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The greatest Union cavalry raid of the Civil War During the American Civil War in 1863, Union army commander, General U. S. Grant ordered Colonel Benjamin Grierson, of the 6th Illinois Cavalry, to embark on a raid into and through Confederate held territory to disrupt the enemy’s lines of communication. Grierson departed from La Grange, Tennessee in command of 1,700 men-a brigade of the 6th and 7th Illinois and 2nd Iowa Cavalry regiments. In the course of a 17 day, 800 mile march Grierson’s command fought numerous engagements, disabled two railroads, destroyed thousands of dollars-worth of vital war material and took both horses and prisoners before arriving in Baton Rouge. More importantly the raid broke lines of communication between the Confederate command of the eastern theatre and Vicksburg which diverted enemy attention form Grant’s main thrust. Union general, W. T. Sherman declared this achievement, ‘the most brilliant expedition of the war, ’ and the following month Grierson was promoted to the rank of brigadier-general. Modern readers who are not completely unfamiliar with the history of the raid may recognise that it was upon these actual events that John Ford’s famous film starring John Wayne, ‘The Horse Soldiers, ’ is based. This book was written by a soldier who served under Grierson and so benefits from the authenticity of a first hand account. This text was originally published with the unrelated recollections of a Union army scout, these have been removed from this edition (but are published separately by Leonaur) to allow greater focus on these pivotal events.
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