ORs: Reply from Gen. Wheeler to Gen. Kilpatrick

Headquarters Cavalry Corps
Chesterfield, S. C.
February 22, 1865.

Major-General Kilpatrick, U. S. Army, Commanding Cavalry, &c.:

General:
Your dispatch of this date is received, and I am much shocked at the statements which it contains. I am satisfied that you are mistaken in the matter. I have no Texas regiments armed with Spencer rifles, and none commanded by a lieutenant-colonel. The two Texas regiments which belong to my command are commanded by captains, and neither were in any engagement on yesterday. If any of my regiments were engaged with the enemy yesterday that fact has not yet been reported to me. I will have the matter promptly investigated and see that full justice is done. Should the report, however, by any means prove correct, I prefer that the retaliation may be inflicted upon the parties guilty of the misdeeds, and not upon innocent persons. I have no desire whatever to make counter-threats in response to those which you have thought proper to address to me, but should you cause eighteen of my men to be shot because you chanced to find that number of your men dead, I shall regard them as so many murders committed by you, and act accordingly. I trust, however, such a painful necessity will not be forced upon me.

Your threat "to burn every house as far as your scouts can extend" is of too brutal a character for me, and I think for my Government, to reply to.

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