NOVEMBER 20, 1864:
Rebel forces in Georgia led by General Joseph
Wheeler C.S.A. stand and fight at Clinton, Walnut Creek, East Macon, and
Griswoldville, all trying to delay or divert Sherman’s March To The Sea which
has entered its fifth destructive day. The skirmishes are brief, loud, and
ineffective.
After
the war, Wheeler returns to service with the United States Army, and as an old
man leads troops in Cuba (including Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders) during
the Spanish-American War. Wheeler, who is suffering from incidents of dementia
by 1898 sometimes forgets whether he is fighting the Spaniards or the Yankees.
Joshua
Hill, once a U.S. Senator and friend of the Sherman-Ewing family, now a C.S.
Senator, asks “Cump” Sherman to spare his hometown of Madison, Georgia. Sherman
agrees not to burn the town, but it is heavily looted as Union troops pass
through.
