Rhea Cole
Major
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2019
- Location
- Murfreesboro, Tennessee
565,000 Pounds of Horse Feed a Day, The Civil War's Greatest Raid
In 1865 Union General James H. Wilson led the largest cavalry force of the Civil War. Consuming 26 pounds of feed a day, his 13,500 cavalry mounts required a staggering 357,000 pounds of fodder a day. Sherman had told Wilson that he wanted "Forrest hunted down & killed." Forrest commanded the last great Confederate cavalry force of about 8,000 that required 208,000 pounds of fodder daily. The combined 565,000 pounds of fodder is a real number that puts the complexity of the confrontation between Wilson & Forrest into perspective. Theirs' was the last great confrontation between the mounted defenders of slavery & those who would destroy it.
Forrest confronted Wilson with all the grim determination & drive that he could muster. When desertion became rampant, Forrest had two Kentucky cavalrymen executed & had their bodies displayed along side a road. As General Richard Taylor put it, "Forrest fought as if the world depended on his arm." At both Ebenezer Church & Selma, Forrest killed yankees with his own hand. However, Forrest's personal drive was not enough to fend off Wilson or to stop the evaporation of his force through desertion. Nobody wants to be the last man to die in defense of a lost cause. Montgomery, the birthplace of the Confederacy fell to Wilson. He divided his force, sending one against West Point & the other Columbus.
When the small but determined garrison defending West Point was overrun, General Robert C. Tyler was the last general killed during the Civil War. Perhaps it was fitting that so determined an advocate for secession & the Confederacy should go out fighting hard. At one point his men even drew rocks.
At Columbia, Georgia state troops & militia attempted to hold the town against Wilson's veterans. The forlorn hope defense was overwhelmed & a melee followed. Leading the defense of the last ditch was another hard core secessionist & advocate for reopening the African slave trade. Charles Lafayette Lamar led his men on a final desperate charge & became the last officer to die in the Civil War.
Having largely destroyed what was left of the Confederacy's war making industries, Wilson moved on, taking Macon without a fight. President Davis was captures by Wilson's men. The hard-core secessionist Governor John Milton took his own life rather than surrender to Wilson.
Forrest, as determined as ever, had reconstituted a cavalry force ready to fight on. His immediate superior, General Taylor had surrendered. General Thomas had informed Forrest that if he didn't surrender that he would pursue him through Mississippi & Alabama doing such damage "that they wouldn't recover in fifty years." It was over, Forrest gathered his men & told them that the war was over. They wept & begged him to take them west & continue the war from there. Forrest told them to go home & become good citizens in new country that had been born out of the war.
In purely military terms, Wilson's raid was a signal success. He took 6,820 prisoners, 288 canon & five fortified cities. He captured Davis. This at the cost of less than 800 of his own men. In the awful arithmetic of war, that is what a victory looks like.
Wilson's raid is often viewed a lot like the bombing of Dresden; a waste of life & wanton destruction inflicted when the war was already won. Forrest & Wilson didn't know that the war was ending. Each was fighting the foe that confronted him with equal determination. As Grant said a great deal was lost that it would have been better to have left it alone. But isn't that the same thing that could have been said about the whole Civi War?
Wilson's was the last great cavalry force to be seen in North America. 13,500 men & horses under one command would never be seen again. An age of the world had come to an end.
Last edited: