Memory Of The Week: When The Civil War Came To Tuscaloosa

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TUSCALOOSA, AL — Tuesday, April 9, represented 159 years to the day that Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union general and eventual president Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia, effectively ending the American Civil War.

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Less than a week before, though, Tuscaloosa County and what would become the University of Alabama campus in Tuscaloosa, saw its only major military action of the war as part of a campaign that would forever alter the look of the city and its state university.

The name most associated with the Union campaign through West Alabama is General John T. Croxton, whose "raiders" are credited with burning down the state military school on the campus of what is now the University of Alabama.

By Croxton's own reports, the expedition wove 635 miles through the area and destroyed the university, five large ironworks, three cotton factories, numerous mills and storehouses, immense quantities of supplies, four pieces of artillery, several hundred small arms and captured around 400 prisoners.

Much of the research done on the topic, including the figures provided above, can be found at the Tuscaloosa Public Library in a reference-only copy of "The Yankee Invasion of West Alabama: March - April 1865" by William Stanley Hoole and Elizabeth Hoole McArthur.

The W.S. Hoole Special Collections at the University of Alabama honors Hoole's memory following an illustrious career at the University of Alabama.

In being proper historians, though, we would be remiss to not acknowledge the lens through which this 88-page work of local history was written.

This is no more evident in the title — I.E. the "Yankee Invasion" — which frames the book in a way that's decidedly sympathetic for those on the receiving end of the military campaign.

However, apart from certain inconsequential phrases in the book, the authors lay out their methodology and did take special care to present the narratives from both sides before encouraging the reader to form their own conclusions as to the motives of the players involved.

The Battle Of Trion or The Battle of Vance

In 1979, Marie Ball, executive director of the Tuscaloosa County Historic Preservation Authority, wrote a promotional story about the Battle of Trion ahead of a Civil War re-enactment at Bowers Park to commemorate the 114th anniversary of the battle.

"Today you can joyfully stroll around Bowers Park and view the pageant of Civil War firepower, maneuvers, camps and the portrayal of the life and times of Tuscaloosa's living history," she wrote.

Our story begins, however, following a costly defeat for infamous Confederate Lt. General Nathan Bedford Forrest in Tennessee in late March 1865.

With Forrest fleeing south, the chase for the rebel leader was on through Mississippi and Alabama as the bloody war finally reached its end.

Union Major General George Henry Thomas then dispatched a force of 12,500 cavalrymen and 1,500 dismounted soldiers into central Alabama to destroy any manufacturing capabilities and infrastructure deemed useful to the rebel cause.

Each soldier was armed with a newly patented seven-shot Spencer repeating rifle and 120 rounds of ammunition when they entered the northeast part of the state and began their march toward Jasper and Elyton — what is now Birmingham.

The expedition reached Jefferson County on March 29 and first destroyed a large blast furnace on Red Mountain. Still, the authors of the aforementioned reference work cite Union reports of dissatisfaction with the little action they had found.

Indeed, Major General James H. Wilson remarked that Elyton was "a poor insignificant Southern village, surrounded by old farms that could be bought for five dollars an acre" only for it to go on to become, at one time, the largest city in Alabama.

And it was in Elyton that Wilson made the fateful decision to dispatch Croxton — a lawyer from Paris, Kentucky — to "proceed rapidly by the most direct route to Tuscaloosa to destroy the bridge, factories, mills, university (military school) and whatever else may be of value to the rebel cause."

While camped in Jefferson County at the home of anti-secessionist Judge William S. Mudd, who would later serve on the UA Board of Trustees, Union forces were informed that there were no Confederate troops in Tuscaloosa. Croxton and his men then set out on the afternoon of March 30 with the intelligence that Tuscaloosa was protected by only 300 cadets at the college and around 200 poorly equipped local militiamen.

Croxton's raiding party of 1,500 consisted mostly of men from Iowa, Kentucky and Michigan who were "amply rationed" and accompanied by three ambulances and a headquarters luggage wagon that contained Croxton's personal effects.

The large, unwieldy force was slow to move due to the heavy spring rains that made high-traffic roads muddy and almost impassable. Croxton's men reportedly traveled only eight miles on the first day, before marching in mud-caked boots through Roup's Valley and Bucksville toward Tuscaloosa.

After reaching the community of Jonesborough, Croxton sent out three smaller detachments of Iowans, under the command of Captain William A. Sutherland, six miles to the south to destroy a tannery owned by Thomas L. Williams and the ironworks in what is now Tannehill State Park between Bucksville and Woodstock.

The industrial capabilities at Tannehill were of particular interest, considering the ironworks could produce roughly 20,000 tons of pig iron a day.

Sutherland and his men rejoined Croxton later in the afternoon, where he informed his superior that he had learned Forrest's "whole command" — estimated to be around 10,000-12,000 men — was moving eastward along winding Huntsville Road from Tuscaloosa through what is now Cottondale and Coaling.

It was believed by the Union command from its intelligence that Forrest was heading in the direction of Trion in what would become the town of Vance.

Croxton's force reportedly reached Trion at sundown, roughly 20 miles east of Tuscaloosa, and set up camp on the farm of Squire John White, where the cavalrymen dismounted their horses and fed them on about 300 bushels of White's corn. The soldiers also helped themselves to White's smokehouse and other supply stores as Croxton set up a headquarters to prepare for his march into Tuscaloosa.

While the Union forces rested, Forrest had already been notified of their movements and planned to have a detachment intercept Croxton in Alabama in an effort to save Selma and the Confederacy's ship-building capabilities along the river.

Forrest split up three brigades to travel to different locations of Union interest, with one brigade commanded by Brigadier General Wirt Adams riding toward Tuscaloosa and Brigadier General William Hicks Jackson riding toward Croxton with orders to "meet, whip, and get rid of that column of the enemy as soon as possible."

Meanwhile, Croxton avoided engaging a Confederate force that passed his men unnoticed on Huntsville Road and proceeded the next day on April 1 to quietly pursue the rebel army, which was on the march toward Centreville to meet up with Forrest and move on through Plantersville and on to Selma.

Instead of attempting to take on what turned out to be a much larger force than his own, Croxton issued the order for his men to slip away via Mud Creek, which ran parallel to the same Huntsville Road Jackson's men were traveling. Two companies of Croxton's men were left behind to monitor and report on the movements of the Confederate troops in the area.

But the morning of April 1, as Croxton's men began to move along the road, his rear column was ambushed by a full rebel force under the command of Jackson.

"The rear of my column had just left camp at dawn when the enemy in force attacked, driving in the pickets, which had not been relieved," Croxton wrote. "Captain Parrish, with one of the companies left with Captain Penn, charged the enemy's column in a lane, and being deceived by a party of rebels who in the early dawn he mistook for our troops, he went too far, was surrounded, and after a gallant attempt to extricate his command, was wounded and captured with most of his men, a number of whom were killed and wounded."

In total, Croxton lost two officers and 30 men in the fighting and was forced to retreat 10 miles north, doubling back toward Woodstock.

Realizing Jackson did not plan to pursue his smaller force, Croxton made an unorthodox decision in advancing his force to the ordered objective in Tuscaloosa, deciding to reach the city directly via the Mud Creek Road.

"Jackson, instead of following [me] directly, took a road striking the Mud Creek Road four miles nearer Tuscaloosa, and by moving rapidly succeeded in throwing his force there between me and that place upon the only road east of the Black Warrior River," Croxton later reported. "He had two brigades, numbering as I then supposed and have since learned, 2,600 men."

The site of the Battle of Trion is not exactly known, although Hoole — citing an eyewitness account from Squire John White — describes it as a picket fight in the fields around his plantation that lasted all day on April 1, 1865.

In 1986, signs were erected on Highway 11 near Vance Elementary and in front of Vance Town Hall to commemorate the battle. Still, local historians at the time said the site was two or three city blocks south of the elementary school, near the town cemetery.

"This fight was almost within a stone's throw of the present Vance station, on the south side of the railroad (since built)," Hoole and McArthur wrote. "A number of Confederate soldiers were wounded, but none died that day. There was a Tennesseean who had been badly wounded. He was carried into the Squire's house, and after several days died. He was buried nearby. Mr. White could not tell to what extent the Federals suffered. He only knew that they carried their dead and wounded off on stretchers."

The authors also mentioned that the Battle of Trion, while viewed locally as little more than a skirmish, was recorded as a full-fledged battle in N.A. Strait's historical work "Battles of the War of the Rebellion" published in 1882.

What's more, Hoole and McArthur speculate that the Battle of Trion highlights two important failures on the part of the two commanders on either side of the fight as the war lurched toward Tuscaloosa.

The Battle of Tuscaloosa

While Croxton began to slowly trek toward Tuscaloosa, his Confederate counterpart Jackson made a mistake in his assumption that Croxton's force was defeated and slinking away from the nearby city.

Indeed, as Jackson pursued Croxton and believed he had scared away the smaller army, he sent a courier ahead to Tuscaloosa saying Croxton's army "is scattered in the mountains, and cannot again be collected. Assure the ladies of Tuscaloosa that the tread of the Vandal horde shall not pollute the streets of their beautiful city."

After sending the message, Jackson then pivoted his army toward Bibb County to meet with Forrest in Centreville and thus allowed Croxton to commit one of the biggest blunders of the Union war effort, albeit at a stage in the conflict that it was unlikely to have mattered in the grander scheme of Confederate surrender.

Conversely, researchers wrote that Jackson may have saved Tuscaloosa had he kept Croxton on the run instead of trying to link up with Forrest.

As pointed out in the biography of Nathan Bedford Forrest by John Allan Wye, the historian wrote that when Croxton "changed his mind" and decided to move by way of Mud Creek Road instead of Trion-Tuscaloosa Road, he failed to realize that "by mere good luck, he had come in between the rear of Jackson's division and his artillery and wagon-train, which were struggling along some four miles distant, in the vain endeavor to keep in sight of the swift-moving horsemen. Had the Union commander moved rapidly westward he could have captured and destroyed every gun and wagon of this Confederate division ... and might have performed one of the most brilliant exploits of the war."

Instead of realizing the opportunity before him to inflict havoc on Jackson, Croxton instead pursued the rear guard of the rebel army until the Confederate commander was alerted to their presence and turned his men back on them. However, Jackson opted against engaging the force and instead unknowingly gave Croxton a wide-open path to Tuscaloosa.

Croxton's men out-marched Jackson after causing the Confederate general to second-guess himself and little else stood between the advancing Union army and the poorly defended city.

In delaying Jackson, this also allowed Union forces to attack Centreville — after Forrest had cut out for Selma — and burn the incredibly important bridge spanning the Cahaba River to sever a crucial Confederate supply vein.

Taking the long way around Tuscaloosa to cross to the northern banks of the Black Warrior River, Croxton's men began attempting to ford the rain-swollen body of water the night of April 1.

Indeed, the force was led by Colonel Joseph B. Dorr of Iowa, and began crossing the river in flatboats while others swam. Despite one Michigan soldier commenting on how dangerous the crossing was, the feat was accomplished without a single death.

The morning of April 3, the Union brigade then moved south to Watermelon Road toward Northport. During this march, Croxton's men not only raided supply stores from farmers along the way, but took prisoner all White men they encountered to prevent them from warning the people of Tuscaloosa and Northport of their approach.

Hoole and McArthur wrote that Croxton's force reached Deason's Ferry or Deason's Ford — now submerged by Lake Tuscaloosa, according to local historians — at about dusk on April 3. The Union army, as it attempted to cross at Deason's Ford, was met with resistance, however, from Deason and another man identified in records only as "Allison."

The ambush by Deason caused panic among the semi-submerged soldiers, with several horses and soldiers being swept downstream. In fact, plantation owner Jimmy Dodds, who lived five miles down river at Leland's Bend, reported finding the bodies of two dead Federal soldiers and burying them.

Another man named John Barker said he found another badly decomposed Union soldier with his horse still standing nearby. He also buried the soldier and took in the horse, which died a few days later.

Undeterred by the ambush, Croxton's men crossed at Deason's Ford and then marched across Snow Mill's Creek, which was roughly a half mile east of Northport. From there, the army reached the Black Warrior River bridge at about 9 p.m. on April 3. By this time, church bells could be heard from Northport Methodist warning local non-combatants of the Union army on the approach.

Confederate and local militia forces were ultimately notified of the Union army massing on the other side of the river, which prompted Dr. W.G.B. Pearson to run to the bridge to notify the ill-prepared Tuscaloosa Home Guard of the impending crossing of troops.

Captain Benjamin Eddins — a retired officer of the Army of Northern Virginia — J.M. Van Hoose, his son Woolsey, J.T. Leach and a 15-year-old named John Carson then set out to rip up the plank boards on the bridge to delay the Union troops from reaching the scarcely protected city as it slept.

It's worth noting that UA President Landon Garland had offered the local home guard a company of cadets to guard the bridge, but the offer was declined, marking just one of several notable acts of hubris on the part of local leaders.

Hoole and McArthur wrote that as Croxton and about 150 men crossed the bridge, Eddins and the others took shelter behind cotton bales and began firing at the Union soldiers with their old muskets.

Eddins, the father of nine children, was shot in the chest and died three days later, while Carson, who was shot in the foot, was reportedly crippled for the rest of his life.

A historical marker is located on a hill overlooking the river along the Tuscaloosa River Walk that commemorates Eddins and also represents the spot where local officials surrendered the city to Union forces.

Eddins is considered the only local citizen to die defending the city during the war and he was buried in Tuscaloosa's historic Greenwood Cemetery.

On the opposite side of the fighting, one Union solider — Private Ezekiel Lemmons — was shot and killed. He was buried the next day in Greenwood Cemetery.

Also during the occurrence at the Black Warrior River bridge, Union forces on the Northport side of the river set fire to a factory owned by Dr. Sewell J. Leach that produced gray hats for the Confederate army. In one article in the Tuscaloosa News in 1979, it was said that the hat Confederate General Robert E. Lee was wearing at Appomattox was made at this factory.

The Tuscaloosa Home Guard quickly retreated up River Hill after abandoning the bridge and Union forces began to slowly file across before traveling up along River Hill Road and into the center of Tuscaloosa.

Garland, the university's president, had anticipated such an assault on the city but had been rebuffed at every approach in trying to warn state officials of the possibility. Acting on his own initiative, Garland ordered cadets to fortify the college the best they could, building earthen works, trenches, hewing and "thousands of pickets on the western side of the grounds."

Citizens of Tuscaloosa — numbering around 4,500 — were frightened awake at about 10 p.m. to the sounds of gunfire and shouting, prompting many to put out their lamps and lock their doors.

This point in the story raises an interesting question regarding the bias and reliability of its author when it is mentioned how easily Tuscaloosa fell, namely thanks to a "Negro traitor named Columbus Harris," who was considered a Union spy and who is said to have notified many that the federal troops had arrived.

No other mention is given to Harris in the records of that night or in any other contemporary accounts from the war, leading this author to speculate that Harris was used more as a local scapegoat to focus the blame away from poor planning on the part of state and local officials ahead of the Union invasion.

Nevertheless, Hoole and McArthur wrote that Union troops captured three state-owned 6-pound guns hidden behind Baird & Hunt's Livery Stable that were intended for use by cadets defending the university.

Troops also rounded up about 60 Tuscaloosa residents as prisoners and held them at a warehouse on the banks of the river.

Croxton's men then set about the town, looting stores and causing havoc. Indeed, one such example says the raiding party was responsible for liberating $100,000 in currency and $2 million in vouchers from the Confederate States Depository in downtown Tuscaloosa.

In another more famous example of civic disruption that night, Croxton's men also crashed the wedding of Emily Leach at the family home on Pine Street (on a site that would later be home to the Temerson Company) as her father's hat factory went up in flames over in Northport.

Union troops also threatened to search and burn Cherokee Place — the home of Confederate Sen. Robert Jemison that would later be known as the Jemison-Van De Graaff Mansion. Jemison was in hiding and not found at the house, so it was ultimately spared as a private residence.

Basil Manly Jr., the son of the former president of the University of Alabama, was a visitor in Tuscaloosa during the Union invasion and detailed the scene in his diary.

"A good deal of robbery and pillage was done in private homes, in situations remote from the General's headquarters, but generally they were restrained from much of that in the more frequented parts of the city, except as to storehouses and shops," Manly wrote. "These were ransacked and stripped of everything, and a general invitation [issued] to the poor and the Negroes to possess themselves of what they desired."

This last claim of turning out wares for freed slaves and the poor is somewhat corroborated in Ball's account, who claims Robert Maxwell's store was ransacked and similar instructions given by Union officers, only for those who took items to return them to Maxwell the next day.

The university commandant, Colonel James T. Murfee, was stirred awake about midnight as April 4 dawned and gave the order for his 18-year-old drummer George W. Saunders to play the "long roll," prompting more than 250 cadets to fall out of bed and grab their old 58-caliber Springfield rifles before assembling in front of the Rotunda — the university's administration building that was eventually burned to the ground by Union troops.

The cadets then began a mile-long march to meet the Union force head-on and were joined on the city sidewalks by cheering university administrators such as President Garland and other members of the Tuscaloosa Home Guard.

One contemporary report says the column of cadets halted on Broad Street between Bell Tavern Corner, Madison Street and Washington Hall, before Murfee sent a smaller detachment down an alley for reconnaissance, while cautiously leading his column through the dark street and with no knowledge of the strength of the force he would soon encounter.

Tuscaloosa native and cadet Taylor Keene, 19 years old at the time, recalled that Murfee "called out in a stentorian voice, 'who comes there'?" to which a voice answered "The Sixth Kentucky Cavalry. Who are you?"

Murfee responded with "The University Corps of Cadets" and then immediately ordered his company to hit the ground. This reportedly occurred around the site of the Louisville and Nashville railroad station.

A Union officer is said to have responded "Give 'em Hell, boys!" and the shots from their repeating rifles began to ring out through the night.

Murfee was wounded during the brief gun battle and Garland was forced to sound the retreat when he saw the overwhelming numbers clad in Union blue advancing toward them. Bearing their wounded, the cadets retreated down Broad Street and Croxton would later say he lost a total of 33 men capturing Tuscaloosa.

Ahead of the Union troops in pursuit, the remaining cadets arrived back to campus and destroyed a cache of ammunition before packing their haversacks and circling back together at White's Landing. The cadets eventually made their way to Hurricane Creek, roughly 10 miles outside of town, and barricaded the bridge there.

The cadets then trekked to the nearby town of Marion, where they were welcomed as heroes and even saw one of their captains pay $842 — likely in worthless Confederate notes — for his men to have their worn boots repaired. They then disbanded upon learning of Lee's surrender.

As day broke on April 4 and despite isolated pockets of local resistance, the city was solely under Union occupation after Tuscaloosa Mayor Obediah Berry and Father William F. McDonough, a Catholic priest, surrendered the city under a white flag of truce, hoping to avoid further violence and destruction.

Following the surrender, Croxton stayed briefly at the Fellows House on Queen City Avenue in what is now referred to as the Turner-McAlpin-Fellows House.

Some of his officers were also housed in the Chabannes-Sealy House on Greensboro Avenue, while Croxton's headquarters were set up at the brick home of Charles Jerome Fiquet on the southeast corner of the intersection of Greensboro Avenue and Eighth Street.

Once encamped in Tuscaloosa, Croxton set about completing the various smaller objectives of his overall mission, with the most vital part of this commission being orders to torch the state military college.

Around 9 p.m. that night, Hoole and McArthur wrote that Union forces "wheeled left through the gate onto the tree-lined avenue which led directly north from the President's Mansion to the University Rotunda, a 3-story, 34-year-old, iconic-column structure which contained an auditorium and a natural history collection on the ground floor and on the gallery above a library of some 7,000 volumes."

When the soldiers arrived to the Rotunda, they were met by several faculty members, namely Latin professor William S. Wyman and librarian Andrew DeLoffre, who claimed to be a French subject under the protection of his country's government.

DeLoffre reportedly pleaded with Colonel Thomas M. Johnston to spare the library, which was considered one of the best in the South. Johnston was an educated and cultured man, who agreed and scribbled a message to Croxton asking permission to spare the library.

This plea by Johnston fell on unsympathetic ears, though, and Croxton issued the order to set the Rotunda ablaze.

"My orders leave me no discretion," Croxton responded to the request to spare the library. "My orders are to destroy all public buildings."

One of the only items rescued from the fire, which exists to this day, was a 1853 Philadelphia edition of "The Koran: Commonly Called the Alcoran of Muhammed."

Marie Ball, executive director of the Tuscaloosa County Historic Preservation Authority, wrote in 1979 that records at the Tuscaloosa County Courthouse were spared thanks to Tuscaloosa County Probate Judge Moses McGuire and his clerk, Wash Jennings, who hid part of them in the plum bushes on Thomas Clinton's property west of town and the other part on the old Alford Skelton property east of Taylorville.

Along with burning the Rotunda, Ball wrote that federal soldiers also set fire to Washington, Franklin, Jefferson and Madison dormitories, the Lyceum, the faculty residences and the niter plant on the site of the present Verner School that was operated by William S. Foster.

Still, Ball mentioned that the Observatory that still stands today was spared through the exertions of Alabama Governor Reuben Chapman's wife, Felicia Pickett Chapman.

What's more, the powder magazine, positioned a little east of Woods Hall, was blown up by Confederate Major M.C. Burke so that the ammunition would not be taken by federal troops.

Ball also said Union soldiers were seen breaking into the vaults at Greenwood Cemetery looking for money and valuables. Conversely, Union soldiers visited the Alabama Insane Hospital, later known as Bryce Hospital, and spared it after confiscating all of its horses and wagons.

During the mayhem on campus, though, the wife of university president Landon Garland was staying with the family of Peter Bryce at the Alabama Insane Hospital but set out for the President's Mansion when she got word that federal troops were destroying the stately mansion.

Year's later and eerily reminiscence of the defiance shown by Scarlet O'Hara in Margaret Mitchell's "Gone with the Wind," Garland's daughter recalled that night when she wrote:

"Quickly ordering her servants to put out the fire, [Mother] looked those Yankee soldiers straight in the face and said, 'You men well know your general did not give orders to burn private homes, only public buildings. What do you mean by entering my home?' So fearless was her attitude and so forceful her orders that the soldiers looked abashed and started to leave, but she commanded them to help her save the house — and they did so, and soon had the fire under control.
Then the men said arrogantly, 'Now, we have helped you put out the fire, you should pay us for it.' Quickly my Mother, looking straight at them replied, 'Certainly I will pay you, but we do not keep money in Give me your names and addresses and my husband will send you a check.'
the house."

As the university and much of Tuscaloosa smoldered the next day, April 5, Croxton recrossed the Black Warrior River as word arrived of a larger Confederate force on the edge of town.

Indeed, Ball wrote that a "very old lady came by this house shortly after noon on April 4, and told General Croxton that the Confederates under General Jackson were approaching Tuscaloosa, and that, in fact, they were only a few miles out of town. Croxton immediately gave orders to move out."

Croxton's men retreated back to Northport, burning the river bridge as they went but inadvertently leaving one company on the Tuscaloosa side. The stranded troops had no choice but join the rest of the army by crossing downriver at Sander's Ferry.

Croxton's army then marched 34 miles into the Sipsey Swamp and the wilderness it encompassed. It was at this point that Croxton found himself and his troops in a state of limbo, with Forrest far away in Selma and his Union commanding officer Wilson nowhere to be found.

The decision was ultimately made by Croxton to double back toward Northport.

On the march back, however, Croxton's men were assaulted by Confederate General Wirt Adams in what is now described as the Battle of Romulus.

Downplayed by Hoole and McArthur as "at best a running skirmish," the Battle of Romulus was fought throughout the day on April 5 during a downpour of spring rain.

The fighting even reached sight of Northport residents, but by this point both sides were severely scattered about and strung along the road and in the woods.

Hoole and McArthur wrote that men on both sides became disoriented and disorganized, with Adams' reinforcements having great difficulty in advancing while Croxton's troopers, many on foot, struggled in vain to escape the advancing Confederates.

Both sides eventually abandoned the fighting and dispersed, but not before one Union officer and two privates were captured by a farmer named John D. Horton and taken to jail in Eutaw.

In an interesting side note, researchers pointed out that the Union officer, a Major Fidler of the Sixth Kentucky, was released following the war and travelled to Memphis, where he boarded a doomed steamboat named The Sultana.

The Sultana was substantially overloaded with Union prisoners returning home when it sank in the Mississippi River on April 27, 1865, killing 1,167 people in what remains the worst maritime disaster in United States history.

In his official report, Croxton refused to admit he was ever bested during this West Alabama campaign but did lament the loss of men and supplies. Indeed, researchers wrote years later that many muskets and other arms were abandoned near Romulus and a few soldiers got lost wandering through the fields and could not locate their comrades.

Some soldiers also drowned while trying to cross the Sipsey River, with Ball writing in 1979 that bodies of Union soldiers were found lodged in fish traps owned by a "Mr. Cotton," who reportedly found watches and other valuables taken from Tuscaloosa citizens on the retrieved bodies.

Croxton eventually returned to Northport and stayed at Bill Hamner's boarding house before marching his troops up Byler Road — the oldest public road in the state of Alabama that's still in use.

Ball said more pillaging took place on this final trek as the war came to a close, writing that John Prewitt, a large landowner, had $26,000 in gold confiscated.

Prewitt reportedly hid the gold in a cave, but six federal soldiers divided the money among themselves after a liberated slave revealed the location.

Two days after Lee's surrender to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, Croxton's expedition marched on to Windham Springs and then to Wolf Creek in Walker County.

Croxton finally joined Wilson and his federal troops on May 20 at Macon, Georgia.

At last, the war was over, with Croxton's campaign doing very little to impact its final outcome.

After his resignation from military service, Croxton was appointed by President Grant to serve as the U.S. minister to Bolivia, where he died in April 16, 1874 of tuberculosis at the young age of 37.

In exchange for the destruction of the University of Alabama and other public buildings at the hands of Union troops, the federal government ultimately granted the land and funding for the school to be rebuilt, thus setting into motion the growth in Tuscaloosa that continues to this day.

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