Wilson's Raid was acavalry operation throughAlabama andGeorgia in March–April 1865, late in theAmerican Civil War.U.S. Brig. Gen.James H. Wilson led hisU.S. Cavalry Corps to destroyConfederate manufacturing facilities and was opposed unsuccessfully by a much smaller force underConfederateLt. Gen.Nathan Bedford Forrest.
After his victory at theBattle of Nashville,U.S. Maj. Gen.George H. Thomas and hisArmy of the Cumberland found themselves with virtually no organized military opposition in the heart of the Confederacy. Thomas ordered Brig. Gen. James H. Wilson (who commanded the Cavalry Corps of theMilitary Division of the Mississippi, but was attached to Thomas's army) to lead araid to destroy thearsenal atSelma, Alabama, in conjunction with Maj. Gen.Edward Canby's operations againstMobile. Selma was strategically important as one of the few Confederate military bases remaining in Southern hands. The town contained an arsenal, anavalfoundry, gun factories, apowder mill, military warehouses, and railroad repair shops.
Wilson led approximately 13,500 men in three divisions, commanded by Brig. Gens.Edward M. McCook,Eli Long, andEmory Upton. Each cavalryman was armed with the formidable 7-shotSpencer repeating rifle. His principal opponent was Lt. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, whose Cavalry Corps of the Department of Alabama, Mississippi, and East Louisiana consisted of about 2,500 troopers organized into two small divisions, led by Brig. Gens.James R. Chalmers andWilliam H. Jackson, two partial brigades under Brig. Gen.Philip D. Roddey and ColonelEdward Crossland, and a few localmilitia.
Wilson was delayed in crossing the rain-swollenTennessee River, but he got underway on March 22, 1865, departing from Gravelly Springs inLauderdale County, Alabama. He sent his forces in three separate columns to mask his intentions and confuse the enemy; Forrest learned very late in the raid that Selma was the primary target. Minor skirmishes occurred atHouston (March 25) andBlack Warrior River (March 26), and Wilson's columns rejoined atJasper on March 27.
On March 28, atElyton, in present-dayBirmingham, another skirmish occurred, and the U.S. Army soldiers destroyed the Oxmoor and Irondale iron furnaces. A detachment of General Emory Upton's division destroyed the C.B. Churchill and Company foundry inColumbiana[1] and theShelby Iron Works inShelby on March 31, 1865.[citation needed]
Wilson also detached a 1,500-man brigade under Brig. Gen.John T. Croxton and sent them south and west to burn theRoupes Valley Ironworks atTannehill andBibb Naval Furnace atBrierfield on March 31. They then burned theUniversity of Alabama inTuscaloosa, which was a prominent military school, on April 4.[2] This movement diverted Chalmer's division away from Forrest's main force. Croxton continued his raid across Alabama, destroying several iron works and fighting Confederate GeneralBenjamin J. Hill's brigade atMunford. He finally rejoined Wilson at Macon, Ga., on May 1, 1865.
On March 31, Forrest was routed by the larger, better-armed U.S. force atMontevallo. The cavalrymen under Chalmers had not arrived to reinforce Forrest, but he could not wait. U.S. soldiers overran Forrest's headquarters during the action, capturing documents that gave valuable intelligence concerning his plans. Wilson dispatched McCook to link up with Croxton's brigade atTrion (now Vance) and then led the remainder of his force rapidly toward Selma. Forrest made a stand on April 1 atPlantersville, near Ebenezer Church, and was routed once again at theBattle of Ebenezer Church. The Confederates raced toward Selma and deployed into a three-mile, semicircular defensive line anchored at both ends by theAlabama River.
TheBattle of Selma took place on April 2. The divisions of Long and Upton assaulted Forrest's hastily constructed works. The dismounted U.S. soldiers broke through by afternoon, after brief periods ofhand-to-hand combat; the inexperienced militiamen abandoning their positions and fleeing was the primary reason for the entire line breaking. General Wilson personally led a mounted charge of the4th U.S. Cavalry against an unfinished portion of the line. General Long was severely wounded in the head during the assault. Forrest, who was also injured, and whose small corps was severely damaged, regrouped atMarion, where he finally rejoined Chalmers. Wilson's men worked for over a week to destroy military facilities. From there, Wilson's forces moved towardMontgomery, which they occupied on April 12.
DespiteRobert E. Lee's April 9 surrender of theArmy of Northern Virginia following theBattle of Appomattox Court House, theArmy of Tennessee under the command of GenJoseph E. Johnston had not yet surrendered the Confederate forces in the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida. Wilson planned to head east into Georgia to destroy the remaining arsenals and munitions and to cause any remaining local forces to "disintegrate."[3] Wilson's success in this plan would be accelerated if his forces could secure at least one of several key bridges over the Chattahoochee River. One such bridge led into the town of West Point. Wilson separated his force to avoid any delay in the raid, sending a 3,700-man detachment under ColonelOscar Hugh La Grange to capture both the bridge and the town.[4] Simultaneously, Wilson ordered Upton's division to rush toward another strategically important bridge at Columbus, Georgia.
TheBattle of West Point, Georgia, was fought on Easter Sunday, April 16, when ColonelOscar Hugh La Grange's brigade attacked an earthwork defensive position named Fort Tyler that was defended by a couple hundred young men and teenaged Confederates under CS Brig. Gen.Robert C. Tyler. Determined to fight to the last ditch, the Confederates fought a wave of dismounted U.S. troops. The Confederates did not stand a chance as they were largely outnumbered and poorly armed, whereas the U.S. Army soldiers were armed with repeaters. The U.S. soldiers crossed over a ditch while the rebels hurled primitive hand-grenades and fired their weapons.[5] Although the U.S. soldiers had to assault under the fire of one 32-pounder gun and two 12-pounders inside the earthwork, the fort was captured. Confederate Brig. Gen.Robert C. Tyler was mortally wounded by a sharpshooter, becoming the last general officer killed in the Civil War.
The defense of West Point was doomed to fail and had done so. With rebel prisoners, the fort, and the bridge in his hands, La Grange moved out to rejoin Wilson. The battle had been won for the United States at the cost of 36 casualties, both killed and wounded. The Confederates had lost 18 men killed, 28 wounded, and the remainder captured. With most of the dead southerners in the fort, one Yankee artilleryman said the dead Confederates wore "an awful look."[6]
In a separate battle on Easter Sunday, April 16, Wilson was victorious in theBattle of Columbus, Georgia, in which Upton's division clashed with Confederate forces atColumbus, capturing the city and its naval works and burning, then scuttling the incompleteironcladram,CSSJackson. This engagement is regarded as the "Last Battle of the Civil War."[7][8] On April 20, Wilson's men capturedMacon, Georgia, without resistance, and Wilson's Raid came to an end. This was only six days before GeneralJoseph E. Johnston's surrender of all Confederate troops in the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida toWilliam Tecumseh Sherman in North Carolina.
Wilson's Raid had been a spectacular success. His men captured five fortified cities, 288 cannons, and 6,820 prisoners, at a cost of 725 U.S. casualties. Forrest's casualties, from a much smaller force, numbered 1,200. Wilson completed the raid without destroying plantation property that characterizedSherman's March to the Sea of the previous year. Residents accused Wilson's men of sacking Selma after the battle. Still, the damage came from many sources, including street combat that continued into the night, 35,000 bales of cotton, and the Central Commercial Warehouse fired by Confederates as the city fell. Some U.S. soldiers and newly liberated formerly enslaved people engaged in plunder. After the first night, Wilson re-established discipline.[9]
Upon conclusion of the raid, and following the surrender of all of the Confederate forces east of theChattahoochee River by Johnston to Sherman, the hostilities in the theater ended. However, the pursuit of fleeing officials of the Confederate government commenced as Wilson's forces fanned out through the region. Confederate PresidentJefferson Davis was captured on May 10, 1865, nearIrwinville, Georgia.[10]
33°09′35″N87°20′32″W / 33.1596°N 87.3423°W /33.1596; -87.3423
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