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BROWN'S MILL AND SUNSHINE CHURCH
At the same time that Howard began his swing to the west of Atlanta,
two of Sherman's cavalry divisions, McCook's and Stoneman's, headed
south of the city. Their primary objective was to break the Macon
railroad around Lovejoy's Station, following which Sherman had
authorized Stoneman, should he believe it feasible, to go on to liberate
the Union prisoners at Macon and Andersonville. On July 29 McCook
reached the railroad at Lovejoy's and tore up two and a half miles of
track but Stoneman did not join him there or even attempt to. Instead,
as he probably intended from the first, he headed straight for Macon,
after which he planned to go on to Andersonville in the hope of becoming
the hero of the North by freeing the 30,000-plus Union captives
incarcerated there.
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GENERAL JOSEPH WHEELER (LC)
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THE PRISON CAMP AT ANDERSONVILLE, GEORGIA. (LC)
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As was invariably the case with him throughout the Civil War,
Stoneman's aspirations far exceeded his accomplishments. At Macon on
July 30 a makeshift force of home guards, militia, and convalescents
repulsed his halfhearted attempt to take that town, and the next day
pursuing Confederate cavalry forced him and seven hundred of his
troopers to surrender near Sunshine Church. Joining them in captivity
were hundreds of McCook's men, who had been overtaken and routed by
Wheeler at Brown's Mill near Newnan on July 30 as they endeavored to
make their way back to Union lines. Far from putting the Macon railroad
out of action—the Confederates repaired the damage done to it at
Lovejoy's—the McCook-Stoneman raid put out of action two of
Sherman's four cavalry divisions.
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