"Your Left Arm:" James H. Wilson's Letters to Adam Badeau

-YOUR LEFT ARM:" James H. Wilson's Letters to Adam Badeau Edited by James P. Jones March, 1865—the confederacy was dying. In the eleven seceded states only isolated areas had avoided the sting of invasion. The largest of these areas stretched from central Mississippi across Alabama and into central Georgia. With the exception of raids, this heartland of the Confederacy had experienced little of the war's misery. But at the beginning of 1865 a Union cavalry force was staging for a drive into this region. The possibility that Confederate forces in the East might retreat into this area, where farms and arsenate would keep them well-supplied, prompted the invasion.1 Commanding the northerners was Major General James Harrison Wilson, a young and successful leader of cavalry. Wilson planned to sweep southward to Selma, disperse any opposition, turn eastward, and capture Montgomery, Columbus, and Macon before joining Grant and Sherman in the East. The young commander planned to use his force as mounted infantry; the horses would insure mobility—the serious fighting would be on foot. Beginning in January, Wilson collected his troopers north of the rain-swollen Tennessee River. He was able to bring together about thirteen thousand horsemen, well-trained and officered. In late March, after the river receded enough to afford passage, the Civil War's largest cavalry movement began.2 During the weeks that his forces lay north of the Tennessee, Wilson , though anxious to attack, spent much of his time catching up on reports and writing to old friends. Few, if any, of his correspondents received letters as open and frank as those written to Colonel Adam 1 Wilson was certain Davis intended to carry on the war from this heartland. He later wrote: "I have always thought the importance of the operation by which I ripped out the heart of the Confederacy east of the Mississippi were minimized and underestimated." Wilson to Charles Francis Adams, Nov. 30, 1901, Wilson Papers, Library of Congress. 2 John K. Herr and Edward S. Wallace, The Story of the U.S. Cavalry, 17751942 (Boston, 1953), p. 140. 230 Badeau, Grant's military secretary and Wilson's close friend since the Port Royal campaign in 1862. Wilson was born near Shawneetown, Illinois, in 1837. His family was prominent in southern Illinois and his father had served in the Black Hawk War. Young Wilson, with military ambitions of his own, entered West Point in 1855 and was graduated sixth of forty-one in the class of 1860. Interestingly enough, his class was the first and only one to pursue the five-year course prescribed by Secretary of War Jefferson Davis. His first active service was in the Far West, but when the war broke out he was ordered east. Wilson's first action came in the Port Royal expedition, where he served as General T. W. Sherman's chief topographical engineer. Later in 1862 Wilson served at Antietam, then joined Grant's headquarters staff. Through 1862 and 1863 he was inspector general of the Army of the Tennessee and followed it to Vicksburg and Chattanooga. In January, 1864, Wilson went to the War Department as chief of the Cavalry Bureau. He remained there several months before being assigned to a cavalry command under Major General Philip Sheridan. The young brigadier served ably under Sheridan until October, 1864, when Grant sent him to William Tecumseh Sherman as chief of cavalry in the Military Division of the Mississippi. To Sherman, Grant wrote: "I believe Wilson will add 50 per cent to the effectiveness of your cavalry."3 At Nashville, his slashing attack on Hood gave credence to Grant's assessment. While Wilson was a professional soldier, Badeau came to the army from civilian life. Born in New York City in 1831, Badeau was a journalist who later became a clerk in the State Department. He joined the Port Royal expedition as a correspondent, but soon became Sherman's aide. He assisted several other commanders before being recommended to Grant as a military secretary by Wilson, in 1863. Badeau served under Grant for the remainder of the war and formed an attachment that lasted until the general's death. Because of...