Barry N. Wyatt
Forrest's Scouts following Wilson
Mon Mar 19 20:31:59 2001


just wanted to add this from an article in the Montgomery Advertiser my grandmother had saved over the years entitled "The Fall Of Montgomery". The article was written by William Warren Rogers director of the Florida State University Extension Center at Moody Air Force Base, Valdosta GA, and Milo Barrett Howard Jr. of the Alabama Department Of Archives & History in Montgomery. (Date of article unknown) I would assume this was Harvey and his Scouts as well.

"Wilson’s strategy was to proceed toward Columbus, Ga. The remainder of his force, therefore, was pulled out of Montgomery on April 14. Wilson suggested that forces be dispatched from the Mobile area to occupy the city. Before leaving, the federal troops burned the depots and machine shops of the Alabama & Florida and the Montgomery & West Point railroads. Janney’s Foundry, the Bibb Rolling Mill, and the Nitre
Works were also destroyed. On the Alabama River four steamboats were burned to the water’s edge.

At dusk, as the last federal troops departed, a few of Forrest’s scouts entered the city. In an exchange of shots one Union soldier was killed and another wounded.

Other Confederates appeared the next day and the U.S. flag was hauled down. The Southern troops did not remain, and Montgomery’s three-day federal occupation was succeeded by a permanent one in late April."