By Steve Ross
Civil War sites are numerous in the southeastern United States, from major
battlegrounds to the scenes of much smaller but still deadly actions that
involved no more than a handful of troops on either side. Nowhere is a Civil War
battle ground in so nearly original condition, however, as Monroe's Crossroads,
North Carolina -- where a little known fight between mounted and dismounted
cavalry units occurred in the early hours of 10 March 1865.
The primary reason for its well-preserved state is that Monroe's Crossroads
lies today wholly within the confines of the Fort Bragg military reservation --
home of the United State's Army's elite 82nd Airborne Division. Even the
approach roads used by Union and Confederate forces prior to the battle, for
dozens of miles, are in the same unpaved condition as 133 years ago.
The 1st Alabama Cavalry (U.S.V.) played a crucial role in the fight. It was
their timely stand behind a nearly impassable swamp that broke the momentum of
the Confederate assault and bought time for their outnumbered comrades to rally
and drive their attackers off with heavy losses. On another cold, rainy morning
near the 133rd anniversary of the battle, two members of today's Company C,
guided by topographical maps and a Fort Bragg archaeologist, walked the original
field and stepped back in time...
* * * * *
Late on the evening of 9 March 1865, Brigadier General H. Judson Kilpatrick
rode through a wet, black North Carolina night at the head of his 4,500-man
cavalry division. His mission was to guard the left wing of Major General
William Tecumseh Sherman's army as it ground its way north, wearing down
Confederate resistance in this fifth winter of the war. Foremost in Kilpatrick's
mind that night was his intended target, the city of Fayetteville -- which he'd
been given permission to capture, along with any rebel troops unfortunate enough
to be there when he arrived.
Kilpatrick -- "Kill Cavalry, " as he was known to the troopers he pushed
without letup -- had crossed into North Carolina with his Third Cavalry Division
a week before. Since then, his force had battled heavy rains and nearly
impassable roads. At one point, Kilpatrick's artillery had taken seven hours to
travel five miles through a sea of mud, manhandled by cursing gunners and
equally unhappy troopers detailed to lend a hand with the guns. Confederate
cavalry was all about the column. Skilled at hitting Yankee outriders suddenly
and slipping away into the surrounding woods, they did not hesitate to make
their presence known in frequent hit-and-run attacks.
The gray horsemen under Confederate generals Hampton, Wheeler, Humes and
Butler, were determined to penetrate Sherman's cavalry screen and learn where he
would turn next. Sherman had kept the Confederates guessing, however, in no
small part because Kilpatrick's veteran troopers were good at their work.
Before leaving Savannah in late January, Sherman had told a confidante, "I
know Kilpatrick's a hell of a damned fool, but that's just the kind of man I
want to lead my cavalry on this expedition."
Kilpatrick was operating well forward of the Union main body as he approached
Fayetteville, where Sherman planned to destroy the federal arsenal and
rendezvous with supply ships coming up the Cape Fear River. He then planned to
call in his cavalry screen and turn east for Wilmington. Meanwhile, as
Kilpatrick's division neared Fayetteville, his brigades were separated by
several miles along their line of march. Efficient scouting alone kept the
components within supporting distance of one another.
* * * * *
About 2100 hours on the night of 9 March, Kilpatrick and his escort, riding
southeast on Morganton Road, were planning to halt at nearby Monroe's Crossroads
where the division's dismounted (4th) brigade was, by then, setting up camp. In
pitch darkness and heavy rain, the riders topped a small rise about 50 yards
west of the intersection with the Yadkin Road. Somehow, a sense of impending
danger communicated itself to Kilpatrick and his bodyguard, and they left the
road at a gallop, crashing into the nearby woods heading south. What had alarmed
them was the capture of part of the escort by troopers of Major General Matthew
Butler's Confederate cavalry division, which had been moving along the Yadkin
Road nearly parallel to the Federals and reached the intersection first. Butler
didn't learn until months later that his men had come within seconds of
capturing Sherman's cavalry commander. Meanwhile, Kilpatrick and his remaining
escort detoured crosslots toward their intended camp about three miles ahead, at
the intersection of the Morganton and Blue's Resin Roads.
Later that evening, after his scouts had located and observed the enemy camp,
Lieutenant General Wade Hampton, commanding the Confederate cavalry, realized
his troops might defeat the Federals if he could get his force in close
undetected. Given the rain and darkness, Hampton thought this could be done,
especially since the scouts had reported the Federals had no pickets out north
or west of their camp to watch their rear.
As he thought over his next move, Hampton considered three factors. First,
Confederate forces in Fayetteville needed time to withdraw across the Cape Fear
River and rejoin their main body further north. The Federals in his front were,
at most, two brigades, with the remainder not close enough to offer much
support. And within the confines of the federal camp was an undetermined number
of Confederate prisoners who might also be freed. Even though his own force
wasn't fully assembled, Hampton decided to attack the Federal camp at dawn.
Accordingly, in total darkness, leading their mounts and ordered not to talk
above a whisper, the Confederate troopers began moving into attack positions
north and west of the Federal camp.
The Federal force at Monroe's Crossroads consisted of two cavalry brigades,
one dismounted and one mounted -- altogether about 1,500 men.
The troopers had arrived by regiments, tired, wet and groping through the
dark woods for places to pitch tents and find shelter from the incessant rain.
Their camps ran from the Monroe house facing Blue's Resin Road, southwest about
500 yards to the sloping bank of a tiny stream called Nicholson Creek. After
days of rain, the normally lazy stream had become a swamp, narrow, but long and
deep, filling the little gully through which it flowed.
The camp of the Federal 1st Alabama Cavalry marked the farthest extent of the
bivouac and was closest to the creek. A section of the 10th Wisconsin Light
Artillery, two 3-inch ordnance rifles under Lt. Ebenezer Stetson, was posted on
a slight rise about 250 yards behind the Alabamians' camp. Meanwhile,
Kilpatrick's scouts under Captain Theo Northrup had bivouacked across Blue's
Resin Road several hundred yards east of the main Federal camp. Northrup had
been tempted by the comfortable Monroe house just south of the crossroads but
thought it too exposed, and moved his men to what he considered a less
vulnerable campsite.
As the Federals settled down for the night, Confederate scouts watched the
camp. They had orders to locate General Kilpatrick's headquarters and the
Confederate POWs. So close did they draw to the camp that four men from the 8th
Texas Cavalry actually slipped inside the perimeter and made off with several
horses. The scouts were surprised to learn that the Federals had no pickets
north or west of the crossroads where Generals Hampton and Wheeler were
assembling their men for a dawn assault.
Col. George Spencer, former commander of the 1st Alabama, now commanding the
3rd Brigade of Kilpatrick's Division, would later say that he placed his pickets
to the east, facing Fayetteville, where he believed the greatest danger lay. A
large Confederate force under General William J. Hardee still occupied the city,
but hoped to get out before the Yankees arrived. It's likely that Kilpatrick and
Spencer talked after the general's arrival in camp, and discussed Kilpatrick's
narrow escape on the Morganton Road earlier that evening. Assuming that to have
been the case, it's difficult to believe neither of the two experienced
commanders sensed the presence of a strong enemy force in their rear.
Nevertheless, no pickets or videttes were posted north or west of the Federal
camp.
Throughout the night, more of Hampton's and Wheeler's units arrived and were
assigned positions for the attack. As these assembled at the crossroads, one of
Wheeler's divisions under Brigadier General William Y.C. Humes was posted to the
Confederate right. Its task was to hit the Federals southwest of the Monroe
house and either rout them, or keep them from coming to the aid of their
comrades around the house. Humes's men were now directly across Nicholson Creek
from the 1st Alabama, and facing about 200 yards of swamp which they would have
to cross in their assault.
* * * * *
Just before dawn the rain stopped and a heavy fog hung over the swamp,
obscuring the Federal camp and screening the force assembled against it.
Although their entire complement still had not arrived, the longer Generals
Hampton and Wheeler waited, the greater grew the chance of discovery. Shortly after 0530, then, the word was
passed to mount and the Confederates deployed into attack formation.
North of the Morganton Road, on the Federal right, General Butler's two
brigades would strike the Monroe house and the Yankees camped on its grounds --
including, it was hoped, General Kilpatrick. Just south of the Morganton Road
and west of the camp, behind a low rise of ground, Hampton had posted Brigadier
General William Wirt Allen's division of Wheeler's Corps which had come up in
the night. One of Allen's units was an all-Alabama brigade under Colonel James
Hagan.
Another brigade under Brigadier General George Dibrell was there as well,
being held in reserve. The assault on the west side of the Federal camp would be
led by Shannon's Scouts, who would make straight for the POW compound they had
located in their earlier reconnaissance. Meanwhile, some 300 yards further south
and west of the camp Hume's division prepared to cross the swamp along Nicholson
Creek and deal with the Federals posted there. Generals Hampton and Wheeler had
a brief last-minute conference, in which Hampton rejected his subordinate's
suggestion that the assault be made on foot. "As a cavalryman," said Hampton, "I
prefer that this capture be made on horseback." Wheeler acknowledged with a
salute, adding, "General Hampton, all is ready for action. Have your
headquarters bugler blow the charge."
* * * * *
A late winter dawn in the Carolina sandhills doesn't break so much as filter
reluctantly through the brooding pines and thick ground fog. But on this cold,
sodden morning the blast of a Confederate cavalry bugle shattered the mist, and
the peace of the Yankee camp, in a barrage of sound. The brazen notes poured
forth, accompanied by General Butler's hoarse shout, "Troops from Virginia,
follow me! Forward! Charge!" Before their commander's voice had died away, the
troops north of the camp exploded from the woods and across the Morganton Road,
screaming the Rebel yell and firing as they came.
The charge struck the camp of the dismounted brigade just as the first troops
were stirring, overrunning the guards on the POW compound and setting off a
stampede for the woods southeast of the Monroe house and across Blue's Resin
Road. Those who didn't take to their heels surrendered or were shot down as they
groped for their weapons to respond. Many of the Confederate prisoners dashed in
the direction of the attacking force only to be taken by them for a Federal
counterattack coming out of the mist. Several of the escapers were shot by their
own men.
As Butler's men hacked and shot their way into the Federal camp, General
Wheeler ordered his men to charge into the compound from the west. Wheeler, too,
commenced the assault with his bugler blowing the charge -- as it turned out,
just as the Federal bugler was preparing to sound reveille. Whatever notes the
Yankee managed to play were drowned in the din of pounding hooves and yelling
men.
At about that point, Kilpatrick emerged from the Monroe house in the face of
what he later called "the most formidable cavalry charge I have ever witnessed."
Coming from a man who spared little praise for his enemies, the words amounted
to a high accolade. As the commanding general stood on the front porch clad,
some said, only in his nightshirt, two flying squads of Confederate troopers
pounded up and demanded to know the whereabouts of General Kilpatrick.
"Little Kil's" wits didn't fail him at that precarious moment. Glancing
around quickly, he saw a figure on a black horse galloping into the mist. "There
he goes," Kilpatrick replied, pointing, and the Confederates spurred their
mounts in pursuit while their intended quarry watched them go. Thus, Sherman's
cavalry commander narrowly escaped capture twice within ten hours -- at Monroe's
Crossroad's Judson Kilpatrick's personal luck was definitely in.
* * * * *
"By this time," writes historian Mark L. Bradley, "the fighting around the
Monroe house was a jumble of small battles at close quarters." So many men were
fighting in that confined space that even wild or random shots hit living flesh.
Those in the melee later wrote of the individual combats they saw or were part
of; desperate little fights with no quarter asked or given as men shot, stabbed,
clubbed and clawed each another in the gray dawn -- the last for many.
Butler's men, and the left half of Wheeler's force were now heavily engaged
around the Monroe house. Up to this point, with the exception of General
Kilpatrick's narrow escape, the Confederate attack had gone about as planned.
But on Wheeler's right, a swamp and some stubborn Unionists were about to change
that. The two brigades under Harrison and Ashby were still struggling across the
swamp in their front -- a body of water wider and deeper than originally
thought. Moreover, the two commands were attempting to cross it mounted -- a
nearly impossible feat under the circumstances if the force was to hit its
target with speed and concentration.
Behind the swamp, an equally formidable waited: the 1st Alabama Union
Cavalry. The Southern Unionists were the last of Spencer's mounted brigade to
come into camp the night before and had filed past the other units and halted
along the south bank of Nicholson Creek. Now they were alerted by the din of
battle near the Monroe house, and were in position to give a hot welcome to the
Confederates across the swamp.
The Alabama Federals, according to historian Mark Bradley, now "laid down a
heavy fire into the swamp, forcing Harrison's and Ashby's troopers to dismount
and seek cover.
"The men of the 1st Alabama Cavalry were fiercely independent Unionists from the hilly northern region of the state who refused to truckle to the secessionist cotton planters of the flatlands further south. In 1862 they formed their own regiment and joined the Union army.
For most of the war, these bluecoat Alabamians had served as scouts, raiders and railroad guards. At the moment, however, they were doing just what they had enlisted to do -- fight Rebels."
Fire from the Alabamians' Burnside, Spencer and Smith carbines poured into
the swamp, forcing Harrison's and Ashby's men to give up their push and turn
north to seek an easier route. As the Confederates across the creek pulled back,
the 1st Alabama men turned their attention to the fighting near the Monroe house
north of their camp. The 5th Kentucky had camped on the Alabamians' right, and
now the two regiments combined forces to harry the Confederates and slow the
pace of their attack.
As the 1st and 5th poured carbine fire into the Confederate attackers, First
Lieutenant Ebenezer Stetson, commanding the brigade artillery section raced
toward his two guns. The three-inch ordinance rifles had been posted on the only
high ground in the vicinity -- a knoll so insignificant as to be almost
invisible unless an observer carefully examined the contour of the immediate
ground. Their crews had been shot down or driven off in the first assault and
now the two guns stood silent, for all intents and purposes in the possession of
hundreds of nearby Confederates who were pressing their advantage hard. Alone,
Lt. Stetson managed to load a canister round into one of the two guns. He then
raced to its rear where he single-handedly primed and fired the piece into the
mass of struggling men. The round and its accompanying blast tore a terrible
hole through the surprised Confederates. At such close range, men and horses
were torn apart by flying iron or blown for dozens of feet. Those not hit were
momentarily stunned by the sudden, unexpected discharge. Suddenly the momentum
of the fight shifted to the blue troopers who until a moment before had been
battling for their very lives.
Stetson continued to work his gun, grabbing another round and springing back
to the loader's position at its muzzle. Here both Federal and Confederate
accounts conflict as to exactly what happened. Some later recollections suggest
that one of Stetson's sergeants and some of the surviving batterymen rushed to
their lieutenant's aid and were later killed or wounded when the Confederates
turned on the guns with renewed fury.. Battery after-action reports don't
confirm those accounts, however, listing one gun disabled, ten battery horses
captured and no artillerymen killed.
By now the Confederates, recovering from the shock of Stetson's first round,
had turned their fire on the Federal cannoneers while forming for a
counterattack to retake the guns. Lieutenant General Wheeler, working rapidly
under fire, gathered several elements of the Confederate force into line and
ordered a mounted charge against the Federal left. Wheeler knew that if he
breached the line and took the guns on their tiny knoll, the blue troopers would
have to abandon their camp. The Confederates came on with a rush, but the
dismounted Federals, taking cover behind the many trees that covered the area
and supported by the artillery, stopped Wheeler's men with a heavy toll. The
Confederates pulled back toward the upper part of the camp where Hampton's men
still had possession of the Monroe house and grounds.
As Wheeler's men fell back toward the Monroe house, he rallied them for a
second charge and, within minutes, they surged again toward the Federal line.
But the dis- mounted blue troopers and their breechloading carbines again
devastated the Confederates Gray troopers and their horses were shot down
wholesale, consumed by the Federal firestorm. On Wheeler’s left Major General
Butler was forming his men for still another charge, and they came on as
Wheeler’s men withdrew. The result was the same. Butler later reported:
"They [the Federals] had got to their artillery and, with their carbines, made it so hot for the handful of us we had to retire. In fact I lost sixty-two men there in five minutes' time."
Among the casualties was Lieutenant Colonel Barrington King, commanding
Cobb's Georgia Legion, who was struck during the charge by a piece of shrapnel
from one of Stetson's guns. He bled to death within minutes.
About this time, the brigade scout company under Captain Theo Northrop
galloped up Blue's Resin Road from the swamp where he had wisely chosen to
position his men. Along with him came a number of the Federals who'd been blown
loose from their bivouac around the Monroe house by the initial Confederate
charge. Apparently thinking that these might be reinforcements, rather than part
of the force in front of them, the remaining Confederates withdrew slowly north
toward the Morganton Road.
At this point Lieutenant Generals Wheeler and Hampton conferred and agreed
that little could be gained by continuing the fight. They assumed, correctly as
it turned out, that Federal infantry was on the way to support their opponents
and, not wanting to be cut off and overwhelmed, they decided to withdraw.
Posting a rearguard while they hurriedly retrieved as many of their dead and
wounded as possible, the Confederates retired to the Morganton Road and moved
off into the piney woods toward Fayetteville. For a time the rearguard remained,
then -- with a few scattered shots to discourage pursuit -- they too withdrew.
Spencer's weary brigade remained in possession of the crossroads and its
camps. Thanks to the stubborn Unionists of the 1st Alabama Cavalry, their
comrades in the 5th Kentucky and, not least, Lt. Stetson and his guns,
Kilpatrick's reputation and his major general's commission, were safe. But it
was a chastened "Little Kil" who emerged from the fight at the Crossroads.
Fearing that the Confederates might themselves return with infantry, he
anxiously pushed his officers to finish tending the wounded and get the troops
on the move. As soon as the last casualty was seen to, the brigade rejoined the
3rd Cavalry Division and left Monroe's Crossroads behind. But, as the saying
goes, `once bit, twice shy.' As Kilpatrick moved south he no longer marched far
out on the flanks of the army, staying much closer to the Federal infantry than
had heretofore been his wont.
* * * * *
Both sides claimed Monroe's Crossroads as a victory. Kilpatrick because his
men regained their camps and inflicted heavy casualties on the Confederates, and
Hampton because his men had captured over a hundred prisoners, freed all their
own men held captive by the Federals, and opened the road to Fayetteville. In
addition, the battle slowed Kilpatrick's advance and gave the Confederates
additional time to evacuate the city and cross the Cape Fear River to
safety.
Kilpatrick reported his casualties as 19 killed, 68 wounded and 103 captured.
He further said of Confederate losses that his troopers buried "upward of 80
killed, including many officers," and captured 30 more. Confederate figures are
imprecise and, not surprisingly, conflict with Federal reports. Lieutenant
General Wheeler reported capturing 350 Union prisoners, and one of his
biographers puts his losses at 12 killed, 60 wounded and 10 missing. There are
no casualty figures for Butler's division, but it should be remembered that he
later estimated his casualties at 62 in just the brief fight for the guns.
Kilpatrick's lack of vigilance while far out on the flank of the main Union
army gave the Confederates a golden opportunity to inflict a stinging defeat on
the Federal cavalry. The chance was lost because the swamp along Nicholson Creek
stopped the right wing of the Confederate assault, and the fire of 1st Alabama
and the 5th Kentucky drove it back. Their action bought the time the rest of the
brigade needed to rally and drive out the attackers.
For those fortunate enough to see Monroe's Crossroads today, it's a rare
chance to examine a battlefield practically unchanged by time. Terrain,
vegetation, even weather, conditions are very, if not exactly, like those which
existed in the day of battle. The Monroe house is gone but little has been added
save a small monument. A soldier who fought there, could he return today, would
find himself on completely familiar ground... ground for all practical purposes
the same as it was on a wet March dawn 134 years ago.
About the Author
Written by Steve Ross, pictured here at the site of Monroe's Crossroads.