Today in History:

455 Series I Volume XLIX-I Serial 103 - Mobile Bay Campaign Part I

Page 455 WILSON'S RAID - ALABAMA AND GEORGIA.

a flag upon the rebel works, and for being in the extreme advance until all the rebel forts were captured, planting our colors on each of them successively. The officers wounded are Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Biggs, Captain William E. Adams, and Lieutenant Alexander P. McNutt, severely, and Captain Owen Wiley, Adjt. Levi B. Bane, and Lieutenant J. R. Harding, slightly.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

OWEN WILEY,

Captain, Commanding Regiment.

Captain O. F. BANE.

Acting Assistant Adjutant-General, First Brigade.


Numbers 22. Report of Colonel Jacob G. Vail, Seventeenth Indiana (Mounted) Infantry of operations April 1-2.


HDQRS. SEVENTEENTH INDIANA (MOUNTED) INFANTRY,
Selma, April 6, 1865.

SIR: I have the honor to make the following report of the part taken by my regiment in the affair near Bogue [Bogler's] Creek on April 1, 1865, and the taking of Selma on April 2, 1865:

On the 1st instant the regiment was the third in the order of march of the brigade which was following the retreating enemy in the direction of Selma, driving them and continually skirmishing with them. The advance had pushed them easily until near Bogue [Bogler's] Creek, twenty miles from Selma. Here they made a stand and offered a good deal of resistance to our farther advance. Four companies of this regiment, being armed with sabers (Companies C, G, H, and I), were ordered forward by Colonel A. O. Miller, commanding First Brigade, Second Division, Cavalry Corps, to charge the enemy. Lieutenant Colonel F. White took command of them and moved forward charging the enemy, who were engaging our skirmishers, overtaking Patterson's regiment, and running past them, sabering a number of them. Dashing on they struck the enemy's line of battle about one mile from where the charge commenced; charged on and cut through them under a fierce fire, and reached the enemy's artillery (four pieces), which had been firing on them as they advanced. Here Lieutenant-Colonel White, finding another line of battle of the enemy confronting him and firing on him, having so few men and being so far from support, turned off the road into the woods to the left, charging on the enemy there and cutting his way out with his command, with the exception of Captain Taylor and sixteen enlisted men. The captain had command of the advance company (G), and did not hear the order to turn off the road, so he charge on past the artillery, cutting right and left among the enemy until shot down by them. Of the sixteen enlisted men following him 6 were killed, 5 wounded, and 5 were taken prisoners. Lieutenant-Colonel White, having to fall back with his command, could not retain or bring off the captured artillery. When the enemy afterward fell back they left one 12-pounder howitzer on the field, one wheel being broken by the horses rushing against it in charging. There were about 100 of the enemy captured, but, being unable to guard them, they escaped, with the exception of about sixteen or twenty. The four companies that took part in the affair numbered about 220 men. The loss was: Killed, 1


Page 455 WILSON'S RAID - ALABAMA AND GEORGIA.