‘QUICK TO THINK, QUICK TO ACT’
of the Civil War, Union soldier George W. Quimby rode through the countryside of Georgia as well as North and South Carolina, spying and scouting in advance of Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s Army of the Tennessee. Sherman’s scouts, often dressed as Confederate soldiers, regularly reported back on what they had discovered. Before he died in 1926, at the age of 84, Quimby penned a memoir of his experiences throughout the war that was never published. That manuscript was recently discovered by the husband of one of his descendants, Stephen Murphy, and Quimby’s recollections of his time as a pathfinder for Sherman are now available in ¶ Murphy, who is married to Quimby’s great-great-granddaughter, and historian Anne Sarah Rubin share editor credentials on this riveting account, which offers valuable insights into those final, intense months of intelligence operations during one of the most decisive campaigns of the war. ¶ Quimby had spent 1862 through 1864 with the 32nd Wisconsin Infantry, and, after being catured by Maj. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest’s men, was briefly a prisoner of war. Quimby eventually escaped and rejoined his unit, fighting in the Meridian Campaign in Mississippi, which served as a training ground of sorts for Sherman’s eventual operations in Georgia and the Carolinas. It was after the Union capture of Atlanta in September 1864 that Quimby began his role as scout. ¶ In , Quimby tells his story with considerable humor and wit, as well as a healthy sense of irony. Although he remained steadfast in his devotion to the Union long after the war, even after marrying a Southern woman, Quimby provides a unique lens through which to study two of the war’s most important campaigns. Following are some of Quimby’s revelations about the people he fought with and against, as well as how the war affected the South.
