March 26, 1865 was a Sunday. The air was chilly and the ground was white with frost, but the Union cavalrymen did not take time to either warm up or observe the Sabbath. Rations were still being distributed from the trains; Frank Frankenberry received coffee and sugar. Other men tended their horses. Already some mounts were showing the wear and tear of the journey, so two Pennsylvanians from Company K of the 15th were sent back to Knoxville with all of the unserviceable horses. The rest of the horses were fed and men drew rations, and then the streamlined division headed into the rising sun, leaving the comfort and security of Tillson’s troops and trains. Some troopers left as early as 4 a.m., and the entire column lurched into motion over the next several hours. Parts of the 11th Michigan were among the last to leave, finally putting hoof to road around 10:00 a.m. The morning slipped away uneventfully as the Federals rode through Leesburg, crossed a high ridge, and approached Jonesboro around midday. Now undefended, Jonesboro, one of the state’s oldest towns, was as uninviting as most East Tennessee hamlets. They “look like Northern villages that have set out to travel and got stuck in the mud,” one traveler thought. “Has been a pretty town, but shows the effect of war,” added a raider. Soon Jonesboro was behind them, and the afternoon passed away. Bored, the men had nothing to do but ride, talk, and enjoy the scenery. Pennsylvanian Septimus Knight was the exception; he drew the extra duty of shepherding the growing mass of blacks – mostly escaped slaves – now following the column. The hobbled condition of Knight’s horse, which had been kicked the night before, made his job even harder.
Thirty miles of ever-harsher terrain slipped away. Pennsylvania troopers from Company A surprised and captured four enemy soldiers, but that was the extent of the day’s excitement. Between 9:00 p.m. and midnight, they camped in a broad area extending from Buffalo Creek to Dry Cove and Doe River Cove – but near the North Carolina road. The men were worn out, but their horses still had to be fed. Gillem and Stoneman spread out the division’s campsites to make foraging easier, but it didn’t help. “As we get nearer to the mountain forage becomes more scarce, and to-day our horses went hungry,” a cavalryman lamented. The horses didn’t go hungry from a lack of effort on the part of their riders. Each day, men searched local residences for horses, mules, food, and anything of use to sustain the march. These visits were sometimes traumatic for the locals. Not far from Doe River Cove lived a typical East Tennessee family that knew only too well the hard hand of war. One son lay in a cold grave, killed at Spotsylvania. Two more sons had been wounded in other battles but remained in the army. Still, the night Stoneman came, no fewer than eight people were at home. The man of the house was seriously ill. His aging wife waited at his bedside. Their three daughters were also on hand to help, as were four servants. A Confederate soldier on furlough rounded out the home’s occupants. Rumor had preceded the raiders. “’Stoneman! Stoneman!’ was the dread name on every lip,” one of the daughters, Matt, remembered years later. The raiders appeared at midnight, cloaked in an eerie, rainy darkness. “A heavy wind moaned through the tree tops and drove an unintermitting patter of rain against the windows – a typical March night, an ideal opportunity for mischief,” remembered Matt. Suddenly, heavy thumps of booted feet and deep voices came from the front porch. Someone knocked loudly on the door. Hearts pounding, the daughters jumped to their feet and whispered urgently to each other. Julia, the eldest, with a young servant girl at her side, finally went to the door, trembling as she walked. “Who’s there?” she called weakly. After a long, ominous silence a muffled answer came from the other side of the door. “Cavalrymen from Stoneman’s army.” “What – what do you want?” Julia asked. “Supper and – O, just anything,” replied several voices. The girls knew that meant anything they could lay their hands on – food, loot, or worse. The door cracked open. A tiny beam of candlelight streamed in, revealing menacing armed shadows on the porch. Helpless, Julia opened the door wide, and the soldiers came in. Matt watched from a corner. “They tramped ponderously in, the shadows, uniformed in dark Northern blue, dripping with rain and clanking their spurs and scabbards, two dozen or more – tall, powerful men, principally well drilled and toughened by countless sleepless nights in the saddle,” she wrote, with understandable exaggeration. A few men walked toward the closed door of her father’s room, which was also the refuge of their Confederate friend. Quickly, tears welling in her eyes, Matt stepped in front of the door, and appealed to the officer in charge. “O, please don’t let them enter this room! It is my father’s room, and he is terribly sick, and the sight of all – all these blue uniforms, I – I fear, would kill him. Surely there is nothing in there you want. O, anything else – but to kill my father! Please keep them back.” To find out what happens next, see Chris J. Hartley, Stoneman's Raid, 1865. Excerpt from Stoneman's Raid, 1865, (c) Chris J. Hartley
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To the accompaniment of music from the bands, Saturday, March 25, brought another early start. The First and Second Brigades broke camp around 7:00 a.m. and resumed the procession to Jonesboro. The 15th Pennsylvania, a regiment that knew the area well, took the lead. The journey turned out to be as boring as usual, but at least the scenery was pleasant. A later visitor to the region remembered East Tennessee this way: “It is a country of pleasant hills, bounded and broken into mountains.… A few first-class farmers have comfortable painted or brick houses, while scattered everywhere over the country are poverty-stricken, weather-blackened little framed dwellings and log huts,” he wrote. The sharp eyes of cartographer Angelo Wiser did not fail to note the surrounding woods either.
“Frank” Frankenberry enjoyed this land of plenty. He spent the day in charge of the pack train and marched between brigades, just behind Reagan’s battery. Stopping by the roadside, Frankenberry bought a chicken for twenty-five cents. That night, in bivouac on a rebel farm, the signalman made chicken soup for supper. He washed it down with a glass of cold milk, and then grabbed a bar of soap to wash away his own dirt. The day was eventful in other ways. That afternoon, as the Federals neared Babb’s Mill, about sixty Confederates from Vaughn’s Brigade materialized. The Federals attacked immediately, and Weand later remembered the result with satisfaction. “Company E of our regiment had the advance, and charged with such spirit that they [the enemy] were driven off, leaving four prisoners in our hands,” he wrote. Other witnesses claimed the capture of as many as nine “Johnnies” in the skirmish. Whatever the actual total, the Federals suffered little. Only one Union horse went down, pitching its rider headlong into a ditch. Later, Company F also encountered the enemy while scouting. The Federals pursued but the four enemy troopers escaped. For more, see Chris J. Hartley, Stoneman's Raid, 1865. (c) Chris J. Hartley The pleasant evening gave way to an equally pleasant March 24. Long before the bugles sounded, “Frank” Frankenberry rose from his bedroll, which was close by his horse. He found some water, made some coffee, and then packed up. The rest of the raiders did likewise and moved out at about 7:00 a.m. Stoneman and Gillem again set a casual tempo, probably to help the men adjust to campaigning. After all, many had not been in the field since 1864. A thirteen-man detachment of the 15th Pennsylvania remained in Morristown to wait for a following party and escort them to the regiment. George W. Madden, a member of the 10th Michigan, also stayed behind. Stricken with a worsening illness, Madden was to be transported back to Knoxville for treatment.
The day brought the raid’s first disturbing news: an enemy force was reported around Jonesboro. Although still more than thirty miles away, Jonesboro sat squarely on the raiders’ projected route. To deal with this possible threat, Stoneman resumed his old habits and divided his command. Once the column passed through Russellville and reached the old Bull’s Gap battlefield, Stoneman sent Colonel Miller’s all-Tennessee Third Brigade – accompanied by a telegraph operator to help with communications – riding rapidly toward Bristol. While Gillem’s division continued to Jonesboro and Tillson followed the main road to Greeneville, Miller’s goal was to march to the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad between Jonesboro and Carter’s Station. If Miller could reach that point, he would be squarely behind the enemy. It would also confuse Confederate defenders about Stoneman’s true destination. In the event, it was Palmer’s First Brigade that had the campaign’s first brush with Rebel defenders. As they led the way on the Babb’s Mill Road toward Jonesboro that Friday morning, advance riders encountered a small enemy force. The Confederates scattered, but the raiders managed to collar a handful of enemy soldiers. Under close questioning, the Confederates identified themselves as members of the 61st Tennessee, a mounted infantry regiment serving in Brig. Gen. John C. Vaughn’s brigade. Routine returned in the aftermath as the journey continued through increasingly hilly terrain. At about 5:00 p.m., Palmer’s and Brown’s Brigades bivouacked several miles east of Bull’s Gap, near Lick Creek. Across the countryside, troopers settled in for the night. Allen Frankenberry prepared supper and put up a shelter tent for the night. He then turned to his diary but had to set it aside when duty called. After stopping by Colonel Palmer’s tent to pick up a guard, the signalmen rode up a high hill to establish communications with Greeneville. Reaching the top of the hill, Frankenberry climbed a tall tree and saw the light he was looking for. Afterward the signalmen returned to camp, picking up a straggler on the way. A large supply of hay awaited the signalers and their horses. At about 4:00 a.m. on March 23, the strains of cavalry bugles sounding reveille echoed through “the hills and vales” of East Tennessee. “Frank” Frankenberry got up, fed his horse, and had breakfast himself, and then saddled his mount. “The bands play, the bugles sound and all is lovely…. Pull out and are away,” he wrote. The raid was now begun in earnest.
Elements of the cavalry division left Mossy Creek as early as 7:00 a.m., and the bulk of the division was on the road within the hour. Despite a swirling wind that blew all day, the day started with promise; above the skies again dawned clear and underfoot the road was good. Setting a leisurely pace, Stoneman steered the cavalry and Tilson’s infantry and artillery toward Morristown, Tennessee, where he planned to supply the division. The trip was easy and picturesque, through a rolling, agrarian landscape. “Move on over a very pretty country,” Frankenberry thought. In the distance, low hills shadowed the column, while closer at hand occasional dwellings and cultivated fields bordered the road. In between, streams obstructed the way, but they were easily forded. By early afternoon Morristown came into view. Barely one year had passed since Longstreet’s army had wintered around this key crossroads town. Its citizens remembered the hardships the Confederates had wrought, and welcomed Stoneman’s raiders warmly. “Had a cordial, hearty welcome from the loyal citizens,” wrote a raider. “These people came from all the surrounding country to see us, and while perched on their rail fences greeted us with smiles and many a ludicrous expression,” he reminisced. Equally welcoming were the rations and forage distributed at Morristown from Tillson’s trains. Each man also received ammunition, four horseshoes, and nails. Most appreciated this bounty, but H.K. Weand presciently worried that it had “a smack of a hard campaign in it.” And not everyone was quite so lucky. In Tillson’s 4th Tennessee Infantry, Thomas F. Hutton did not get to draw rations because he was on picket duty. Mundane activities claimed the rest of the day. The Tennessee brigade camped north of town. Elsewhere, in the bivouac of the 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry, Frederic Antes took a few horses out to graze. Lieutenant Mallaby unfurled his flags and tried to establish signal communication with Federal forces to the east but failed. At least two signalmen wrote letters home, with “Frank” Frankenberry including three pictures of himself. Other horsemen, warned to be ready to march early the next morning, simply relaxed and rested or talked. A camp rumor stated that Confederate President Jefferson Davis had resigned; another, more accurate rumor indicated that the armies of Sherman and Schofield had joined in North Carolina. Among those paying social calls that night was Sgt. Colton, who had helped gather carbines and horses for the 15th Pennsylvania. Stopping by First Brigade headquarters, Colton and his friend Colonel Palmer sat by a campfire and talked about minerals. For more, see Chris J. Hartley, Stoneman's Raid, 1865. The rain and hail tapered off overnight, and the morning of March 22 opened fine and beautiful at Strawberry Plains. Roll call came before sunrise for some because foraging duties beckoned. The rest of the division stirred soon afterward. By 8:00 a.m., Stoneman’s men had left their soggy camps behind. The division took up a line of march paralleling the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad, a strategically important line that had once borne supplies to Confederate armies in Virginia. Stoneman and Gillem did not plan to push the men this day; they wanted to cover only about fifteen miles to Mossy Creek, where they would marshal their forces and instill their organization. By mid-afternoon, the column had passed through Friends Station and New Market and bivouacked in the Mossy Creek area. There the Cavalry Division of the District of East Tennessee took shape for the campaign ahead.
The value of marshaling the division at Mossy Creek, which was still close to Federal lines, had much to do with the political situation in East Tennessee. The region was thick with opposing sentiments and bloody guerilla conflict, so the raid’s leadership wanted their men well in hand for any problems that might arise. At the bottom of the region’s struggles were tradition and history. Most residents of East Tennessee had little interest in and little to do with the slavery-centered power base in the western part of the state; indeed, the distinction of East Tennessee had fueled an on-again, off-again desire to carve the area into a separate state. This also explained the region’s later disaffection with the war, to the point that many called it the “Switzerland of America.” When 1861 rolled around, few East Tennesseans supported secession, even after Lincoln’s call for volunteers turned others reluctantly against the Union. On the contrary, the arrival of Confederate forces sparked a strong reaction in support of the Lincoln government. In November 1861, Unionists burned five important railroad bridges between Bristol and Chattanooga. It only got worse under the April 1862 Conscription Act, which made white males between eighteen and thirty-five subject to military service. Confederate authorities came down hard, and loyalists resisted by running, hiding, and sometimes by fighting. Those who ran lived to fight another day. By one count, more than thirty thousand East Tennesseans enlisted in the Union Army, some in the Cavalry Division of the District of East Tennessee. The geographic center of the Confederacy, East Tennessee had further strategic value. The region was the gateway to Kentucky and the Ohio River Valley beyond. East Tennessee also guarded the flanks of Confederate strongholds in Virginia, Western Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama. And it was a fertile region that could supply the needs of thousands of soldiers with the help of the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad. Witnessed one Confederate officer, “The country … contains as fine farming lands and has as delightful a climate as can be found…. Cattle, sheep, and swine, poultry, vegetables, maple-sugar, honey, were all abundant for the immediate wants of the troops.” In recognition, main force armies had occasionally trod the banks of the Holston and French Broad Rivers in hopes of securing East Tennessee. Lt. Gen. James Longstreet’s was the last Confederate army to visit. The big question was the raid’s objective, since Stoneman had made no formal announcement about his plans. “We are evidently going on a very extensive expedition,” thought a horseman from the 11th Michigan, but he had no idea where. Cavalryman Charles F. Weller, hearing premature rumors that Lee had evacuated Richmond, weighed in. “The object of the expidition is not yet known but I think we are going for the Sunny South R.R. which is now Lees only outlet from Richmond,” he wrote. If that was merely a guess, the twenty-year-old son of a Methodist minister knew one thing for sure. “We will in all probability have some hard servace to perform during the comeing six months they have not given us good horses & Spencer Carbines for nothing,” Weller predicted. Ohioan Joseph Banks, also eager to know their destination, listed the Shenandoah Valley, Lynchburg, Richmond, and Saltville as possible targets. Another Michigan man hesitated to guess because he knew the division’s leadership didn’t want him to know. “The object of the expedition was kept a profound secret,” he complained. “If any one but General Stoneman knew it, the knowledge was not allowed to get to many of the subordinate officers.” Trooper Paul Hersh came a little nearer the truth. “Of course, I can say nothing as to the destination, but rumor has it that we will … raid into North Carolina, where we will form a junction with a cavalry force from the coast. Time will 'tell the tale.'" For more, see Chris J. Hartley, Stoneman's Raid, 1865. From Knoxville, Tennessee, on March 21, 1865, General Stoneman made the announcement. “I have the honor to report,” he told Gens. George Thomas and U.S. Grant, “that my whole command is on the road, and that the advance will be at Morristown, fifty miles from here, today. It is a long, rough, bad road where we are going, and every precaution and care has been and must continue to be taken in order that our horses may not be broken down in the first part, which is over a country destitute of subsistence. I will keep you advised as long as I am within range of the telegraph or courier communication.”
With that, Stoneman's 1865 Cavalry Raid had begun. Over the next 60 days, it would pierce deep into the heart of the Confederacy, and bring the Civil War home to dozens of communities in Tennessee, the Carolinas, Virginia, and Georgia that had not seen it up close before. It would also become one of the longest cavalry raids in U.S. military history. In their wake, the raiders left a legacy that resonates to this day, even in modern popular music such as The Band's ''The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.'' Read more in Stoneman's Raid, 1865. I was nervous when I dialed the phone. It’s not every day that I have a reason to call FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. Come to think of it, this was only time I have ever called FBI headquarters!
I was calling because a friend had told me about an FBI agent who was an expert on the Confederate cavalry. I was writing a book about North Carolina cavalrymen in the Army of Northern Virginia, so I had to talk to this expert. (Stuart's Tarheels: James B. Gordon and his North Carolina Cavalry was released in 1996.) The phone rang. My heart beat faster and my palms sweated a little more when someone answered the phone. “Horace Mewborn, please,” I said, half expecting to be shaken down over the phone. But no challenge came, and in a few minutes a man came to the phone. It was Horace. I shakily introduced myself and explained why I was calling, and he could not have been more gracious or helpful. In his deep eastern North Carolina voice, he gladly offered suggestions and agreed to check his files for me. As if it was perfectly natural for a stranger to call the FBI office out of the blue to talk about Civil War history. So began a friendship that lasted until December 14, 2019, when Horace passed away after a battle with cancer. Horace Mewborn was born May 7, 1941, in Kinston, North Carolina. After graduating from Campbell College, he served for seven years in the U.S. Army. Commissioned second lieutenant upon graduation from OCS at Fort Benning in September of 1966, he went on to Airborne School, Special Forces School, Language School and Ranger School. He served two and one-half tours in Vietnam as part of the Fifth Special Forces Group, earning a Combat Infantryman's Badge, Purple Heart, and Bronze Star in the process, among other awards. During his last tour in the Republic of South Vietnam, he was assigned as the personal escort for Martha Raye, who became his life-long friend. After leaving the army, Horace graduated from East Carolina University with an accounting degree and then joined the FBI. Among his assignments with the FBI were tours of duty as a domestic terrorism specialist in New York City, Washington D.C., the Hostage Rescue Team, and FBI headquarters. He retired in 1990. Horace was indeed the Confederate cavalry expert he was touted to be, and he was particularly knowledgeable about John Mosby, the "Gray Ghost." He wrote several books and articles on various cavalry-related topics, including Stuart’s ride around the Army of the Potomac, Mosby’s Rangers, and the Beefsteak Raid of September 1864. He was a frequent speaker at symposiums and Civil War Roundtable meetings, and also a regular guide on many battlefield tours. He was also instrumental in starting New Bern's Civil War Roundtable and played a key role in the preservation of the New Bern Civil War Battlefield. I spent many a pleasant hour talking with Horace. He told me about his Green Beret days; in my mind's eye, I can still see the period photo of Horace and his fellow soldiers hanging in one of his bedrooms. He said less about his days in the FBI, but I know he worked some very tough cases, including the Oklahoma City bombing. But most of all, Horace and I talked about Civil War history. He was an unflagging supporter of my own work. He read my manuscripts, offered research suggestions, invited me to speak at events, and provided a place for me to bunk on research trips to D.C. or eastern North Carolina. (The archives was a second home for him as no one could out-research that man.) Horace was a humble, quiet, and friendly. A man with a runner’s body who always ate a healthy diet, he was always there for me (not to mention countless others). We spoke just a few days before he passed away, and in our conversation Horace was more interested in me and my family than his own plight. Here’s to a good man, who served his country and helped us remember. Rest In Peace, my friend. Donations in Horace's memory can be made to the preservation of the New Bern Civil War Battlefield, c/o New Bern Historical Society, 511 Broad Street, New Bern, NC 28560. In September, I had the honor and privilege of speaking about my latest book, The Lost Soldier, at the National World War II Museum. The facility is amazing and the staff is packed with talented people, including Jason Dawsey, historian-in-residence, who joined me on stage to talk about the book.
The timing was just as perfect: September marked the 75th anniversary of the beginning of the Huertgen Forest battle - a battle that would ultimately last six months, involve 125,000 American soldiers, and cause some 30,000 casualties. Pete Lynn of Kings Mountain, North Carolina, was one of those casualties. His story is told in The Lost Soldier. C-Span covered the event, and you can see it here. Signed copies of The Lost Soldier: The Ordeal of a World War II GI from the Home Front to the Huertgen Forest are now available from the National World War II Museum! Click here for details.
Based in downtown New Orleans, the National World War II Museum is an absolute treasure. Housed in five pavilions that sprawl across a six-acre campus, the museum bulges with historical exhibits, a period dinner theater, and restaurants. I believe it is the best museum of its kind anywhere. You could spend days while perusing everything the museum has to offer. Not to mention the fact that New Orleans itself is a great city. I’ve had the pleasure of visiting the museum on several occasions. On one of those visits, I was humbled to meet a man who won the Congressional Medal of Honor during the Normandy Campaign. Afterward, he toured the museum in a wheelchair while his grandson pushed him through the various exhibits. It was moving for me; certainly it was for the old soldier as he saw depictions of those dark days that he endured, with his grandson at his side. It is an incredible honor to see The Lost Soldier featured by the museum’s gift shop. It is also fitting, for every day the museum honors the generation that fought and won World War II. Pete Lynn, who served in the 28th Infantry Division in Europe, is a prime example of that generation. Drafted at the age of 32 in March 1944, he left his family behind to do his duty. He made the ultimate sacrifice that November in the dark, horrific Huertgen Forest. For more details, visit here. Shopping for Father's Day or other special occasion? Or do you just need a new book to read? I'm excited to announce that the publisher of Stuart's Tarheels: James B. Gordon and his North Carolina Cavalry is running a special website promotion through June 30, in honor of the company's 40th anniversary. All orders will be discounted by 25%.
You can find Stuart's Tarheels here - and be sure to check out the other great books on the site while you are there. To enjoy this special savings, use the website coupon code ANN2019. |