Kilpatrick’s men merrily laid waste to the state, and when the cavalry occupied the capital, Milledgeville, Kilpatrick joined in their fun. He and his officers broke into the Georgia House of Representatives and staged a mock legislative session. Although a teetotaler, Kilpatrick reportedly took the speaker’s stand and regaled the assembly with tales of the cavalry’s “gallant campaigns against enemy wine cellars and whiskey store rooms.” After a round of speechmaking the “congressmen” drew up a series of resolutions, including one declaring the Georgia Ordinance of Secession “a damned farce.”

Subscribe Today

• Did you enjoy our article?
• Read more in Civil War Times magazine
• Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!!
 

During the march Kilpatrick carried on a running war against Major General Joseph Wheeler’s cavalry, who constantly hovered on the fringes of Sherman’s army. Often Wheeler bested Kilpatrick in skirmishes and engagements, but not even “Fightin’ Joe” was able to curtail Sherman’s inexorable march through the state.

On the other hand, Kilpatrick got the better of Wheeler now and again, as in November when under Sherman’s orders he swung his cavalry north toward Augusta and then south toward Millen. It was a feinting movement and Wheeler, taking the bait, concentrated his cavalry at Millen, thinking that the Federal horsemen were heralding Sherman’s advance. Actually Sherman was marching unmolested in another direction–toward Savannah–with his four infantry corps.

Fuming at his deception, Wheeler tried to get even. On one occasion he routed Kilpatrick from a night bivouac. On another day he pushed him away from some strategic objectives which he had planned to destroy. And when Kilpatrick’s cavalry reached Aiken, South Carolina, Wheeler’s men struck them so viciously that the Federals were driven out of the town “like chickens.”

On the whole, however, Kilpatrick did an efficient job of guarding Sherman’s flanks. When the army reached Savannah, just before Christmas 1864, Sherman wrote him: “The fact that to you, in great measure, we owe the march of four strong infantry columns, with heavy trains and wagons, over 300 miles through an enemy’s country, without the loss of a single wagon, and without the annoyance of cavalry dashes on our flanks, is honor enough for any cavalry commander.”

When Sherman resumed his march, from Savannah through the Carolinas, Kilpatrick redoubled his efforts to make the Confederacy suffer. At the start of that campaign, according to prevalent rumors, he issued large quantities of matches to his troopers. He left no doubt “about his intentions when he told some of his officers: “In after years when travelers passing through South Carolina shall see chimney stacks without houses, and the country desolate, and shall ask ‘who did this?’ some Yankee will answer, ‘Kilpatrick’s cavalry.’” And he spoke even more plainly to a group of foot soldiers: “There’ll be damned little for you infantrymen to destroy after I’ve passed through that hellhole of secession.”

He tried hard to keep his word. As an example, consider his short but unpleasant stay in Barnwell, South Carolina, where his troopers were careless with their matches. While flames consumed part of the town, Kilpatrick held a gala ball at his headquarters and even forced some of the local ladies to dance with his officers. Thereafter his soldiers renamed the place, fittingly, “Burnwell.”

Through South Carolina Kilpatrick continued his war against both Wheeler and Lieutenant General Wade Hampton, whose cavalry guarded the retreat of the Army of Tennessee, once again under General Joseph E. Johnston. In addition to authorized warfare, Kilpatrick engaged in a bitter personal feud with Hampton, stemming from reports that Hampton’s men had lynched captured Federal troopers. Although Hampton denied the charges, Kilpatrick heatedly declared that he would retaliate in kind. It is difficult to determine where the burden of guilt in this should rest, for unauthorized killings undoubtedly took place on both sides, but certainly the issue inflamed the bitter feelings that already existed between Kilpatrick and his opponents. Since Kilpatrick’s men retaliated by violating private property, the people of South Carolina suffered most for it in the long run.

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to