilson:
I have sent Captain Siverd, with three strong companies, to Talladega; Lieutenant Reese, with two companies, to Columbus; Captain Krumdick, with one company, to General Judah; Lieu- tenant Brooks, with one company, to communicate with Stone- man's cavalry; one company parolling between Sandtown and this point; two companies between this point and Pinckeyville, and one company on courier duty. No movement of Davis has been ascertained later than your dispatches.
B. B. EGGLESTON, Colonel, Commanding Post. May 8, 1865.
General Wilson:
General: Lieutenant Yeoman says that Ferguson, with one division cavalry, is en route for Macon under flag of truce; that Dibrell's division is following, but he don't know that the latter is going to Macon. Davis and cabinet are following in rear, with one hundred picked men as escort. Yeoman is with one of the parties yet. He says that all passed through Madison
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on the sixth inst., and he writes us from a point five miles from that place, under date of the sixth inst.
WINSLOW.
Macon, Ga., May 8, 1865.
Colonel B. B. Eggleston, Atlanta:
Have published and circulated the President's proclamation offering a reward for Jeff. Davis' arrest. Send me any news you may have, and forward the following telegram to General Steed- man at Resaca.
Major-General J. B. Steedman :
Everything is on the lookout for J. D. His cavalry escort is dissolved and he a fugitive, but in what direction is not known.
J. H. WILSON.
Macon, Ga., May 10, 1865.
Major-General Sherman:
Captain Abraham, of General Upton's division, yesterday received the surrender of two brigades of rebel cavalry, two thousand strong, at Washington, Ga., including Generals Vaughn, Dibrell, Elzey, Williams, Lewis, Gilmer and Lawton. General Croxton is now engaged in paroling Ferguson's brigade at Forsyth. The balance of the rebel cavalry which started as Davis' escort has either been paroled or gone home. General Vaughn told Upton that he had received positive orders to escort Davis to the Mississippi, but on his arrival at Washington, de- termined to go no farther. The money that Davis had with him has been paid to his troops and scattered through the coun- try about Washington. Lieutenant Yeoman, a very energetic and capable officer, reports that Davis on the night of the seventh tried to cross the Chattahoochee at Warsaw, but lost his trail. Yeoman himself crossed the river at Vining's late same night; since then he has not heard from him.
J. H. WILSON.
Headquarters Fourth Division Cavalry Corps, Military Division of the Mississippi,
Edgefield, Tenn., June 10, 1865.
General Orders No. 21:
Before severing his connection with the command, the Brevet Major-General commanding desires to express his high appreciations of the bravery, endurance and soldierly qualities displayed by the officers and men of his division in the late cav- alry campaign. Leaving Chickasaw on the twenty-second of March as a new organization, and without status in the Cavalry Corps, you in one month traversed six hundred miles; crossed six rivers; met and defeated the enemy at Montevallo, captur- ing one hundred prisoners; routed Forest, Buford and Roddy in their chosen position at Ebenezer Church, capturing two guns
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and three hundred prisoners; carried the works in your front at Selma, capturing thirteen guns, eleven hundred prisoners and five battle-flags, and finally crowned your successes by a night assault upon the enemy's intrenchments at Columbus, where you captured fifteen hundred prisoners, twenty-four guns, eight battle-flags, and vast munitions of war. April 21 you arrived at Macon, having captured, on your march, three thousand pris- oners, thirty-nine pieces of artillery and thirteen battle-flags. Whether mounted with saber or dismounted with the carbine, the brave men of the Third, Fourth and Fifth Iowa, First and Seventh Ohio, and Tenth Missouri Cavalry triumphed over the enemy in every conflict. With regiments led by brave Colonels, and brigades commanded with consummate skill and daring, the division in thirty days won a reputation unsurpassed in the service. Though many of you have not received the rewards your gallantry has entitled you to, you have won the admiration and gratitude of your countrymen. You will return to your homes with the proud consciousness of having defended the flag of your country in the hour of the greatest national peril, while through your instrumentality, liberty and civilization will have advanced the greatest stride recorded in history. The best wishes of your commanding General will ever attend you.
E. UPTON.
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History of Companies "A" and "C," First Ohio Cavalry.
A brief history of Companies A and C becomes necessary to a complete history of the regiment by reason of the fact that their service up to the winter of '64-5 was entirely apart from that of the regiment. Company A was raised at Washington C. H., Ohio, and officered by Captain John H. Robinson, First Lieutenant Samuel L. Hooker, Second Lieutenant Noah Jones. Company C was raised in Cincinnati and was officered as follows: Captain, N. D. Menken; First Lieutenant, S. N. Stanford; Sec- ond Lieutenant, R. R. Kirby.
These were the first two companies organized at Camp Chase; and in September, 1861, when Lee was threatening the troops under General Reynolds at Elkwater, and the advanced posts of the Union army in the Tygart Valley and Cheat Moun- tain, this squadron was dispatched to West Virginia and learned its first lessons of warfare in the arduous scouting and picket duty that devolved upon the small cavalry command attached to this portion of the army of occupation of West Virginia. Cap- tain Robinson, who commanded the squadron, was a man of dignified appearance, who had commanded an expedition across the plains in '49. He had the entire confidence of his command as well as of his superior officers, and made for the squadron an enviable reputation during the few months that he was in com- mand. But he was already dying with consumption, and illy withstood the arduous campaigning that fell to the lot of these companies in West Virginia, and was compelled to leave us in the spring of '62, and soon afterwards died at his home in Wash. ington C. H.
First Lieutenant Samuel L. Hooker resigned as early as he could, and Second Lieutenant Noah Jones, who afterwards became Captain, commanded the company with signal ability until the fall of '64. Captain John W. McElwain commanded it until' December, 1864, and Lieutenant and Captain J. A. O. Yeoman from that date until it was mustered out.
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Captain Menken, a daring, handsome and brilliant officer, resigned in the early summer of '62, and thereafter Company C was under the command of Captain Coon.
The squadron, under Captain Robinson, first smelled fire at an armed reconnoissance against one of the Jacksons, not Stonewall, at Greenbrier, W. Va., under the command of Gen- eral Reynolds, in October, '62. And soon thereafter Company A, with the gallant Thirteenth Indiana under Colonel Sullivan, made a two weeks' scout through the almost impassable moun- tains and by-paths of West Virginia, under the lead of a local Union guide, capturing and breaking up bands of bushwhackers and guerillas.
The winter of '61-2 was spent at Springfield, near Romney, scouting almost daily to the north toward Big Cacapon and Bloomery Gap, endeavoring to advise the command of a raid by Ashby's cavalry or Stonewall Jackson's infantry that then lay near Winchester. In February, 1862, it fell back with the troops that had been occupying Romney to a station at Patter- son Creek, W. Va., on the line of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail- way, and thence moved northward and eastward to Pawpaw Tunnel.
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