Conclusion of a series. Cross-posted at Emerging Civil War.
After rallying his troops, Kilpatrick found a ragged old nag of a horse, and ordered a counterattack by his men, who surged forward out of the swamp and engaged the Confederate cavalrymen. In the meantime, Lt. Stetson was able to man first one, and then other, of his guns near the Monroe house, taking the starch out of the Confederate attack. Butler ordered an attack on the guns, which was led by The Citadel Cadet Ranger Company of the 4th South Carolina Cavalry, led by Capt. Moses Humphrey. Leading his troopers forward, Humphrey and his horse were both felled by a blast of canister. The captain and his loyal steed were buried in the same grave. Lt. Col. Barrington S. King, the commander of the Cobb Legion Cavalry, was also mortally wounded by one of Stetson’s blasts.Those blasts of canister served to rally the Union men. One of Kilpatrick’s troopers described the determined counterattack by the Union horse soldiers as “one of the most terrific hand-to-hand encounters I ever saw.” Blue and gray mingled promiscuously as they slugged it out for possession of the Union camps. One of Wheeler’s division commanders, Brig. Gen. William Y. C. Humes, was badly wounded in the leg, and a brigade commander, Col. James Hagan, lay on the ground bleeding from a severe wound.
Sign indicating the location of the battlefield. In the background are graves for unknown Union dead.
Kilpatrick was happy to let them go. Having been caught by surprise and having taken heavy losses, he was in no hurry to pursue the grayclad horsemen. His command spent the rest of the day licking its wounds. Maj. Gen. James D. Morgan’s 14th Corps Division arrived to reinforce Kilpatrick after the battle ended, and the Union commander soon became a laughingstock when the story of his flight into the swamp clad in only his nightshirt spread. The foot soldiers quickly dubbed it “Kilpatrick’s shirt-tail skedaddle,” not without merit. So ended the final major cavalry engagement in the Western Theater of the Civil War.
Longstreet Church Cemetery. This cemetery is about a mile and a half from the battlefield. Many of the Confederate dead from the battle rest here.
In short, the determined attacks by Hampton and Wheeler at Monroe’ Crossroads made the Battle of Bentonville possible. But for the bold surprise attacks that nearly destroyed Kilpatrick’s command, Hardee’s troops might have been brought to ground at Fayetteville and the Clarendon Bridge might have been seized by Kilpatrick’s troopers and made available for use by Sherman’s army, which might have arrived before Johnston could concentrate his army for the battle that became known as Bentonville.
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In Wiley Chandler Howard’s sketch of the Cobb Legion Cavalry, he wrote the following:
The Cobb Legion gallantly charged upon that splendidly equipped battle line of dismounted Westerners, steadily advancing while their artillery, which we ought to have looked after better at the start, was playing upon our support murderously. We got within fifteen to twenty paces from their front line, our men and horses falling fast. Col. King, by whose side I happened to be, my youngest brother (George) being on the other side, was mortally wounded, the artery of his thigh being severed. Blood spouted onto my shoulder as I leaned over to grasp him, and we held him and wheeled about, managing to take him off under a most terrific fire. My brother and Bugler Jackson afterwards buried him, taking note of the place, etc., so that after the war I was enabled to direct his brother to the spot and his remains were removed and re-interred at Roswell (GA), where he had lived.
The following is from a letter Wiley Chandler Howard wrote on 25 Mar 1865.
Hampton surprised Gen. Kilpatrick’s camp one morning and we came near capturing Kilpatrick, running him out of bed in his night clothes. The Cobb Legion was in front and won new Laurels. We made a most splendid charge and had a terrible hand-to-hand contest with the Yanks. I cut down one with my sabre who had wounded one of my comrades and was about to kill him. Our Lt. Col. (Barrington S. King) was killed. George (Lt. Howard’s youngest brother) and I were by him on his horse and brought him off the field under a terrible fire. He delivered to me his dying message to his wife.