Battle of Chickamauga: Colonel John T. Wilder and the Lightning Brigade

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By the turn of 1863, Wilder’s brigade, which at that time included the 17th, 72nd and 75th Indiana, the 92nd and 98th Illinois and the 18th Indiana Battery commanded by Captain Eli Lilly, was trying to stop Southern cavalry from raiding the Army of the Cumberland’s main supply route, the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. Frustrated with the futility of chasing on foot Confederate troopers, Wilder ordered some of his men to mount mules brought up from the wagon trains. The experiment largely failed–most of the animals were unused to having saddles on their backs–but the attempt gave Wilder the idea to permanently mount his brigade.

Wilder discussed the matter with the commander of the Army of the Cumberland, Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans, and ‘Old Rosey’ enthusiastically agreed to the idea. In February 1863, Rosecrans issued Special Field Orders No. 44, which gave Wilder sanction to mount his men. The army had precious few horses, and the would-be troopers had to round up their steeds in the countryside. Since the men were operating in ‘disloyal’ country, they simply impressed what horses they could find during foraging sweeps.

For the next couple of months, Wilder’s brigade spent its time adjusting to its new mounts by undertaking various expeditions in the vicinity of Murfreesboro. They would ride to a location, dismount and leave their animals with comrades appointed as ‘horse holders,’ and fight or scout like infantrymen.

During the shakedown period, Wilder realized that conventional muzzleloading muskets were too unwieldy for mounted soldiers. The enterprising colonel wanted his men to move quickly to their destination and hit hard when they got there. He did not favor breechloading carbines carried by cavalry troopers because their range was limited, and he began to study the worth of some of the new rapid-firing, breechloading rifles that were being developed.

Wilder first considered the Henry repeating rifle, but passed on that weapon after meeting Christopher Spencer. Spencer had been touring the Army of the Cumberland that March to promote his new repeating rifle in hopes of a finding a major purchaser. The Spencer rifle had a tubular magazine that held seven rimfire, .56-caliber metallic cartridges. The magazine was inserted into the stock, and the rounds were fed into the breech by lever action.

Wilder was stunned by the firepower of the weapon and decided to equip his brigade with them. To avoid Army red tape, he decided to try and persuade his men to buy their own Spencers at $35 apiece, and put the idea to a vote. They agreed, and handed $35 of their own money over for the weapons. Wilder co-signed for those who needed a promissory note to buy one of the rifles, and in May the weapons began arriving in camp. The 72nd Indiana was the first regiment to get the Spencers, and the men were ecstatic about the firearms. Corporal Benjamin Magee liked the weapon’s reliability. ‘It never got out of repair,’ he recalled. Private John M. Barnard produced a more bloodthirsty assessment of the weapon: ‘I think we can bring down a reb with them,’ he boasted. He would soon get his chance to try doing just that.

Shortly after the Spencers began to arrive, the 75th Indiana, the only regiment that had not agreed to become mounted, was swapped out of the brigade in exchange for the 123rd Illinois, a veteran regiment eager to put spurs on their boots and mount up. In just a few months, the innovative Wilder had reshaped his brigade, changing it from a conventional group of line infantry regiments to fast-moving, rapid-shooting mounted infantry.

In late June, Wilder’s brigade got its first chance to prove itself in a major campaign. Rosecrans, after months of fitting out his army, prepared to move southward from Murfreesboro against Bragg’s line along the Duck River. Bragg had a strong position and held the critical gaps in a series of hills through which the Army of the Cumberland would have to pass.

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