Was General Thomas Slow at Nashville?

THOMAS’S PLAN THOUGHT OUT AND FOLLOWED

From the first this cavalry campaign had proceeded according to a clearly formed plan. It was made after full conference with General Wilson. First, it was decided that to render an attack upon Hood’s line certain of success a sufficient cavalry force must be in hand to turn his flank. The next requirement, that of pursuing so effectively as to break up Hood, could not be met without sufficient cavalry. So General Thomas held on in the face of what has been related till he was so nearly ready to strike that he felt certain of success. As a result, the ends in view were attained. The cavalry flanking circuits made possible the driving of the enemy from his extended position. The pursuit by a thoroughly equipped cavalry force made possible and secured the virtual destruction of Hood’s army.

The next campaign, urged by Wilson and approved by Thomas, had for its objective the destruction of the military storehouses and manufactories, and the fatal crippling of the Confederacy. How complete was the success of this second campaign the outlines already presented sufficiently attest.

In summarizing this attempt to again direct attention to this wonderful cavalry campaign, it may be permissible to repeat the form in which I have heretofore set it forth in a volume (the concluding chapters of Colonel Donn Piatt’s “Life of Thomas”) covering the ground of this article at much greater length:

It should be remembered forever in the annals of war that Thomas insisted upon waiting to remount a portion of the (cavalry) corps before he would consent to deliver battle, and that when he did march forth against the veteran and almost invincible infantry of Hood, strongly intrenched in his front, it was the cavalry corps which broke through his left, and wheeling grandly in the same direction, captured twenty-seven guns from their redoubts on the first day, and which, continuing its movement on the second day, enveloped and took in reverse the left and left center of the Confederate intrenchments, and so shook their entire line as to make it a walkover for the infantry which Thomas finally hurled against them. It was the harrassing pursuit of Hood by the cavalry corps which, notwithstanding the rains and sleet of midwinter and the swollen rivers, broke up and scattered the host which had so confidently invaded Middle Tennessee only a month before. Pausing on the banks of the Tennessee till the rough edge of winter had passed, to gather in the distant detachments, to procure remounts, clothing, and equipments, and to weld the growing force into a compact and irresistible army corps of horsemen, the cavalry commander, with the full concurrence of Thomas, the beau ideal of American soldiers, began his final and most glorious campaign. No historian or military critic can read the story of the operations which followed without coming to the conclusion that they were characterized by the most remarkable series of successes ever gained by cavalry in modern warfare. They illustrate, first, the importance of concentrating that arm in compact masses under one competent commander, and in operations of the first importance; second, the tremendous advantage of celerity of movement, especially in modern warfare, where improved firearms play such a decisive part; third, that the chief use of horses, notwithstanding that they may in exceptional cases add to the shock of the charge, is to transport fighting men rapidly to the vital point of a battlefield, and especially to the flank and rear of the enemy’s position, or deeply into the interior of the enemy’s country against his lines of supply and communication, and also his arsenals, armories, and factories; fourth, that the best infantry armed with the best magazine carbines or rifles make the best mounted troops, irrespective of whether they be called cavalry, dragoons, or mounted infantry.

When the fact is recalled that the seven divisions of this corps at the close of the war mustered about 35,000 men for duty with the colors, and that had the war lasted sixty days longer they could, and probably would, have been concentrated in Virginia, it will be seen to what a high degree of perfection the organization had been brought, and that it fully justified Sherman’s declaration that it was by far the largest, most efficient, and most powerful body of horse that had ever come under his command. But when the captures of the strongly fortified towns of Selma, West Point, and Columbus are considered, with all the romantic incidents of night fighting, together with the surrender of the no less strongly fortified cities and towns of Montgomery, Macon, and West Point, carrying with them the destruction of the last and only remaining arsenals, armories, factories, storehouses, and military munitions and supplies, and also the destruction of the railways connecting those places with their bridges and rolling stock, it will be seen that Johnston and his generals had nothing else left them but to lay down their arms and surrender. It was no longer possible for them to concentrate an army, or to supply it with food, or to keep it armed and equipped. With those places and the manufacturing plants which they contained still in their possession, and with the railways connecting them still unbroken, they might have collected together in the Carolinas a force amply able to cope with Sherman, and possibly to overwhelm him before reinforcements could reach him. That brilliant but erratic leader, with his splendid army, it will be remembered, had avoided Macon on the one hand and Augusta on the other, both the seats of important military industries, and by an eccentric and unnecessary movement from his true line of operations, had gone to Savannah, leaving the direct railroads and highways behind him open and free for the use of the remnants of Hood’s army and of the other scattered detachments which were hastening to form a junction with Johnston, now the sole hope of the Confederacy.

Had it not been for Wilson’s wide swath of victory and destruction through and not around the important cities in his way, during which he captured 8500 prisoners and 280 guns, and afterward paroled 59,000 rebel soldiers belonging to the armies of Lee, Johnston, and Beauregard, it would have been easy for Johnston and Beauregard, had they been so minded, to continue the war indefinitely. As it was, to continue it was simply impossible, and for this the country is indebted, first, to Wilson and his gallant troopers, and second, to Thomas, who insisted that they should have time to remount and prepare for the work before them. Neither the army nor the country ever appreciated that invincible body of horsemen, or their division, brigade, regimental, and company commanders, or the high character of the enlisted men, or the performances of the whole at their real worth. There were officers among them fit for any command that could have been given them, and as a body they were as gallant and capable soldiers as ever drew saber or wore uniform. Had the war lasted a few months longer their fame would have been a household word. The leaders, though young in years, were old in war. Wilson himself was at the close not yet twenty-eight. Kilpatrick was about the same age. Upton was several months younger. Winslow, Alexander, Croxton, La Grange, Watkins, Atkins, Murray, Palmer, Noble, Kitchell, Benteen, Cooper, Young, Bacon, and Weston were of the younger set, while McCook, Minty, Long, Hatch, R. W. Johnson, Knipe, Kelly, Hammond, Coon, G. M. L. Johnson, Spalding, Pritchard, Miller, Harrison, Biggs, Vail, Israel Garrard, McCormick, Pierce, and Frank White were somewhat older, though none of them had reached middle life. Harnden, as sturdy as Balfour of Burleigh, and Eggleston, the type of those who rode with Cromwell at Marston Moor, were graybeards, but were full of activity and courage. Ross Hill and Taylor, although captains, were mere boys, but full of experienced valor.

The men in the ranks were mostly from the Western and Northwestern and upper slave States, and of them it may be truthfully averred that their superiors for endurance, self-reliance, and pluck could nowhere be found. After they were massed at Nashville they believed themselves to be invincible, and it was their boast that they had never come in sight of a hostile gun or fortification that they did not capture. Armed with Spencers, it was their conviction that elbow to elbow, dismounted, in single line, nothing could withstand their charge. “Only cover our flanks,” said Miller to Wilson, as they were approaching Selma, “and nothing can stop us!” In conclusion, it may be safely said that no man ever saw one of them in the closing campaign of the war skulking before battle or sneaking to the rear after the action began. They seemed to know by instinct when and where the enemy might be encountered, and then the only strife among them was to see who should be first in the onset. With a corps of such men, properly mounted and armed, and with such organization and discipline as prevailed among them during their last great campaign, no hazard of war can be regarded as too great for them to undertake, and nothing should be counted as impossible except defeat.

When the “records” are all published and the story properly written, it will show that no corps in the army, whether cavalry or infantry, ever inflicted greater injury upon the “Lost Cause,” or did more useful service toward the re-establishment of the Union under the Constitution and the laws, than was done by the cavalry corps of the Military Division of the Mississippi.