Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 7.djvu/311

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CONFEDERATE MILITARY HISTORY.
292

No. 98—(1065) Hampton's cavalry corps, Johnston's army, April 9, 1865. No. 99—(1071) Col. P. H. Rice, Anderson's brigade, Allen's division, Wheeler's cavalry corps, Hardee's army, January 31, 1865.

THE EIGHTH CONFEDERATE CAVALRY.

The Eighth Confederate cavalry was organized after the battle of Shiloh, by the consolidation of Brewer's, Bell's and Baskerville's battalions, comprising six Alabama and four Mississippi companies. Brewer's, one of the first mounted bodies raised in the State, fought with distinction at Shiloh, and acted as rear guard for Polk's army. The Eighth moved with the army of Tennessee into Kentucky and fought with it before and after the battle of Murfreesboro; was in Wheeler's dash on Rosecrans' rear during the battle. It lost heavily at Shelbyville, where a portion of the regiment was captured, and suffered severely at Chickamauga and Dalton. It took part in the capture of Stoneman, and fought as infantry in the Dalton-Atlanta campaign. It was with Wheeler in his last raid into Tennessee, then moved into Virginia, except part of his regiment which was attached to Chalmers' brigade and skirmished in Alabama until the close of the war. The remainder fought Burbridge at Saltville, and pursued Sherman; fighting incessantly until it surrendered at Greensboro, 100 strong. Col. W. B. Wade was wounded in Tennessee. Lieut-Col. J. S. Prather was wounded, and Major McCaa killed, at Murfreesboro; Maj. John Wright was wounded at Shelbyville; Captains Ferguson, Thompson and Lindsay and Adjutant Goodrich were captured. Capt. John McElderry was killed near Dalton, Capt. Joseph A. Mathews near Columbia; Capt. Henry Holmes was wounded at Boonsville and Jonesboro, and Capt. Francis Pinckard died in the service. Col. R. H. Brewer, of Brewer's battalion, was a graduate of West Point. He resigned, and was afterward killed in the valley of Virginia, in 1864.