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1865 military campaign of the American Civil War
Wilson's Raid (March 22 – April 20, 1865) was a successful military campaign conducted by the United States Cavalry in the Western Theater of the American Civil War. The Union Army's strategic offensive was designed to destroy Confederate military manufacturing, infrastructure, and supplies in Alabama and Georgia.
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Wilson's Raid (March 22 – April 20, 1865) was a successful military campaign conducted by the United States Cavalry in the Western Theater of the American Civil War. The Union Army's strategic offensive was designed to destroy Confederate military manufacturing, infrastructure, and supplies in Alabama and Georgia.
After Major General George H. Thomas's victory over General John B. Hood's Army of Tennessee in December of 1864 at the Battle of Nashville, the Army of the Cumberland found itself with virtually no organized resistance in the heart of the Confederacy. Thomas ordered Brevet Brigadier General James H. Wilson (who commanded the Cavalry Corps of the Military Division of the Mississippi, but was attached to Thomas's army) to lead a cavalry raid to destroy the arsenal at Selma, Alabama, in conjunction with Major General Edward Canby's operations against Mobile. Selma was strategically important as one of the few Confederate posts remaining in Southern hands. The town contained an arsenal, a naval foundry, gun factories, a powder mill, military warehouses, and several railroad repair shops.
Wilson led approximately 13,500 cavalrymen in three divisions, commanded by Brigadier Generals Edward M. McCook, Eli Long, and Emory Upton. Each man was armed with the formidable seven-shot Spencer repeating rifle. Thomas's principal opponent was Lieutenant General 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 Brigadier Generals James R. Chalmers and William H. Jackson, two understrength brigades under Brigadier General Philip D. Roddey and Colonel Edward Crossland, and militia.
Wilson was delayed in crossing the rain-swollen Tennessee River, but he got underway on March 22, 1865, departing from Gravelly Springs in Lauderdale 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 at Houston on March 25 and Black Warrior River on March 26, and Wilson's columns rejoined him at Jasper, Alabama, on March 27. On March 28, 1865, at Elyton, in present-day Birmingham, 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 in Columbiana and the Shelby Iron Works in Shelby on March 31.
Wilson also detached a 1,500-man brigade under Brig. Gen. John T. Croxton and sent them south and west to burn the Roupes Valley Ironworks at Tannehill and Bibb Naval Furnace at Brierfield on March 31. They then burned the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, which was a prominent military school, on April 4. 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 General Benjamin J. Hill's brigade at Munford. He finally rejoined Wilson at Macon, Georgia, on May 1, 1865.
The Wilson's Raid battles:
On April 20, Wilson's men captured Macon, Georgia, without resistance, and Wilson's Raid came to an end. This was only six days before General Joseph E. Johnston's surrender of all Confederate troops in the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida to William T. 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 characterized Sherman'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.
Upon conclusion of the raid, and following the surrender of all of the Confederate forces east of the Chattahoochee 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 President Jefferson Davis was captured on May 10, 1865, near Irwinville, Georgia.
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