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1. TICW, 1:319, 322, 325, 327, 330; Carter, First Regiment, 72. 2. Carter, First Regiment, 80; Boatner, Civil War Dictionary, 557–58. CHAPTER 6 The Chattanooga Campaign G eneral Stanley reorganized his Cavalry Corps of the Army of the Cumberland in June 1863 into two divisions: Brig. Gen. Robert B. Mitchell’s First Division and Brig. Gen. George Crook’s Second Division. The first three Tennessee regiments served in Mitchell’s division, and Stokes’s 5th served in Minty’s “saber brigade” of Crook’s division. The 4th Tennessee remained unattached at Nashville.1 Brownlow’s boys found Mitchell, a Mexican War veteran, Kansas attorney, and onetime Free-Soiler, to be “a rigid disciplinarian,” recalled Sgt. William R. Carter. The general filled their days with “reviews, inspections and drills” and their nights sharing space in “dog-tents” sized to protect only half of a man from the elements. Before dawn he had his cavalrymen fully equipped with their horses saddled, in formation, and ready to march. Mitchell required discipline in all matters, whether in “roll-call, guard-mounting, drill [or] cooking beans and bacon.” If a man burned a light after taps, the general made him “carry a rail three to five hours.” On the march he dismounted stragglers, compelling them to “march the remainder of the day in the rear.”2 As Rosecrans had planned, on June 23 a diversion on the far right set the stage for the main movement of his army on the left the following day. Mitchell ’s cavalry and Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger’s infantry corps moved southwest toward Shelbyville. Following Stanley’s order, the horsemen brought only the “clothing on [their] backs” and the thought of having to “subsist . . . on the country.” When Col. Archibald P. Campbell’s brigade of the First Division met the enemy at Rover, Brownlow and the 1st Tennessee forged ahead. But the 104 Middle Tennessee and Beyond 3. Carter, First Regiment, 74–75; James Larson, Sergeant Larson: 4th Cavalry, ed. A. L. Blum (San Antonio, 1935), 163–65; Stanley, Memoirs, 144–45; OR, 23(1):539–40; Starr, Union Cavalry, 3:235–38; Rowell, Yankee Cavalrymen, 134–35. 4. Rowell, Yankee Cavalrymen, 136; Carter, First Regiment, 75. 5. Vale, Minty and the Cavalry, 175; Stanley, Memoirs, 147; Starr, Union Cavalry, 3:245; Larson, Sergeant Larson, 167. young officer lost two men and “[s]hot his horse trying to Shoot a rebel that had come through [the Union] lines.” When another Johnny Reb rode wildly across the skirmish line, Brownlow’s men fired a barrage before his horse fell with the bewildered but unscathed rider. The horse’s reins had been cut by bullets, making the frightened trooper “an unwilling participant” in what appeared to be reckless bravery.3 The next day each trooper pushed south in his “poncho, part hanging in front and part behind [with] the brim of his hat turned so as to shed the pouring rain.” Days of rain had turned the road into a quagmire, and the unrelenting weather continued as they drove the graycoats back at Middleton. That night, as on other occasions, Brownlow’s men slept on a solid surface of two wooden rails “side by side” in the mud.4 Following Stanley’s order “to dislodge the enemy at Gay’s Gap,” Minty’s brigade of twenty-five hundred horsemen, including Galbraith’s battalion of the 5th Tennessee, moved south on June 27 from Triune to Shelbyville under “light marching orders,” carrying only necessities. The town sat on the north bank of the Duck River, known for its width as well as its “deep bed and rock sides.” Riding ahead as Minty’s advance, Galbraith’s men removed a barricade across the road at the crest of a hill, then charged fleeing graybacks toward Shelbyville , scattering them in every direction. But Galbraith halted after learning that Wheeler’s main force stood behind fieldworks north of Shelbyville.5 Minty pushed his remaining cavalry around Galbraith to flank the enemy, taking three hundred prisoners before reaching Shelbyville, defended by a few hundred of Wheeler’s horsemen still expecting reinforcements from Forrest . When the Federals reached within a quarter mile of the town, the enemy opened fire with four pieces of artillery posted on high ground. At Minty’s orders , the 7th Pennsylvania, “a regiment of . . . blacksmiths,” charged in four columns on the main stone-paved road leading to the public square, followed closely by the 4th U.S. Cavalry and Galbraith’s...

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