The Battle of Monroe's Crossroads: And the Civil War's Final Campaign by Eric J. Wittenberg

Author:Eric J. Wittenberg [Wittenberg, Eric J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, United States, Civil War Period (1850-1877)
ISBN: 9781932714173
Google: faMVAQAAMAAJ
Publisher: Savas Beatie
Published: 2006-02-15T02:53:10+00:00

Lieutenant Colonel

Barrington S. King

Georgia Historical Society

With Wade Hampton urging him on, King led his Georgians headed straight for a horseless line of Yankees supported by Stetson’s guns. “The Cobb Legion gallantly charged upon that splendidly equipped battle line of dismounted Westerners,” recalled an eyewitness, “steadily advancing while their artillery, which we ought to have looked after better at the start, was playing upon our support murderously.”34

S. W. Bailey, a member of Cobb’s Legion, was in the charge that morning and remembered it for the rest of his life. “And right here was my closest call in the war,” he recalled years later. “I had crossed over the ravine on a bridge, when we recrossed our men had gone. I had then to go back alone as fast as my horse would carry me in a line parallel with and near the enemy’s camp. Zip, zip went many a bullet close to my ears.” Bailey saw King forming his horse soldiers for the charge and fell in with them, the men yelling as they dashed for the guns.35

During the brief interlude following the previous Confederate charge, the intrepid Stetson had re-manned and reloaded his field pieces. As King and his men thundered toward them, Stetson unleashed another blast of canister. One of the lead balls found its mark and knocked King from his saddle. The missile had severed his femoral artery. As a physician, King would have quickly guessed that the wound was mortal, and he would have been right. The doctor-turned-soldier bled to death within a few minutes. “Say to my wife. I die willingly defending my country,” he is said to have uttered as his life spilled out into the muddy Carolina soil. Bailey saw Lt. Wiley Chandler Howard grab the mortally wounded colonel’s horse and lead it to safety a short distance away, “to the very spot where we buried him.”36

King’s loss was deeply felt within the brigade. Colonel Wright lamented King as “a tried and true friend” and a “staunch and noble patriot. I would that the blow would have fallen on one whose services to their country were less valuable, but such is the fate of war, her victims are the noblest spirits.”37 King’s death and the steady enemy fire took the steam out of Butler’s charge, which broke apart before reaching the Federal line. The combination of rifle-musket, carbine, and artillery fire was simply too much for the Southern horsemen to overcome.38

Private Bailey of Cobb’s Legion was wounded in the arm during the brief attack. “Being in front I was last to retreat and in turning around right at Kilpatrick’s headquarters, a ball went through my horse’s nostrils; another entered his jaw bone as I turned another ball pierced my saddle wallets,” he recalled. “I rode a short distance, dismounted, and turned my wounded horse loose.” All the while enemy bullets continued whistling past Bailey, who spied a gray horse running unmounted. Grabbing the horse’s reins, Bailey jumped on his back and made it safely back to his regiment.

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