143 Years Ago Today....

[Lancer]

...the Battle of Monroe's Crossroads was fought on the grounds of what is today Fort Bragg, near Fayetteville, NC. Crafting a masterful battle plan, Wade Hampton's cavalry caught Judson Kilpatrick, with a brigade of mounted and a brigade of dismounted cavalry, completely unprepared and drove Kil into the swamp in his nightshirt in what has been called "Kilpatrick's Shirt-tail Skedaddle". Only terrain, good resistance, and loss of command cohesive prevented the destruction of these two Union brigades.

Hampton thus demonstrated that, even at that late date in the war, the Confederate cavalry still had a lot of teeth left.

Eric

[whitworth]

a lose of life long after the war was strategically lost by the Confederacy.
And South Carolina civilians payed a severe price for the Confederacy continuing the war after Savannah was captured.

By March, 1865, the Confederacy was down to two states, represented by two of the 13 stars in its battle flag.

[larry_cockerham]

Let's hear it for the Carolinas! Two states still fighting, and Gen. Stande Waite out in Oklahoma, not to mention Bedford Forrest kicking down in Alabama and Mississippi. The war was over on the field, but the Southern spirit remained alive. There was still a sizeable battle left for the arsenal at Selma. Little else remained except the journey to see what if anything was left of one's home. Missing corn, burned barns, no livestock and starving families. Folks were standing around with newly acquired freedom and no place to exercise it. A president was about to give the ultimate sacrifice for the birth of a new nation. It was not the greatest of times, 1865.