This article comes from the website of Explore Southern History.com. My father’s mother was May Skinner Bell, whose granfather was the John Wesley Skinner referenced in this article. There is some written evidence that he was also a Union spy imbedded in the Confederate war during the war and then quickly changed sides just as it was ending.
I’ve been giving the impetus for my novels. This is the seed for my most recent novel “Small Games Of Chance.”
Last Man Killed in the Civil War
It is generally stated by historians that the
last battle of the Civil War was fought and its
last casualties sustained at Palmitto Ranch,
Texas, on May 12-13, 1865. An event that
happened one week later at Hobdy’s Bridge
in Alabama, however, could change part of
the accepted story.
A detachment of Union soldiers from the 1st
Florida U.S. Cavalry had been sent from
Montgomery to Eufaula to escort a mail
shipment through the unsettled regions of
eastern Alabama. Lee had surrendered and
Wilson’s Raid had devastated the region, but
many former Confederate soldiers were
drifting through the region on their way home.
The mail escort, commanded by Lt. Joseph
Carroll, left Montgomery on May 11, 1865,
and reached Eufaula without difficulty. The
total strength of the detachment was only 25
men, but because all seemed quiet, Carroll
decided to spend a few days in Eufaula to
rest his horses. Since some of his men were
natives of the area, he granted them short
leaves to go and visit their families. The
entire detachment was to reassemble at
Hobdy’s Bridge over the Pea River on May 19,
1865.
After many of his men dispersed to their
homes, however, Carroll learned that a party
of pro-Confederate “guerrillas” had been
seen in the area. The identity of this unit, if it
had an identity, is unknown, but at about the
same time General Alexander Asboth in
Pensacola reported that several companies
of cavalry made up of “unrepentant rebels”
were still active in the Alabama and Florida
borderlands.
Upon receiving this intelligence, Carroll
decided to return to Montgomery as quickly
as possible and crossed Hobdy’s Bridge
with the main body of his detachment two
days before the appointed rendezvous. The
other men of his command, at home and
visiting their families, had no way to know of
his decision to leave early or of the danger
they faced.
According to military records, they gathered at
Hobdy’s Bridge as ordered on the morning of
May 19, 1865, only to learn that Carroll and
the main body were already gone. Turning
their horses onto the long wooden bridge,
the Florida cavalrymen started off to follow
their commander’s route. They rode straight
into a trap:
…On attempting to cross said bridge, [they]
were fired upon by a band of rebel guerrillas,
one of the party being killed, and all the rest…
were wounded, with one exception.
The soldier killed in the Skirmish at Hobdy’s
Bridge can be identified as Corporal John W.
Skinner of Company C, 1st Florida U.S.
Cavalry. He was killed in action six days after
Private John J. Williams of the 34th Indiana,
who died at Palmitto Ranch and is generally
said to have been the last man killed in the
Civil War.
That sad distinction actually belongs to
Corporal Skinner, who died on the wooden
planks of Hobdy’s Bridge in Alabama.