early during the fight had been carried out.
(Minty denied ever receiving the order and
remained in camp during the contest.) The
action ceased when the Union troopers
were checked by the timely appearance of
Martin’s Division, sent by Wheeler to suc-
cor Davidson.
On the morning of October 8 the pursuit
of the Confederates resumed, but Wheeler
had marched all night of the 7th, passing
southwest through Pulaski, Tenn., in order
to outdistance his opponents. Reaching the
ford at Muscle Shoals, Ala., on the Ten-
nessee River at sundown on the 9th, he got
the remnants of his force over the boulder-
strewn crossing just as the lead elements
of the Federals (the 7th Pennsylvania Cav-
alry) reached the north bank.Wheeler was
the last man to cross to the south shore,
wet and dispirited. By October 16, the
Rebel raiders were back with Brigg’s army.
Was Wheeler’s Sequatchie Valley Raid a
success? On the one hand the feat netted
the Confederates over 2,000 prisoners,nearly 1,000 enemy wagons, and hundreds
of mules destroyed, as well as millions of
dollars of enemy property captured or
burned. Nine days after the conclusion of
the expedition, and partly due to it and his
inability to prevent the raid or capture its
participants, General Rosecrans was
relieved of command of the Army of the
Cumberland. Further, on account of the
raid, scores of Union troops and animals in
the besieged Chattanooga garrison starved
from lack of supplies destroyed by
Wheeler’s action. (After the destruction of
the great wagon train the troops in Chat-
tanooga were forced to go on quarter
rations for days.)
Looking at Wheeler’s exploit from
another view, it can be argued that it was
a failure in both a tactical and strategic
sense. First, the Confederates lost between
2,000 and 2,500 men killed, wounded, or
taken prisoner, losses that added up to
more than those of their opponents. Sec-
ond, the wastage of the raid in horseflesh
and loss of experienced troopers would
never be replaced by Wheeler’s command.
A larger force of Confederate cavalry
would appear in the West for the AtlantaCampaign, but the quality of the new men
and horses was below that of what had
gone before.
On the strategic side of the ledger, the
raid failed in its primary purpose—to
ensure that the Army of the Cumberland
would leave Chattanooga or starve. With
the opening of the “Cracker Line” on
October 27, 1863, the supply problems of
the city’s garrison were solved. Another
failure of the mission was the lack of any
real and permanent damage to the
Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad, the
main supply artery for any Federal forces
operating south of Nashville. Again, on the
strategic level, the plight of the Army of
the Cumberland, partly due to Wheeler’s
raid wrought momentous changes in the
conduct of the war in the West by the Lin-
coln administration, not beneficial to the
Confederates. Troops were rushed to East
Tennessee, which gave the Federals lasting
advantage in numbers; and Grant was
placed in charge of all Northern forces in
the area, thus ensuring a competent leader
and unified command structure, which in
time doomed the Confederacy to defeat in
the Western theater.National ArchivesWheeler’s raid to disrupt supplies for the
besieged Federals in Chattanooga comes to a
high point when they capture a huge wagon train
in the Sequatchie Valley.CWQ-Sum16 Wheeler's Raid_Layout 1 4/20/16 5:18 PM Page 63