GENERAL DODGE
IN THE REAR OF GENERAL BRAGG'S ARMY
AND
COLONEL STREIGHT'S RAID
SPRING OF 1863
When General Grant planned the second campaign against Vicksburg he
notified me, then in command of the District of Corinth, with about eight
thousand infantry and two thousand cavalry, that he intended to take my
command with him; but a few days before starting he sent one of his staff
officers to me stating that he had concluded to leave me with my command
and some additional troops to hold that flank while he moved on Vicksburg.
This dispatch was a great disappointment to myself and my command. When
the officer returned to General Grant he no doubt told him of our
disappointment, as General Grant wrote me a letter stating that my command
was of much more importance than a command directly under him, and said he
had fears that General Bragg, who was then facing General Rosecrans in
Middle Tennessee, might detach a portion of his force, cross the Tennessee
River, and endeavor to make a lodgment on the Mississippi River at some
point and break up his communications with the North, with a view of
forcing him to abandon the campaign. He said he had left me to take care
of that flank, as he knew I would stay there. I read between the lines and
learned what was expected of me.
General Grant, in discussing this order of his afterwards, said that he
had learned from my services under him that I was peculiarly fitted for
such a command, where I had to rely on my own judgment, and that I acted
promptly without waiting for orders, and that it came, he thought, from my
experience before the war, when I was always in charge of engineering
parties in the field and often in a hostile Indian country where I had to
act promptly in any emergency. There was, at that time, quite a large
force in my front and between me and General Bragg, commanded by General
Earl Van Dorn, General N. B. Forrest, and General P. D. Roddey. This force
was collecting supplies and storing them along the Memphis and Charleston
Railroad from Bear River to Decatur, Ala. The Tennessee Valley in this
territory was twenty miles wide, and full of all kinds of supplies. I
wrote to General Grant about this storage of supplies for General Bragg's
Army, and suggested that I move up the Tennessee Valley with my force to
destroy these stores and whatever there was in the valley that Bragg's
Army could utilize; but General Grant made no response then to my
suggestion. In February I discovered a movement of the force in my front
towards General Rosecrans's Army and notified him in the following
dispatch:
CORINTH, MISS., February 10, 1863.
_Major-General Rosecrans_:
One of my scouts left Van Dorn Sunday night. He then had two regiments
and one battery across the Tombigbee, at Cotton-Gin Port; was crossing
slowly, and all his forces had not got to him. His men and officers
said he was going to Bragg. His stock is not in good condition. He
appears to be going the Pikevill and Russellville road. Streams are
high, and roads bad. We captured mail from Bragg's Army yesterday. All
the officers' and privates' letters express a belief that Bragg is
fixing to fall back; some say to Huntsville, some to Bridgeport. You
can judge how reliable such suspicions are. I have endeavored to get a
gunboat up to Florence, and if one could go there it could destroy all
the forces, and check Van Dorn materially. I will co-operate with it
in any way to benefit the service.