472 



A HISTORY OF CAVALRY. 



[period v. 



This charge drove the skirmishers in upon the main line, 

 broke through it, and, turning to the left, rode round to 

 their own lines with some loss. The Confederates soon 

 regained their steadiness, and continued the fight. 

 Upton's division, which had been advancing by a road 

 to the east, hearing the firing and noise of the action, 

 turned to the right, and, moving rapidly up at a trot, 

 soon came into action, and dismounted, and deployed so 

 as to strike the Confederate right flank. This turned 

 the scale of the battle, and the Confederacc. were driven 

 back with severe losses. This fight took place on the 

 1st AprU, and Wilson and his command bivouacked 

 that night near Plantersville, within nineteen miles of 

 Selma. 



The next morning, at daybreak, the advance was 

 pushed on towards that place. This most important point 

 was fortified with a bastioned line, extending from the 

 river three miles below the city, on a radius of the same 

 distance, around to a point on the river above. These 

 fortifications were protected, both to the east and west, 

 for a long distance, by deep, miry, and diflScult streams. 

 The profile of the earthworks was as follows : Height 

 of parapet six to eight feet, thickness eight feet, depth 

 of ditch five feet, width ten to fifteen feet, height of 

 stockade on glacis five feet.^ 



Here this cavalry army was before a strongly fortified 

 position with a continuous curtain wall, flanked with 

 bastions, and having a stockade on the glacis outside the 

 ditch. Wilson had his forces in position about 4 p.m., 

 and Forrest, with an inadequate force of 3,000 or 4,000 

 men, endeavoured to defend the place. Long's division 

 of the Federal cavalry commenced the assault. His 

 command was formed in line of battle dismounted, the 

 17th Indiana on the right, then the 123rd Illinois, the 

 98th Illinois, the 4th Ohio cavalry, and the 4th Michigan 

 cavalry, in all 1,500 men. They charged across the 

 open ground six hundred yards, climbed over the stock- 

 ade and defences, under heavy fire, and succeeded in 

 effecting an entrance and driving the Confederates in 



* Andrews, 252. 



