Wilson's Cavalry at Nashville

Donald Mark Lynne is the second Annapolis man represented in this issue of Civil War History. He entered the Academy from Fargo, North Dakota and wrote this paper on Gen. Wilson just before receiving his commission in June, 1954. Ensign Lynne is presently on active duty with the United States Navy. Wilson's Cavalry at Nashville DONALD M. LYNNE m mid-November of the year 1864, two great armies which had been locked in combat for months turned their backs on each other, and marched in opposite directions. General Sherman, in command of the National Army of the Cumberland, having signally failed to defeat or neutralize the Confederate Army of the Tennessee, was off on his famous March to the Sea. Behind him, the paramount objective of the campaign just ended, 36,000 strong and still very much a threat to the Union, was being set in motion by its leader, General Hood, for a drive northward into Tennessee.1 When Sherman cut his communications on November 16th, and forged southward away from Atlanta, responsibility for containing Hood fell to General Thomas. The approaching danger of a Southern offensive was not lost on that officer, who had been in Nashville, building an army, for over a month. The task was a tremendous one, for Sherman had taken the cream of the Federal Western Armies on his excursion across Georgia, leaving Thomas a fragmentary and unprepared force to cope with Hood. There was an officer on Thomas' staff who was to play a prominent part in the building of the force to face the Southern advance. This man was General James Harrison Wilson, lately transferred from the Army of the Potomac. Grant had sent the young man to Sherman to command his cavalry, with the recommendation that "he would by his personal 1 John P. Dyer, The GaUant Hood (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1950), p. 279. John B. Hood, Advance and Retreat (New Orleans: Hood Orphan Memorial Fund, 1880), p. 298. Stanley F. Horn, The Army of the Tennessee (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1953), pp. 383-4. Thomas B. Van Home, The Life of Major-General George H. Thomas (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1882), p. 479. The figure used to give the strength of Hood's force is a composite one, made up from the figures given in the sources above. 141 142DONALD M. LVNNE activity increase the effect of that arm 'fifty per cent'."2 But Sherman chose to let the newcomer remain behind in Tennessee, while the veteran Kilpatrick led the Union horse to the sea. Wilson reported to Nashville, assumed command of Thomas' cavalry, and joined in the race against time, and the menacing Hood. Thomas had only two corps of infantry and not over five thousand cavalrymen ready for combat.3 The remaining forces under his command were a heterogeneous lot, scattered all over the West. His most important task was the gathering together of all the troops available into a concentrated army at Nashville.4 "Fortunately for us," states Wilson, "Hood lost a whole month at Gadsden, waiting for ammunition, supplies and recruits ... It was this delay . . . [that] gave Thomas time to assemble all his forces for a sturdy defense."5 Wilson, too, faced a problem of consolidation. The cavalry arm in the West was thoroughly dispersed in many widely scattered detachments under three separate army commands. It was without unity of organization , equipment or command, without purpose or power to inflict serious injury upon the enemy. Every army or corps commander had a cavalry escort, and a large number of mounted orderlies. Many of the cavalrymen were without mounts, and on detached service. Wilson relieved the cavalry chiefs in each of the armies, and centered all details of administration at the headquarters of the new corps. "This important step," says Wilson, "gave me direct control over all the cavalry . . . Henceforth, all the mounted troops of the Military Division were absolutely under my control . . ."6 The new leader organized a large and efficient staff, commended as the best cavalry staff ever organized up to that time, in every way worthy of imitation.7 The young commander had nearly fifty thousand men under him...