Kilpatrick's Spotted Horse
by W. H. Davis, Lebanon, TN

Confederate Veteran
Volume 14, Number 2, Page 62
February 1906.

If my memory does not play me false, the battle in which that now famous "spotted horse" was captured from Gen. Kilpatrick was known as Rock Spring. Anyhow, it was during Kilpatrick's attempt to reach Augusta, Ga., to destroy the cotton mills there.

As I was the first man who ever said anything about that spotted horse through the VETERAN, I am not inclined to permit my statement to be characterized as false by any one. I state positively that Gen. Tom Harrison's Brigade, composed of the 8th and 11th Texas, 3d Arkansas, and 4th Tennessee (Col. Baxter Smith's Regiment), with the last named in front, fired the first shots in that battle about daylight, when but one man in Kilpatrick's camp was on his feet at the time, and he was in a little patch supposedly gathering vegetables. The others were abed and apparently asleep. No stir at least was made until after we delivered our first volley, when their Spencer carbines commenced a lively rattle. The most of the men nearest to us were soon made prisoners. The complete surprise was effected by the superb sagacity of Capt. Shannon, commanding Gen. Wheeler's special scouts, in capturing Kilpatrick's pickets without the firing of a gun, leaving him without any warning of our approach, which was, however, impeded by a marshy ravine that skirted his camp. The cabin occupied by Gen. Kilpatrick stood about seventy five yards at an angle of forty five degrees to our right from where we crossed the ravine. I saw him as he came out of the door, clad in a skullcap, drawers, undershirt, and slippers, and mount a sorrel horse bareback with nothing but a halter to guide him, in which condition he made his escape. As he galloped away I took three shots at him, but never having heard or seen any account of his being wounded, my shots evidently went wild.

The fight lasted about thirty minutes, but during that brief time our execution was terrible. We captured six hundred prisoners with their dead and wounded, some two hundred and fifty or three hundred, besides most of their commissary wagons and mules. The individual that first laid hands on the spotted horse belonged to the 8th Texas or 4th Tennessee, and it was presented in the name of Harrison's Brigade to Gen. Wheeler, who was riding the horse the day of our surrender.