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Updated: May 27, 2025
General Terry's and General Kilpatrick's troops moved from their positions on the south or west bank of the Neuse River in the same general direction, by Cox's Bridge. On the 11th we reached Smithfield, and found it abandoned by Johnston's army, which had retreated hastily on Raleigh, burning the bridges.
A brief item from the Troy Times will complete the journal of this important event: "Colonel Kilpatrick is the hero of another great raid through the enemy's country. At the conclusion of Stoneman's raid, it will be remembered, Colonel Kilpatrick's command remained at Gloucester Court House.
Slocum had to give some ground and draw back his advanced division to a better position, on which he formed the rest of his troops, Kilpatrick's cavalry covering his left. Here he repulsed all further efforts of Johnston and held his ground till Sherman could bring forward the right wing, when the enemy was forced to intrench and was put on the defensive.
Its Commander, Colonel Rhett, of Fort Sumter notoriety, with one of his staff, had the night before been captured, by Kilpatrick's scouts, from his very skirmish-line. The next morning Hardee was found gone, and was pursued through and beyond Averysboro'. General Slocum buried one hundred and eight dead rebels, and captured and destroyed three guns.
As an officer in the Eighth Illinois cavalry and as an aid on the staff of General Pleasonton, chief of cavalry, he had won such deserved distinction that he, like Custer, was promoted from captain to brigadier general on June 28 and assigned to command of the First brigade of Kilpatrick's division when Custer took the Second.
The pickets are to remain on the river until attacked by the enemy or recalled by orders from division headquarters. September 4. To break the monotony of picketing and to subserve the cause of freedom, a most novel scheme was lately undertaken, known as Kilpatrick's Gunboat Expedition.
He came to meet us, at full gallop, with drawn sabre, driving the Federal troopers in disorder before him. The affair that succeeded was one of the most animated of the war. The enemy were completely dumbfoundered, but a part of Kilpatrick's force made a hard fight. Sabres clashed, carbines cracked, Fitz Lee's artillery roared the fields and woods around Buckland were full of tumult and conflict.
Kilpatrick's strategy was better than his tactics. His plan was bold in conception, but faulty in execution. It has been shown that he made a mistake in dividing his command; that he made another when he failed to order an immediate attack after his arrival before the city.
Men were proud that they belonged to Kilpatrick's division and to Custer's brigade, for it must not be supposed that the above estimate of the former is based upon what we knew of him at that time. We were under him for a long time after that. This was the first day that we felt the influence of his immediate presence.
No incident of the campaign was too trivial to find willing ears to listen when it was told. The operations of Kilpatrick's division seemed to be well known and there was much complimentary comment upon his energy and his dash. The name of Custer, "the boy general," was seemingly on every tongue and there was no disposition on our part to conceal the fact that we had been with them.
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