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Authors: Noah Andre Trudeau

Southern Storm (106 page)

BOOK: Southern Storm
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The rearmost units would not arrive until nearly midnight.
 
 
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Sebastopol.
 
 
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Modern Bartow.
 
 
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The junction took place near modern Kite.
 
 
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This was likely the “Johnson’s” sought in vain by the Fifteenth Corps.
 
 
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In the area of modern Perkins.
 
 
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It was a war-ending wound for the sturdy officer, who died on April 20, 1928, making him the last surviving general officer of the Confederacy.
 
 
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Many Federals believed they were being attacked by three or four times that number.
 
 
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Modern Midville.
 
 
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Modern Wadley.
 
 
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I.e., stripped of their rank.
 
 
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This was the operation that resulted in the Battle of Honey Hill.
 
 
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These accounts became the basis for a successful memoir of Sherman’s March, published in 1865.
 
 
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At least, that is how Sherman read the incident. The fact that it was an accidental collision between his rear guard and Georgia militiamen trying to get around him was not known until much later.
 
 
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A military column without supply wagons or other impedimenta to allow for the maximum possible speed.
 
 
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Baird’s decision to close with his support allowed General Wheeler’s advocates to proclaim that his defense of the Rocky Creek line compelled the Yankees “to turn their course” away from Waynesboro.
 
 
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Toombs had been a brigadier general while in Confederate service, but upon his return to Georgia had entered the state military as a colonel.
 
 
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The reference is to grape shot, an antipersonnel cannon munition containing golf-ball-size lead balls that spread out on discharge like a shotgun blast.
 
 
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Actually,
Colonel
Morton C. Hunter.
 
 
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Not to be confused with the railroad station town of the same name. When enough Georgians became confused, the name of this Eden was changed to Clyde.
 
 
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A postwar account credits a sketch map contained in a letter from a member of the fort’s garrison, which was confiscated while the Federals were near Macon. The account does not cite its source for the story.
 
 

In recollecting his visit some two months later for his official report, Sherman made a mental slip that has been perpetuated in several histories of the campaign. Perhaps because of his extended association with the unit during the period of the march he spent with the Left Wing, the General identified the engineer regiment working on the bridge as the “Fifty-eighth Indiana.” The Hoosiers were, in fact, resting in camp with the Left Wing at the time. The bridge builders, correctly noted by Captain Poe in his report, were from the 1st Missouri Engineers.
 
 
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A two-gun section from Battery H, 1st Illinois Light Artillery, Captain Francis DeGress commanding, operated throughout the day, joined for a period by a section from Battery H, 1st Missouri Light Artillery, Lieutenant John F. Brunner in charge.
 
 
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In addition to the 150 men who were assigned to the garrison, Anderson likely had some extra hands on board from some of the local militia units.
 
 
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Major Anderson reported that his men were suffering from rifle fire as early at 8:00
A
.
M
. If the time is correct, it is improbable that the shooters were Hazen’s men; more likely, they belonged to Kilpatrick.
 
 
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Mary Jones had married her cousin, hence the “Jones Jones.”
 
 
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Muzzle-loading cannon ignited gunpowder through a small touch hole drilled into the barrel. Driving a pointed “spike” into the vent jammed it, or sometimes widened it, rendering the weapon useless.
 
 
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It was Sherman’s way not to drink too deeply of these popular accolades. “A single mistake or accident, my pile, though well founded, would tumble,” he wrote to his wife.
 
 
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Writing afterward to his wife about these incidents, the General made it clear that any self-examination was not on his agenda. Said Sherman: “I am right and won’t change.”
 
 
BOOK: Southern Storm
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