General Wheeler desperately pulled together a small cavalry force from the part of his command he left with Bragg. He and the majority of Confederate horse soldiers had gone with Longstreet two weeks before. Now the boys he needed for an effective fight were one hundred and fifty miles north!
At Ringgold, Georgia, the Confederate retreat, led by General Patrick Cleburne, an Irish born southern division commander, turned. They were ordered to halt the Union pursuit. Wheeler and his cavalry hugged Cleburne's flanks battling as mounted and dismounted cavalry. Grant sent Hooker with two divisions to drive over Cleburne and Wheeler. Hooker failed and then sent two brigades to roll back Wheeler's forces on the Confederate's southern flank. In a difficult and fierce fight, the Union movement to the south was halted by Wheeler's troops. General Wheeler was wounded in the foot. Grant temporarily abandoned the Union pursuit of Bragg's army.
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A forty-plus, well-dressed woman riding sidesaddle pulled rein of a big white stallion beside an ambulance that had stopped in front of the mansion. "Soldier," she confidently addressed the medical orderly sitting on the driver's seat. Lou sat quietly beside the driver. His shoulders were crunched down and made him look like a frog. "Who is in that conveyance?" she asked assertively waving her riding crop like a scepter.
The six escort riders looked like some were going to laugh and others were going to pull their guns on the uppity woman. The driver just stared at her. A disembodied, weak voice from inside the canvas covered wagon said, "Corporal, who's there?"
"Sir, it's a lady, sir," the uncomfortable orderly answered, turning his head back towards the patient behind the canvas.
"My complements, Madam. I am a bit indisposed. Would you kindly come to the back of the wagon so that I may speak to you directly?" General Wheeler requested.
She moved the thoroughbred to the rear of the wagon.
"Madame, I'm Joseph Wheeler of the Army of Tennessee cavalry," the General said to the attractive blank-faced woman in expensive riding fashion.
"Yes, well General, might I be of an assistance? Sir, you may gladly avail yourself of the shelter and hospitality of Spring Place. I'm Amelia Vann. Spring Place is my farm and welcomes all who defend it," the mistress of the region said.
General Wheeler, his left foot bound in a dirty red/brown wrap, leaned up on his elbows. "Ma'am, you are most gracious. That is not required. We'll move on to Dalton to find headquarters. Medical services will be there."
"Nonsense General. They'll kill you with their ministrations. Quacks. You tell your driver to drive up that way and come up to the front door of my place," the regal lady on horseback ordered. Then she turned her spirited mount and said to Lou, "Boy, follow your general and help get him inside."