Forging a New South: The Life of General John T. Wilder

On the morning of August 21, 1861, John T. Wilder, a brash young colonel of a Union mounted infantry unit nicknamed the “Lightning Brigade” ordered his men to open fire on the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee, damaging buildings, sinking steamboats along the riverfront, and injuring men, women, and children. In the midst of Reconstruction and an emerging new South a mere eight years later, Wilder was elected mayor of Chattanooga. While Wilder is most closely associated with the Lightning Brig...