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.

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.