GEN. GEORGE H. THOMAS
WAS GENERAL THOMAS
SLOW AT NASHVILLE?
WITH A DESCRIPTION OF
The Greatest Cavalry Movement of the War
AND
General James H. Wilson’s Cavalry Operations
in Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia
BY
HENRY V. BOYNTON
Brevet Brig. Gen. U. S. V.; Historian Chickamauga
and Chattanooga National Park Commission
NEW YORK
FRANCIS P. HARPER
1896
Copyrighted, 1896,
BY FRANCIS P. HARPER.
Edition Limited to 450 Copies.
No. 116
PREFACE.
A recent revival of the venerable charge that General George H. Thomas wasslow at Nashville led to the publication, in the New York Sun of August9, 1896, of the article which is here reproduced by the permission of thatjournal. A few brief additions have been made to the original text.
It seemed the more important to some of the veterans of the Army of theCumberland that this charge in its renewed form should be met, because[Pg 4] itwas put forth with a show of official authority which would naturally giveit weight with readers who were not familiar with the war records.
The discussion of the subject also afforded an opportunity to present,though in very concise form, the outlines of those magnificent cavalryoperations under General James H. Wilson in the battle of Nashville, andin his subsequent independent campaign through Alabama and Georgia, all ofwhich were without parallel in our war.
Though these movements constitute one of the most brilliant chapters inour war history,—in fact, in the history of cavalry in any war,—thecountry really knows little about[Pg 5] them, because they were performed outof sight in Alabama and Georgia, while the attention of the country wasfixed upon the fall of Richmond and the great events immediately followingit. For this reason it is believed that the brief story here presentedwill not be without interest.
H. V. B.
Washington, D. C., September, 1896.
WAS GENERAL THOMAS SLOW AT NASHVILLE?
new generation has come upon the stage since our civil war. It has itsown writers on the events of that struggle. Some of these, carefulstudents as they are, make proper and effective use of the stores ofmaterial which the Government has collected and published. Others,stumbling upon interesting dispatches[Pg 8] of notable campaigns, read them inconnection with the ill-considered and hasty criticisms of the hot timeswhich brought them forth, and, finding questions settled twenty years ago,but entirely new to themselves, they proceed to reveal them as new thingsto the new generation. By this process it has rece