Alabama Mounted Rifles

Confederate Veteran
Volume 18, Number 10, Page 469-470
October, 1910

From a Sketch by Maj. James Walter Spratley.
In 1860 a company of cavalry was organized in Wilcox County, Ala., the Wilcox Dragoons, with headquarters in Camden. Thomas F. Jenkins was captain, and Dr. Robert H. Ervin, S. W. McIntosh, and John J. Wheadon lieutenants.

On the 24th of April, 1861, a messenger came from the company of cavalry at Pleasant Hill, in Dallas County, saying the Governor had ordered it to report to Montgomery for service. Both companies had offered their service to the State. The message from the Dallas company stated that not enough members of that company were ready to go, that the Wilcox company could respond to the call, and as many of them as were ready would join us on the way to Montgomery. On the morning of April 25, 1861, about forty men and officers marched away to Montgomery. So the Alabama Mounted Rifles was the first cavalry company to enter the service from the State.

The first night of our journey was spent in Pleasant Hill. On leaving the next morning enough men of the Dallas organization went with us to make a good company. We reached Montgomery just before dark, and remained there several days, receiving arms and equipment. During our stay in Montgomery our numbers were increased by arrivals from both Wilcox and Dallas Counties sufficiently to give us about one hundred men. It was thought best to select a new name for the organization, as the membership was about evenly divided between the two counties, and "Alabama Mounted Rifles" was chosen, the officers of the old company remaining the same.

After receiving arms and equipments, we were ordered to report to Gen. Braxton Bragg at Pensacola, Fla. We went by rail as far as Garland, on the Montgomery and Mobile Railroad, to which point it had been finished. We marched thence to Evergreen (to which point the road had been constructed from Pensacola), where we again took cars and went on to our destination, arriving at night.

On the following morning we marched to General Bragg's headquarters, near Fort Barrancas, and reported for duty. The company went into camp about a mile in the rear of Fort Barrancas by a spring of the purest freestone water.

General Bragg made the company his escort, and appointed our first lieutenant, Dr. R. H, Ervin, provost marshal of the army. Ere long several companies of infantry, without regimental organization, arrived. General Bragg had them organized into a regiment. As there was lacking one company, he ordered that our company should join the infantry to complete the organization. The officers were duly elected, and it was numbered the 7th Alabama Regiment. The officers chosen were: Capt. S. A. M. Wood, Colonel, Capt. John G. Coltart, Lieutenant Colonel, Capt. Alfred A. Russell, Major.

Immediately after the organization of the regiment General Bragg detached the Alabama Mounted Rifles to report to his headquarters, and we never served with the 7th Alabama Regiment.

The company was with General Bragg ten months. Our chief duty was to picket the coast from Fort McRae, at the mouth of Pensacola Bay, to the mouth of Perdido River. A detachment composed of a lieutenant, sergeant, corporal, and about twenty men went down every ten days, camped on Perdido Bay, and guarded the coast, as stated. During the time we were on this duty I recall only one incident worthy of record. I happened to be in the detail. On arrival at the camping ground we received notice from the picket on duty on the Gulf beach that a launch from the Federal ships, off the mouth of Pensacola Bay, was coming down the coast. Lieutenant McIntosh took about fifteen or sixteen men, including Corporal Sam C. Cook, and hastened over to the Gulf beach. We attempted to get far enough below, where we supposed the launch would be, in order to get it between two parties of men, as Lieutenant McIntosh had divided the detachment, placing Corporal Cook and seven men to the left, going in person with the remainder to the right. His idea was to get the launch between a cross fire, but it happened that when Corporal Cook with his party reached the point he was to occupy he found the launch immediately in front of us in rifle range. Seeing that they were not intending to land, he directed one of the men to mount the elevation behind which we were standing and to signal, commanding them to come in to shore, but they paid no attention to the signal. He then ordered the men to fire a shot across the front of the boat. They then turned seaward and went rapidly away from us. Corporal Cook then directed all of us to fire at them. We fired three shots each.

Months after this occurrence we read in a Richmond newspaper a paragraph copied from a Northern paper, stating that a party of Rebels had attacked a United States launch on the Gulf Coast, naming the time, "killing one and wounding another." After several months' service, we were ordered to give up our swords that a company of cavalry in lower Alabama might be armed. We had Colts, navy sixes, and Sharp's carbines.

In February, 1862, we were ordered to Chattanooga. On arrival in Montgomery, Ala., we were sent to Corinth via Mobile. We arrived early in March, and found there the army of Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston from Bowling Green, Ky. About that time General Bragg came with the bulk of his army from Pensacola. After being in camp a few days, the company was sent out on a scout with a portion of the Texas Rangers, under Col. J. A. Wharton (afterwards General Wharton). We captured a Federal picket at Shiloh Church. for which the great battle of April 6 and 7 was named. Later a detachment of the company was sent on picket duty near Monterey, Tenn., a few miles from Corinth, Soon real fun (?) began, as it was almost a daily occurrence for our picketsto have encounters with the Federal cavalry. The company was on this duty for ten days before the battle of Shiloh.

On April 5, the day before the battle, Lieutenant McIntosh, with a detachment from the company, served General Ruggles as couriers. The rest of the company, under Captain Jenkins, was stationed on the extreme left of the line of battle. The left of the company rested on Owl Creek. Having been assigned to duty as commissary and quartermaster sergeant, I came on the field that evening about dark with rations for the company, and found them as stated. The next morning as the sun was rising through the treetops I heard the first shots of the opening battle. I was sent to the rear early to procure forage for the horses. I returned with it, reaching the battlefield about 4 P.M. The line had advanced far beyond where I had left it in the morning. They had driven the enemy from their camps. In the general disorder I was unable to find the company, and slept on the field. During the night there was a hard rain. The next day about eleven o'clock our army retreated, as the enemy was reenforced the night before with Buell's large army. I did not see the company again until I reached camp, near Corinth.

Unattached companies of cavalry came with the reassembling of the army at Corinth. Five of them were from Alabama and one from Louisiana, and they were formed into a battalion. Our captain, Thomas F. Jenkins, was placed in command, he being the senior officer, and the writer was chosen as acting adjutant of the battalion. About this time Col. Frank Gardner, an old army officer, was placed in command of a brigade of cavalry, which included our battalion. Not long after Colonel Gardner took command he was made brigadier general and placed in command of all the cavalry under General Bragg. In the selection of his staff he chose three members of the Alabama Mounted Rifles viz.: Lieut. John J. Wheadon, Commissary, Private Samuel W. Oliver, Aid deCamp, and the writer, Quartermaster.

Soon after this the 3d Alabama Cavalry was organized with the companies of our battalion and others from Alabama. Capt. James Hagan, of Mobile, was made colonel, and he appointed Samuel W. Oliver, of the Alabama Mounted Rifles, his commissary, and Burwell Boykin, of the same company, his quartermaster, Sam Oliver went with Colonel Hagan, and never served with General Gardner as aid de camp.

When the company went into service, it had among its members nine doctors, five lawyers, an ex Senator, professors, merchants, ex members of the Legislature, planters and their sons, as well as men of all other classes. The membership of the company represented millions in wealth. It is my recollection that of the members of the company forty two of them were promoted to lieutenants, captains, majors, and colonels.

After my promotion and assignment to duty with General Gardner, who was made major general and transferred to the infantry, we were sent to Louisiana, where we ended our active career as soldiers, being captured at Port Hudson July 9, 1863, and sent to prison at Johnson's Island, Ohio, after which I lost all trace of the old company. This sketch covers only the first year of the company.

---