Thanks for participating in our discussion.

My response may have a contentious tone, but that's because I have serious reservations concerning several statements made in your post. The most significant concerns stories by Captain Joseph G. Vail, which are either false or misleading. For example, you won't find any reference to the "sharpened saber" controversy in any of Forrest's biographies or in the Official Records. To the best of my knowledge, the only place is exists is page 148-49 of Vail's book, Minty and the Cavalry: A History of Cavalry Campaigns in the Western Armies. If you have any other reference to it, please pass that along.

Captain Vail is quite a historian. In every action in which his command was involved, the rebels invariably flee in "wild confusion", their losses always being ten or more to one. His book reads as if Minty and his men won the war by themselves.

Evidently this officer didn't witness any of the events described, yet he dismisses the word and reputation of brave men who belonged to Captain Freeman's Tennessee Battery by this statement --

As was the custom of the rebels, after meeting a mishap, they,in this instance, invented a cock and bull story to the effect that Captain Freeman was murdered by an officer of the fourth, after he had surrendered and while a prisoner in their hands, on their retreat; the object being to give a color of excuse for atrocities committed by themselves.

In other words, Southerners routinely lied to provide a cover for atrocities which they committed.

I'm sure you're familiar with Capt. J. B. McIntyre's report of the action at Franklin TN on April 10, 1863. Vail's account differs from McIntyre's on several points which I will review if you wish. To name one, immediately before the attack on Freeman's Battery, Vale has the 4th U.S. Cavalry striking Col. Starnes and his "brigade". In reality the 4th Tennessee Cavalry (not a brigade) had already passed down the road in column. According to Vail, the 4th U.S. Cavalry charged this regiment and rode right through it, driving Starnes "demoralized from the field." Emerging from this collision surprisingly intact, Federal troopers then attack Freeman's Battery.

Capt. McIntyre's statement reads,

I advanced until, reaching the woods, 100 yards from the turnpike, I discovered a rebel battery in position on the turn pike, with a strong cavalry support. I then ordered Lieutenant [W. H.] Ingerton, with Companies K and B, to charge the battery, which he did in gallant style, capturing the whole battery of six pieces.

Several Confederates present during this attack wrote about the killing of Captain Freeman. Hospital Steward Henry Skelton was with Freeman and also shot by one of his captors. John Allen Wyeth, a careful writer who always cited eyewitnesses, consulted several veterans before writing the account found on pp. 161-63 of That Devil Forrest. Forrest's most recent biographer, Brian Steel Willis, lists several other sources which Wyeth overlooked.

Regarding the effective use of sabers by Northern cavalrymen, Minty's Brigade certainly used them often and well. Capt. George Knox Miller, Co. "A", 8th Confederate Cavalry, wrote of his capture near Rover on Jan. 31, 1863 (if memory serves) by members of Minty's command. He may be the Confederate captain that Vail mentioned with a saber cut across his face. By no means was Minty's command the only one in the western theater to employ the saber efficiently. I've repeatedly mentioned the superiority of Northern horsemen on this board and cited use of the saber as a weapon which most Confederates could not counter in close combat.