Last Battle

Last Battle. . , Confederate Command: Major General Howell Cobb , Federal Command: Major General James H. Wilson, The Last Battle , Even though the Confederacy teetered on the verge of collapse by early 1865 the Union worried that the South would never capitulate, so they moved to destroy the industrial capacity in Alabama and Georgia. That mission was entrusted to the 28-year-old "boy wonder," Major General James H. Wilson, who commanded 1500 cavalrymen, the war's largest mounted force. Armed with repeating rifles, they moved from Union-controlled north Alabama in late March 1865 to strike the industrial cities of central Alabama and Georgia., Major General Howell Cobb commanded the Georgia troops that opposed Wilson's cavalry. Better known and more successful as a politician than a soldier, Howell Cobb was a lawyer who loved politics. He served five terms in the U.S. House of Representatives (1843-1852, 1857-1866), including a term as Speaker of the House (1849-1851). Cobb also served a term as the governor of Georgia (1851-1853). Major General Cobb took command of militia troops in Florida and Georgia in 1863 which placed him in Columbus on the night of Easter Sunday, April 16, 1865. Wilson's well-equipped veterans contrasted sharply with Columbus's inexperienced 2,000-3,000 home guard defenders, which consisted of mostly old men, boys, and factory workers. Neither army was aware that Robert E. Lee had already surrendered his army to Grant, nor that Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated., The home guard leaders chose two defensive lines, one in the Alabama hills to the west of the river and the other on the eastern Georgia side of the river. To that end, they destroyed the footbridge north of the city at Clapp's Factory and removed the flooring from the lower bridge at Dillingham Street, eventually burning it. They preserved the wooden covered bridge at 14th Street and the upper railroad bridge. When Union forces breached the Confederate's first line of defense in Alabama on the evening of Easter Sunday, April 16, 1865, both armies raced for the 14th Street Bridge in disarray., Once the 14th Street Bridge was crossed, a brief fight ensued on the Georgia side of the river before Columbus fell. General Wilson lost 25 men that day. The Federals captured about a thousand Confederates and killed nine people. That night Randolph Mott, the city's best-known Unionist, invited General Wilson to headquarter in his mansion., The next day Wilson's troops spared the commercial district and the residences but burned every war-related factory and textile mill, including about 150,000 bales of cotton - the only negotiable currency remaining in the defeated South. Also destroyed were the torpedo boat Viper and the nearly completed ironclad Jackson. Confederates had scuttled the C.S.S. Chattahoochee the previous night., The greatest number of local people affected by Wilson's raid were the more than 6,000 slaves living in Muscogee County. These slaves were among the last to be liberated under the terms of the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared "all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free;". Two and a half years after the Proclamation's effective date of January 1863, Columbus slaves were finally freed., As the factory fires smoldered and the main body of the Union troops headed toward Macon, a mob composed of whites of all classes, former slaves, and some Union soldiers looted the stores on Broad Street. Despite all of the destruction, Columbus entrepreneurs rapidly rebuilt and grew their industrial base. By 1880 Columbus led the South in textile production and the "Mighty Eagle and Phenix" had become the South's largest textile mill. Columbus had truly risen from the ashes.