Five or Ten Minutes of Blind Confusion: The Battle of Aiken, South Carolina, February 11, 1865

by Eric Wittenberg, Wade Sokolosky (Foreword by)

Overview

One of the few Confederate battlefield victories in the dark days of 1865 occurred at Aiken, South Carolina, on February 11, 1865. Aiken itself had little strategic significance to either side; Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman had intended to by-pass the small resort town. Sherman intended that his cavalry commander, Maj. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick head off in the direction of Augusta, Georgia to confuse the Confederates of his true target, Columbia, the capital of South Carolina. Since the Civil War began in South Carolina, both Sherman and the men of his army were eager to punish its population. Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler, the commander of the Confederate cavalry forces, had another idea. Aiken is approximately 13 miles from Augusta, Georgia and the largest gunpowder works in the Confederacy. Wheeler feared that Kilpatrick intended to destroy the powder works, which were critical to the continued military viability of the Confederate armies. On February 11, 1865, Wheeler set an ambush and drew the Union cavalry into his trap at Aiken, then pounced with nearly 3,000 Confederate horse soldiers. The urban street fighting was short and brutal. Kilpatrick himself was nearly captured, and only hard fighting by his troopers saved his command, which was able to extract itself from Wheeler’s trap. Wheeler followed, and a full day of combat ended with one of the final Confederate battlefield victories of the Civil War. It was a tactical victory for Wheeler, but a strategic disaster for the Confederacy. Wheeler’s stand made the defense of Columbia untenable, and just six days later, Columbia fell. Nearly the entire downtown was burned in a great conflagration, and the Palmetto State suffered.

In Five or Ten Minutes of Blind Confusion: The Battle of Aiken, South Carolina, February 11, 1865, award-winning Civil War cavalry historian Eric J. Wittenberg tells the story of the Battle of Aiken in both tactical and strategic detail for the first time. Readers will learn of the near disaster that befell the Union troopers, and how Wheeler’s move was actually a strategic debacle. Featuring five fine maps by a master cartographer and approximately 50 illustrations, this book fills an important gap in the body of literature addressing Sherman’s 1865 Carolinas Campaign. It marks Wittenberg’s third book on aspects of the Civil War in the Carolinas in 1865.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781945602078
Publisher:	Fox Run Publishing
Publication date:	08/15/2018
Pages:	194
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.41(d)

About the Author

Colonel (Ret) Wade Sokolosky is a graduate of East Carolina University and a 25-year veteran of the U.S. Army. Wade is the co-author (with Mark A. Smith) of “No Such Army Since the Days of Julius Caesar”: Sherman’s Carolinas Campaign from Fayetteville to Averasboro, and the author of Final Roll Call: Confederate Losses during the Carolinas Campaign.

Table of Contents

Author’s Preface



Foreword



Chapter One: The Carolinas Campaign Begins



Chapter Two: Judson Kilpatrick and His Union Troopers



Chapter Three: Joseph Wheeler and His Confederate Cavalry



Chapter Four: February 10, 1865: The Day Before



Chapter Five: Wheeler Springs His Trap



Chapter Six: Pursuit to Johnson's Turnout



Chapter Seven: Aftermath



Conclusion



Appendix A: Order of Battle for The Battle of Aiken February 11, 1865



Appendix B: Known Confederate Casualties From The Battle of Aiken



Appendix C: Defending Augusta: A Tale of Two Battles



Bibliography



Index

Editorial Reviews

Like a good cavalryman, Eric Wittenberg's sharp eye remains on the lookout for something new, something vital, something that stands out. He finds it in the battle of Aiken--an early engagement in the Carolinas Campaign that saw two seasoned cavalry forces clash in an urban environment. Wittenberg applies his formidable cavalry expertise to a battle that's been long overlooked but which had enormous implications at the time, shedding important new light on Sherman's march and the last struggling months of the Confederacy.

-- Chris Mackowski, Ph.D., Editor-in-Chief, Emerging Civil War

The bloody but pyrrhic cavalry battle in the streets of Aiken, South Carolina, was the only significant Confederate victory during William Tecumseh Sherman's 1865 drive through the Carolinas. No scholar is more equipped to describe the intense fighting, the larger-than-life participants, and the portentous consequences than Eric Wittenberg. Five or Ten Minutes of Blind Confusion is the definitive, blow-by-blow account of that collision from the dean of Civil War cavalry historians. It is a wise and welcome addition to the military history of the war.

--Kenneth W. Noe, Draughon Professor of Southern History, Auburn University and author of Perryville: This Grand Havoc of Battle

There are some late-war actions that have an outsize influence on war's end and its aftermath but get largely forgotten afterward. The Battle of Aiken is one of those actions - both impacting the South Carolina campaign but also producing a dramatic story of cavalry conflict. Eric Wittenberg is an authority on Civil War cavalry operations and a master storyteller, and his expert pen brings Aiken out of the shadows and back into its rightful place as a key moment in early 1865.

--Christopher L. Kolakowski, Chief Historian, Emerging Civil War

From the Publisher