Major General George Stoneman Led the Last American Civil War Cavalry Raid

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Six-foot-four-inch Major General George Stoneman, powerfully built, ‘with a face that showed the marks of long and hard service in the field,’ watched as 6,000 men and horses formed up just outside of Mossy Creek, Tennessee, in late March 1865. These blue-clad troopers of the Cavalry Division of the District of East Tennessee were preparing for a raid into northwest North Carolina and southwest Virginia, their orders to ‘destroy but not to fight battles.’ The war was winding down, but the punishment of Southern civilians continued apace, its aim to demoralize an already beaten people.

A wagon, 10 ambulances, four guns with their caissons, and two pack mules–one for ammunition and one for the men’s mess–rode along with the advancing Union column. The division, under the immediate command of Brig. Gen. Alvan C. Gillem, was composed of three brigades: Colonel William J. Palmer’s First Brigade, brevet Brig. Gen. Simeon B. Brown’s 2nd Brigade, and Colonel John K. Miller’s 3rd Brigade, as well as a battery of artillery under Lieutenant James M. Regan.

On March 23, the division moved east to Morristown, Tenn., where each man was issued five days’ rations, one day’s forage of corn, and four horseshoes with nails, to go along with the 63 rounds of ammunition each already carried. The land and the people, hard pressed though they were, would have to provide most of the Federals’ supply needs. On March 24, the division moved toward Taylorsville, Tenn., where they took the turnpike leading to Watauga County, N.C. In the land ahead, a tremor of fear passed through the population. Rumors of the approaching raid caused citizens to hide their food and valuables.

As commander of the East Tennessee district, Stoneman was personally accompanying Gillem’s cavalry division to oversee its mission. Originally, Stoneman had been ordered to raid into South Carolina, but Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman’s rapidly moving forces had precluded that need. His revised orders from Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas, commander of the Army of the Cumberland, were to ‘dismantle the country to obstruct Lee’s retreat’ by destroying parts of the East Tennessee & Virginia Railroad, the North Carolina Railroad, and the Danville-Greensboro line.

Ulysses S. Grant, the overall Union commander, believed that Stoneman’s raid, in conjunction with a simultaneous raid by Northern cavalry in Alabama, would ‘leave nothing for the rebellion to stand upon.’ While Stoneman ravaged, Brig. Gen. Davis Tillson’s 4th Division of the Department of the Cumberland would follow the cavalry column and occupy key mountain passes in northwest North Carolina to protect Stoneman’s and Gillem’s rear.

Very little in the way of Confederate defenses awaited Stoneman’s men. Confederate home guardsmen were scattered about in various places such as Watauga County, where Major Harvey Bingham had two companies, or Ashe County where a Captain Price commanded a small company. The area had been placed under the direction of General P.G.T. Beauregard, but the regular troops in his command were described as ‘insufficient to stop [Stoneman].’

Yet Stoneman would not march unopposed, as the people of Watauga County quickly demonstrated. At 10 a.m. on March 28, as the Federal forces moved on the Taylorsville turnpike toward the village of Boone, N.C., the troopers learned that a meeting of the local home guard would occur in Boone that same day. Stoneman quickly sent his aide-de-camp, with the 2nd Brigade’s 12th Kentucky Cavalry, to assault Boone and take on the home guard. The Union troopers responded, riding into Boone and down Main Street, firing at anything that moved.

Mrs. James Councill heard the firing and stepped out onto her porch, her child in her arms, to investigate when ‘a volley of balls splintered into the wood all around her.’ Home guardsmen and citizens grabbed their weapons and tried to fight back. Steel Frazier, a 15-year-old boy, was chased by six Federals to a fence, where Frazier took cover, turned, and took on his pursuers, killing two of them. He then retreated into the woods. Calvin Green tried to surrender, but when the Federals continued to shoot at him, he resumed the fight and shattered the arm of one of the invaders with his musket.

Tags: 19th Century, America's Civil War, American Civil War, Historical Conflicts

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