Burning
Bridges
LaGrange then began to move his troops and supplies still on the west side
of the river to the east side. As soon as this movement to the east side of
the river was completed, the wagon and railroad bridges were
burned. The rear column joined
the lead column on the 16 mile march to LaGrange.
Reaching the outskirts of LaGrange just after
sundown, Colonel LaGrange was
met by a group of home guards, the Nancy Harts - a Confederate unit of women
soldiers. They surrendered LaGrange to LaGrange. Not a shot had been fired.
The whole process took about 20 minutes. The negotiated terms allowed
LaGrange to destroy still-usable sections of the Atlanta & West Point
rail line there but precluded the Federals from destroying and looting the
city.
The column camped overnight in LaGrange near the railroad.
On the morning of the 18th, they departed toward Macon.
Passing through Griffin and Forsyth on the way, Federal troops took time
there to destroy portions of the Atlanta to Macon railroad before moving on.
On April 21, 1865, the column arrived in Macon in the afternoon. Macon,
under threat of military action, had already been surrendered to General
Wilson who had reached that city late on the afternoon of the 20th and was,
therefore, already under Federal control.
General Howell Cobb, commanding the Confederate garrison in Macon had
presented Wilson with a telegram from Confederate General P. T. G.
Beauregard informing Confederate troops of a truce between Confederate and
Federal forces resulting from Lee�s surrender to Grant at Appomattox,
which had taken place on the 9th of April.
Desiring official word from his own government, Wilson placed the
city under martial law and wired General Sherman for confirmation.
At 2:00 in the afternoon on April 21, 1865, just prior to the arrival of
LaGrange�s columns, Wilson received an official communiqu� bringing an end
to hostilities.
LaGrange had treated all the prisoners well on the march to Macon. Almost
every available narrative of the event expresses appreciation for his
consideration. None speak of any mistreatment or undue hardship.
L. B. McFarland, in a letter of April 1, 1915, to the Ft. Tyler Chapter, U.
D. C., for the fiftieth anniversary of the battle wrote, �� (LaGrange)
furnished me a horse, and directed me to ride with him. This I did, and for
four days I rode with the brigade from West Point to Macon, Georgia .~ was
treated with every courtesy and rode at any place with the command between
the head and end of the column, and was shown many little attentions by the
various officers of the command, and with the greatest kindness.
Arriving in Macon, before I dismounted, I learned that General Lee had
surrendered, and I read a copy of his farewell address, I remember even now
the shock and temporary feeling of despair which came upon me and lingered
with me during the night. My
horse was then taken. I bade
General LaGrange farewell, with thanks to his kindness, and was sent to join
the others in prison. The next
morning, I was paroled. I went
back to General LaGrange and he gave me an order for a horse to take me home
to West Tennessee, and I started on my return so soon as I had my mount.�
Colonel James H. Fannin remembered, in his often told story of the events
occurring during and after the Battle of West Point, how he had been treated
with dignity and given every consider by Colonel LaGrange. Fannin writes,
�I have reasons for thanking him for his kindness and great consideration
for myself and command.�
In tact, Fannin did owe LaGrange a greet debt of gratitude.
Fannin was in jeopardy not only for his role at Fort
Tyler. Fannin�s earlier post,
from which he had been furloughed only days before the Battle of West Point,
was command of the 1st Georgia Reserves at the notorious Confederate
prisoner of war camp in Andersonville. Although not in charge of the prison
itself, Fannin was very closely associated with the prison�s commandant,
Major Henry Wirz. Sometime between his capture in West Point and arrival in
Macon, Fannin had been recognized by Union troops as having been at
Andersonville.
Soon after Fannin had arrived in Macon, General Edward M. McCook ordered
that Fannin be arrested and subjected to chains, irons, and close
confinement for cruelty to prisoners while in command at Andersonville. This
could have meant a death sentence for Fannin.
Wirz, the actual commandant, was later executed On November 10, 1865,
on the same charge.
However, LaGrange intercepted McCook�s order. He explained to Fannin that
he knew the charges to be without merit and was determined to see that those
orders were not enforced. Fannin then inquired how LaGrange knew of his
service at Andersonville. LaGrange replied, �I was prisoner there� and 1
know there was no cruelty at Andersonville. You my depend on me to give my
honor to that fact.�
Considering the fate of, and infamy suffered upon Major Henry
Wirz from his association with Andersonville, LaGrange had probably saved
Fannin�s life as well as the family�s name. If Fannin was not
immediately aware of the magnitude of LaGrange�s gesture at the time, it
is obvious that it did not escape him later in his life.
Fannin wrote in 1896, �I shall ever remember with the warmest emotions of
my nature when I was discharged as a paroled prisoner at Macon, Ga., with
those captured at West Point, Ga., he (LaGrange) presented me with my pistol
which I had surrendered to him (at the fort on the 16th). The sight of the
weapon occasionally now brings to mind the true nobility of his soul, for
where can there ever be better evidence found than he demonstrated by his
act, the return to his opponent on the battlefield of the weapon used
against him.�
Isham Stanley, who had turned 17 years old on April 16, was a civilian
volunteer in Fort Tyler. Later,
he wrote one of the most enlightening and entertaining accounts of the
battle, the march to LaGrange and return to West Point.
Stanley�s story is somewhat different McFarland�s as Stanley was
not kept with the officers. His
remembrances beginning on the 21st are, �The prisoners were put that night
in the 2nd story of, what we were told was an unfinished laboratory.
The following morning... we were marched from the lab to a place about an
acre square enclosed with a
fence 10 feet high made of 1� x 12�planks, set vertical and jammed
together... Outside this wall and within three and one-half feet of the top
and joined to it was a walkway two planks wide. This was used for the guards
to walk around on and overlook the enclosure. I was told that the
Confederate government built this pen to keep Yankee prisoners in, but it
seems we were caught in the
trap of our own making. We were
kept in this pen for about a week and then paroled.�
Stanley and his fellow West Point parolees left Macon for West Point on a
freight train riding on top of the cars. They arrived in Atlanta just before
dark and slept in freight cars that night. The following morning, they
boarded another train and returned to West Point to find the railroad and
wagon bridges destroyed. Stanley
remembered that, �There were several men running bateaus, conveying people
across the river among whom was Mort Bridges, an intimate friend who rowed
us over graciously.
Within a week of their forced march from West Point to Macon, prisoners
taken in Fort Tyler and at West Point had been paroled and had returned, or
were enroute, to their homes. They must have been shocked by the devastation
or their city and the effect it had on everyday life here.
What had been lost in the capture of and destruction of West Point? A final
brief accounting was detailed in Colonel O. H. LaGrange�s official report
written from Macon on May 4, 1865.
In including the general (Tyler) commanding, 2 captains and 1 lieutenant
were killed, and 28 seriously wounded, mostly shot through the head; 218
were held as prisoner. At this point 2 field pieces, 1 32 pound siege gun,
and 500 stand of small�arms were captured; 19 engines and 340 cars loaded
with quartermasters and commissary stores, machinery from factories, leather
osnaburgs, etc., were destroyed. Both bridges were burned.�
But this accounting is far too clean, too clinical, to even begin to
accurately reflect the actual losses the resident citizens and returning
soldiers must have felt.
Not only had the city been taken in one day and for all practical purposes
destroyed, within the following week, the whole Confederacy had fallen. A
way of life that had existed for generations had come to an abrupt,
cataclysmic end.
What had the Federals accomplished in the capture of the fort and the
destruction of our city�s assets, railroads, and bridges?
It is certain that after Colonel LaGrange�s departure, West Point
no longer held any immediate strategic value to the Confederacy. LaGrange
had well accomplished his assigned tactical objective.
Questions still exist regarding the strategy of what has come to be known as
Wilson�s Raid. It was designed as a killing blow to the interior of the
Confederacy and its primary objectives were already accomplished with the
capture and devastation of Selma and Montgomery. But, was the magnitude of
destruction visited upon West Point warranted?
With the fall of Richmond occurring on April 3rd, and with Lee�s surrender
of his forces to Grant at Appomattox on April 9th, the Confederate cause was
already hopelessly lost a full week before LaGrange had been detailed by
Wilson to move on West Point. The only campaigning going on anywhere east of
the Mississippi River was in this Chattahoochee Valley area on the Georgia
and Alabama border. There is evidence that the Federal troops under Wilson
and LaGrange knew of Lee�s surrender to Grant even as the fight was going
on at Fort Tyler.
The armies engaged here, however, had not been formally ordered to stand
down and even as late as the afternoon of April 20th, Wilson had been
ordered to pursue the capture of Macon.
It was simply war. West Point, with its railroad junction and river
crossings, was in its path, and West Point paid the price.
LaGrange�s sword cut deeply into the heart and soul of West Point.
But by the end of April 1865, it was obvious that the war was
over and the cause lost. The task was now to rebuild.
Mark Fretwell gives an excellent description of what it must have been like
in our city at that time in his book West
Point: The Story of a Georgia Town.
�Singly or in small groups, citizens of West Point moved from place to
place; looking with wonder and smoldering anger at charred gaps between
stone bridge piers, climbing through what remained of cotton warehouses,
gazing at the countless spans of iron wheels and axles which were all that
was left of railroad cars, examining locomotives torn by explosions.
The days formed into a pattern of eager activity spaced by times of quiet,
perplexing introspection. Where
to begin? The destruction of their city had been so immense, it seemed
difficult to find one p lace to start restoration.
They could reckon what was left. Confederate notes but the last time there
was anyplace to exchange them, they bought four cents on the dollar; C.S.A.
notes, Georgia notes, banks, even mercantile houses, all had issued script.
It was worthless. Then
there were the secreted chests with remaining gold pieces, but inadequate
for continuing needs�
Without money and avenues of distribution, even farming which had long been
a strong economic force in the Val1ey, offered no easement other than self
sustenance. The odds of successfully moving ahead must have seemed
insurmountable.
Yet from the ashes of the rail yard, under the shed left standing by LaGrange
due to Mrs. Camp�s appeal, the process of rebuilding the city�s
infrastructure began.
One locomotive and five flat cars, the last train to arrive at West Point on
the morning of April 16th, 1865, had been left by its crew far enough from
the depot to have escaped total destruction. This equipment was repaired to
working order under the passenger shed in West Point.
Additionally, a long-abandoned locomotive, the �Abner McGehee�
was found where it had been left years earlier at an Alabama siding called
Steam Mill, which was between Osannipa and Ufoupee Creeks.
It had been bypassed by LaGrange�s troops as of too little value to
even merit destruction. This piece was put back into service within one
week. In the meantime, 5 more cars, which had been run off the track at
Loachapoka, were found and repaired to serviceable condition and coupled to
the �Abner McGehee��.
From West Point, crews working off the locomotive and five cars working off
the locomotive and 5 cars that had been repaired there, began to reconstruct
the 39 miles of track between West Point and Ufoupee Creek, near Chehaw.
On the western end of the track, crews working from the five cars pulled by
the �Abner McGehee" salvaged enough scattered timber from along the
destroyed rail line to rebuild the bridge over Osannipa Creek.
This work was completed on June 16, 1865. The railroad line to Montgomery
was once again open only two months after it had been wrecked.
On August 7th, additional work began at West Point to widen this railroad to
the standard five foot gauge. The new track was completed to Montgomery,
without interruption of service, on August 16th.
Ultimately, 14 of the 19 locomotives owned by the Montgomery & West
Point Railroad and damaged on April 16th in West Point and in Columbus, were
rebuilt and returned to service.
Repairs to the Atlanta and West Point Railroad in LaGrange had been quickly
accomplished. The rail line from Atlanta to West Point had been serviceable
in time to be used by West Point�s paroled prisoners of war during the
last week in April.
With the
repair of the railroads and equipment, the economy of West Point began to
improve. By the fall of 1865, mercantile houses, now able to secure products
for resale, began to reopen. Due
to the balance of supply and demand being heavily weighted on the demand
side, these businesses quickly became profitable and further supported the
local economy.
A new bridge spanning the Chattahoochee River was completed early 1866, at a
cost of $13,000. The community
was once again connected.
Read
the conclusion of the Civil War
Source:
Joe Keith, Jr., "Aftermath: Written for the
130th Anniversary of the Battle of West Point"
