Transcriber’s Note
Italic text displayed as: _italic_
[Illustration: Bennett H. Young (signature)
_Commander-in-Chief_ U. C. V.
]
Confederate Wizards
of the Saddle
_Being Reminiscences and
Observations of One Who Rode
With Morgan_
By
BENNETT H. YOUNG
Commander-in-Chief of the
United Confederate Veterans Association
[Illustration: Decoration]
BOSTON
Chapple Publishing Company, Ltd.
1914
Copyright, 1914, by Bennett H. Young
Dedicated
to the
Women of the South
IN THE DAYS OF PEACE
The Creators of Chivalry and Gallantry
IN THE DAYS OF BATTLE
The Inspiration of Faith and Courage
IN THE DAYS OF BLOOD
The Angels of Comfort and Mercy
IN THE DAYS OF DEFEAT
The Spirits of Hope and Help
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I 1
FORREST AT BRYCE’S CROSS-ROADS, JUNE 10TH, 1864
CHAPTER II 42
GENERAL HAMPTON’S CATTLE RAID, SEPTEMBER, 1864
CHAPTER III 60
KENTUCKY CAVALRY FIGHTING WITH ROCKS, DUG CREEK
GAP, MAY 8-9, 1864
CHAPTER IV 82
GENERAL JOSEPH WHEELER’S RAID INTO TENNESSEE,
FALL OF 1863
CHAPTER V 95
GENERAL JOHN H. MORGAN’S RAID INTO KENTUCKY,
JULY 4-28, 1862
CHAPTER VI 126
FORREST’S RAID INTO WEST TENNESSEE, DECEMBER, 1862
CHAPTER VII 155
TEXAS HORSEMEN OF THE SEA, IN GALVESTON HARBOR,
JANUARY, 1863
CHAPTER VIII 171
COLONEL ROY S. CLUKE’S KENTUCKY RAID, FEBRUARY-MARCH,
1863
CHAPTER IX 195
SHELBY’S MISSOURI RAID, SEPTEMBER, 1863
CHAPTER X 222
BATTLE AND CAPTURE OF HARTSVILLE BY GENERAL JOHN
H. MORGAN, DECEMBER 7TH, 1863
CHAPTER XI 248
WHEELER’S RAID INTO TENNESSEE, AUGUST, 1864
CHAPTER XII 270
JOHNSONVILLE RAID AND FORREST’S MARINE EXPERIENCES,
NOVEMBER, 1864
CHAPTER XIII 296
CAVALRY EXPEDITION OF THE TEXANS INTO NEW MEXICO,
WINTER, 1861-62
CHAPTER XIV 316
GENERAL J. E. B. STUART’S RIDE AROUND MCCLELLAN’S
ARMY—CHICKAHOMINY RAID, JUNE 12-15, 1863
CHAPTER XV 337
BATTLE AND CAMPAIGN OF TREVILIAN STATION, JUNE 11TH
AND 12TH, 1864
CHAPTER XVI 367
MORGAN’S RIDE AROUND CINCINNATI, ON “THE OHIO
RAID,” JULY, 1863
CHAPTER XVII 391
RICHARDS WITH MOSBY’S MEN IN THE FIGHT AT MT.
CARMEL CHURCH, FEBRUARY 19, 1864
CHAPTER XVIII 416
MORGAN’S CHRISTMAS RAID, DECEMBER 22, 1862, TO
JANUARY 2, 1863
CHAPTER XIX 452
FORREST’S PURSUIT AND CAPTURE OF STREIGHT, APRIL 28-MAY
3, 1863
CHAPTER XX 498
BATTLE OF FLEETWOOD HILL, JUNE 9TH, 1863
CHAPTER XXI 532
GENERAL J. E. B. STUART’S CHAMBERSBURG RAID, OCTOBER
9, 1862
CHAPTER XXII 537
GENERAL JOHN B. MARMADUKE’S “CAPE GIRARDEAU
RAID,” APRIL, 1863
CHAPTER XXIII 564
GENERAL WHEELER’S PURSUIT AND DEFEAT OF GENERALS
STONEMAN, GARRARD AND MCCOOK, JULY 27-AUGUST
5, 1864
CHAPTER XXIV 601
FORREST’S RAID INTO MEMPHIS, AUGUST 21, 1864
ILLUSTRATIONS
GENERAL BENNETT H. YOUNG _Frontispiece_
_Commander-in-Chief, U. C. V._
FACING PAGE
MAP OF BRYCE’S CROSS ROADS 8
PORTRAITS OF GENERAL ABRAM BUFORD,
CAPTAIN MORTON AND GENERAL LYON 24
FIGHTING AT BRYCE’S CROSS-ROADS 40
PORTRAIT: GENERAL WADE HAMPTON 56
KENTUCKY CAVALRY FIGHTING WITH
ROCKS 72
WHEELER BURNING FEDERAL WAGON
TRAINS, SEQUATCHIE VALLEY, JULY, 1862 88
PORTRAIT: GENERAL JOHN H. MORGAN 104
_In the early part of the War_
MAP OF FORREST’S RAID INTO TENNESSEE,
DECEMBER, 1862 132
PORTRAIT: GENERAL NATHAN BEDFORD
FORREST 150
PORTRAIT: GENERAL JOHN B. MAGRUDER 166
PORTRAIT: GENERAL BENNETT H. YOUNG 182
_What fifty years have done for the Commander-in-Chief_
PORTRAIT: GENERAL J. O. SHELBY 198
MAP OF SHELBY’S MISSOURI RAID 202
MAP OF CAVALRY EXPEDITION INTO NEW
MEXICO 304
PORTRAITS OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH SAYERS
AND GENERAL TOM GREEN 306
MAP OF STUART’S RIDE AROUND McCLELLAN 322
PORTRAIT: GENERAL WADE HAMPTON 354
MAP OF MORGAN’S RIDE AROUND CINCINNATI 376
PORTRAIT: MAJOR A. E. RICHARDS 400
_Commanding Mosby’s men at Mt. Carmel fight_
MAP SHOWING APPROXIMATELY MORGAN’S
CHRISTMAS RAID 434
PORTRAIT: GENERAL JOHN H. MORGAN 446
PORTRAIT: GENERAL STARNES 462
MAP SHOWING LINE OF FORREST’S PURSUIT
AND CAPTURE OF STREIGHT, AND
WISDOM’S RIDE 474
PORTRAIT: EMMA SANSOM 476
EMMA SANSOM MONUMENT, GADSDEN,
ALA., AND SANSOM HOME 484
PORTRAIT: JOHN H. WISDOM 492
THE BLACK CREEK BRIDGE 492
MAP OF BATTLEFIELD OF FLEETWOOD
HILL 524
PORTRAIT: GENERAL J. E. B. STUART 532
PORTRAIT: GENERAL MARMADUKE 556
PORTRAIT: GENERAL JOSEPH WHEELER 572
“_Fighting Joe_”
MAP OF WHEELER’S PURSUIT OF GARRARD
AND McCOOK, AND IVERSON’S PURSUIT
AND CAPTURE OF STONEMAN 578
FOREWORD
Forty-eight years and a half have passed, since the last drum-beat
of the Confederate States was heard and the furling of their flag
forever closed the most wondrous military tragedy of the ages.
Numbers and character considered, the tribute the South paid to War
has no equal in human records.
Fifteen hundred years ago on the Catalaunian Plain, where Attila,
King of the Huns, styled “The Scourge of God,” joined battle with the
Romans under Oetius, and the Visigoths led by Thorismund, tradition
has it that hundreds of thousands of dead were left on the field.
The men who followed the cruel and remorseless Attila were a vast
horde, organized for war, with plunder as the highest aim of a
soldier’s life, and the Romans and Visigoths were men who followed
war solely for the opportunity it afforded to enslave, rob and
despoil those they conquered. On both sides the men who filled the
ranks had neither intelligence nor patriotism, and with each, war was
a profession or pastime, devoid in most cases of any exalted purpose,
even the dream of a conviction, or the faintest gleam of a principle.
If the dead on that fatal field were numbered by the hundreds of
thousands, their demise was a mere incident in the conflicts which
were carried on for no truth, and in their loss the world suffered
but little more than if as many beasts of burden had been sacrificed
on some heathen altar to appease the God of War.
The American war, in the middle of the nineteenth century, dealt
on both sides with far different materials. Christianity, liberty,
education, culture and refinement had reached a very high limit
on the human scale. When the North and South faced each other,
moved by patriotism and principle, the legions drawn from the very
best materials that the race could offer, with inherited courage,
quickened by personal and social pride, and with memories and
traditions of great military achievements, and ennobled by ancestral
escutcheons of exceeding splendor, there met for battle such men as
the world had never before seen, aligned for conflict.
Half a century gives time to gather data, to measure losses, to
calculate sacrifices, to weigh difficulties, to figure results, and
to look calmly and justly at the history and the conduct of what must
ever be classed as one of the great wars of the ages.
The very fact that the South lost lends pathos and sentiment to
the story of what her sons accomplished. As time, aided by the
scrutinizing finger of Truth, points out with impartial fairness what
each did in this gigantic grapple between two Anglo-Saxon armies, we
are enabled, even now, while thousands of participants remain, to
judge, recount and chronicle with accuracy the most important events
that marked this mighty struggle.
Cavalry played a most important part in the Civil War. In fact,
without this arm of the service, the Confederacy could not have
so long maintained the unequal contest; nor the Federal Army have
prevailed as quickly as was done. The story of the campaigns of
Stuart, Wheeler, Morgan, the Lees, Forrest, Hampton, Ashby, Mosby,
Green, Van Dorn, Shelby and Marmaduke, and their associates, gave
war a new glamour, opened to chivalry a wider field for operation,
painted to adventurous genius more entrancing visions, and made the
service of men who rode to battle a transcendent power of which
warriors had hitherto not even dreamed.
So far as has been historically made known, there is no similar
service performed by the cavalry of any period. General Morgan, with
his command, made two distinct marches of one thousand miles each
into a hostile country. Shelby is reported to have ridden fifteen
hundred miles when he raided into Missouri in September, 1863. There
were times, probably, when Stuart and Hampton and their associates
had fiercer conflict, but the strain was never so long drawn out
and the calls on nerve and muscle and brain were never so severely
concentrated as in these marches of Morgan and Shelby.
General Wheeler, in his raid around Rosecrans, was twenty-five
days in the rear of the enemy, menaced on every side, and his men
fought with a courage that was simply transcendent. His marches
were characterized by fierce fighting and covered a more limited
territory, but his captures and his destruction of property have few
counterparts.
No fair man, reading the story of General Dick Taylor’s exploits,
in the spring of ’64, can come to any other conclusion than that he
and his men were heroic, of abundant patience and exhibited almost
unlimited physical endurance.
The same can be said of Forrest. He did not ride so far as Morgan,
Marmaduke or Shelby on a single expedition, but what he lacked in
distance he made in overcoming difficulties and in the extent and
constancy of conflict, and in the tremendous losses inflicted upon
his enemy’s property and troops.
Shelby’s Raid into Missouri in September, 1863, which lasted
thirty-six days and involved marching fifteen hundred miles, an
average of thirty miles per day, is a story of extraordinary skill
and endurance.
Stuart’s Chickahominy raid around McClellan’s army, his march to
Chambersburg and return, and the Battle of Fleetwood Hill will ever
command the admiration of cavalry students.
Hampton’s Trevilian campaign, his cattle raid, and the management of
General Lee’s cavalry before Petersburg point to him as a leader of
wondrous enterprise, a soldier of unbounded daring and a strategist
of great ability.
The cavalry generals who have been chosen as the chief subjects of
this book all possessed, in a remarkable degree, the power of winning
the confidence of their followers and their loyal support under all
circumstances. With Hampton, men followed wherever he led, they never
reasoned why they should go, they only asked that they be informed as
to the will of their leader. And so it was true of Morgan, Stuart,
Forrest, Shelby and Wheeler. They all had the absolute trust of
their followers. No man beneath them in command ever questioned
their wisdom or their judgment in battle or march. But when it came
to inspiring men with the spirit of absolute indifference to death
and relentlessness in the pursuit of the enemy, few would deny that
Nathan Bedford Forrest did this more effectively than any leader who
was engaged in the struggle. Generals Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Albert
Sidney Johnson, Joseph E. Johnston always commanded the respect,
devotion, love and admiration of their soldiers to such an extent
that at any time they would have marched into the very jaws of death,
under their leadership; but those who study the life and the extent
of Nathan Bedford Forrest’s achievements will generally agree that
in inspiring his soldiers to fierce, persistent battle and absolute
indifference in conflict, few, if any, equalled him, none surpassed
him. The conduct of his soldiers at Bryce’s Cross-roads, where he
fought first cavalry and then infantry, sometimes mounted, most
generally on foot, would show that he could exact from men as superb
service as any soldier who ever led his followers into battle.
This suggestion as to Forrest does not detract from the glory of any
other Confederate leader. We meet this almost hypnotic influence in
many phases of life other than military. Those who study the actions
and characteristics of General Forrest and who looked upon the faces
of the men following him could but realize that by his bearing,
example and dash he got the best and bravest that it was possible for
human nature in war to give.
Romance, patriotism and love of adventure inspired the cavalry of
the Confederacy to follow their renowned leaders. No man who has
calmly read the stories of the conflicts and marches of the Army of
Northern Virginia, or the Army of Tennessee, or of the Army of the
Trans-Mississippi Department can fail to be filled with wonder at the
duties the soldiers of these armies so cheerfully and so willingly
performed. Without pay, illy clad and poorly fed, yet they were
always brave. Though hungry in battle they were always courageous;
and in conflict they had only one aim, and that was to defend their
country and destroy its enemies.
There was much in the narratives of the South’s past to inspire
cavalrymen with Lighthorse Harry Lee valor. Their fathers and
grandfathers had ridden with Marion and Sumpter, had fought with
Shelby, Preston, Sevier and Campbell at King’s Mountain, or had gone
with Isaac Shelby and General Harrison into Canada to fight the
Battle of the Thames, or composed the dragoons who had gone with
Scott and Taylor to Mexico. The boys and young men of the South had
read and reread the accounts of what these horsemen of the long ago
had accomplished, of the dangers they had faced and the laurels they
had won, and these records of a splendid past filled their hearts
with deepest love of their country, and fired their souls to make
achievements the equal of those of their renowned ancestry. The
most romantic and chivalrous side of both the Revolutionary War and
the War of 1812 had their happenings with horsemen, and the most of
those were either on the Southern soil or came from the states which
sympathized with the South.
It was this antecedent history that gave such impetus to the
Confederate youth to find, if possible, a place in the cavalry. The
men of the South were not only familiar with the use of firearms,
but a majority of them were skilled horsemen, and these two things
combined brought to the Confederate cavalry volunteers, active,
adventurous, daring, reckless, vigilant, chivalrous soldiers that
were bound to perform the highest type of military work.
In the American war, cavalry was to change its arms, the sabre was to
be almost entirely eliminated. In its place was to come the revolver
and the repeating rifle, the magazine gun and the short Enfield.
The holsters were to be abandoned. Instead, the belt with the six
shooters and the sixty rounds of ammunition. These new cavalrymen
were not only to serve as scouts, but to act as infantry, to cover
military movements, to destroy the lines of communication, to burn
stores, to tear up lines of railway, to gather supplies, to fight
gunboats, capture transports; all these without any equipment of
any kind, except their horses, their arms and some horse artillery
of limited range. In a large part, they were to feed in the enemy’s
country, rely upon their foes for arms and ammunition. They were
to have no tents; no wagons, except for ammunition; no cooking
utensils, other than a wrought iron skillet. These, with canteens
and food found on the march, were to prove their only means of
subsistence. They were to be trained to ride incessantly, charge
stockades, capture forts, take their place alongside of the infantry
on the battle line, and to build or defend hastily constructed
fortifications. No cavalry before had performed these services and
none will ever perform them again. The newer conditions of warfare
will change altogether the work that will be required of cavalry. The
improvement in firearms, particularly in the artillery, would render
the oldtime cavalry superfluous and its use, under the past methods,
a simple slaughter without benefit.
These men, carried by horses with great celerity from place to place,
were to perform a distinct and different service in war; sometimes in
a single night they would march fifty miles. Sometimes in a day they
would march seventy-five to ninety miles. They would destroy stores
of supplies, wreck railroads, burn water stations, demolish trestles,
attack and burn wagon trains. Their best living was to be obtained
by victory and the popular application to the fortunes of war the
maxim—“That they should take who have the power, and they should keep
who can.”
To fit them for such service, a new system of drill was instituted;
half cavalry and half infantry, fighting on foot, in open rank;
the charge on infantry on horseback was to become practically
obsolete. They were, if occasion demanded, to be dismounted, fight
in entrenchments alongside infantry, and charge batteries and
abattis, the same as the infantry. With boundless energy, unlimited
enthusiasm and a measureless love of adventure, the horseman was
to meet these new requirements and frequently do all that infantry
could do and, in addition, do what cavalry had never done before. In
the West, this combined and new call for cavalry obtained its birth
and hold and received its first and most successful development. It
is urged that to General John H. Morgan and his followers ought to
be accredited the application and successful demonstration of these
new methods, which were to add such immense value to cavalry work.
No commander ever before undertook to commit such tasks to horsemen.
But the Southern soldier, who first developed all these qualities and
performed these varying tasks, was to open for the Southern cavalry
service an unlimited field for harassing, delaying, starving and even
destroying opposing armies.
The marvelous endurance of the men who followed Forrest and Stuart
and Morgan and Wheeler and Hampton and Shelby and Green and
McCullough and Price has never been equalled. Storms and floods had
no terror for these. No enemy was safe from their avenging hand and
no vigilance could defy their enterprise. There were no alarms in
any work for these brave and tireless riders. Single riders and even
small troops of cavalry had made marches of a hundred miles in a day,
but it remained for generals like Wheeler and Morgan and Forrest and
Stuart and Hampton and Shelby and Marmaduke and Green to demonstrate
the potency and tremendous value of cavalry in war, and lengthen the
possibility of a day’s march.
For the first two years of the conflict, the Confederate cavalry
were practically supreme. Their enemies were slow to absorb these
new methods and to apprehend the advantages of this new system.
Stuart’s Chickahominy raid, his march from Chambersburg; Morgan’s
two marches of a thousand miles each; Forrest’s pursuit of Streight
and his raid into Kentucky and Tennessee, under the most adverse
physical difficulties, in midwinter or early spring, and his ride
into Memphis, read more like fairy stories than the performance of
men composed of flesh and blood. Wheeler’s raid in Rosecrans’ rear,
his expedition into East Tennessee and the endurance of his men are
almost incredible. These do not read like the performance of real
soldiers, but more like the make-up of a military dreamer. One may
call over the names of the great battles of the war, either east
or west of the Mississippi River, and while the account of these
engagements lose none of their brilliancy in comparison with those
of any war, yet they cannot surpass, nor in some respects equal,
the work performed by the cavalry. Fleetwood Hill (Brandy Station),
Trevilian Station, Hanging Fork, Chambersburg, Hartsville, Cynthiana,
Shiloh, Mt. Sterling, Bryce’s Cross-roads, Parker’s Cross Roads
and Dug Creek Gap. Marmaduke’s and Shelby’s Missouri raids and the
pursuit of Stoneman, Garrard and McCook, during the Atlanta siege,
are stories of valor, endurance and sacrifice that lose nothing in
comparison with the deeds of any other organization of the armies
of the Confederate States. In exposure, in daring, in physical
privations, in patience, in cheerfulness under defeat, in willingness
to do and dare, the horsemen of the Confederacy must always command
the admiration of those who study military records.
An unusual proportion of the Confederate cavalry came from eight
states,—Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, Texas, Alabama,
Mississippi and South Carolina. When we call the cavalry roll, its
names awaken memories of some of the most heroic deeds known among
men. Every Confederate state furnished a full quota of horsemen, and
none of them failed to make good when the crucial test came.
Alabama sent into this branch of service Generals William Wirt Allen,
James Hogan, Moses W. Hannon, John Herbert Kelley, Evander M. Law,
John T. Morgan and P. D. Roddy.
Kentucky furnished Generals Abram Buford, George B. Cosby, Basil
W. Duke, Charles W. Field, James N. Hawes, Ben Hardin Helm, George
B. Hodge, Joseph H. Lewis, Hylan B. Lyon, John H. Morgan, John S.
Williams, W. C. P. Breckenridge and R. M. Gano.
Missouri brought as part of her offering Generals John S. Marmaduke,
Joseph O. Shelby and John G. Walker.
Tennessee gave Frank C. Armstrong, Tyree H. Bell, Alexander W.
Campbell, Henry B. Davidson, George G. Dibrell, Benjamin J. Hill,
W. Y. C. Humes, W. H. Jackson, John C. Vaughn, Lucius M. Walker and
Nathan Bedford Forrest.
Mississippi sent Generals Wirt Adams, James H. Chalmers, Samuel G.
Gohlson, W. T. Martin, Peter B. Stark and Earl Van Dorn.
Georgia, Generals Robert H. Anderson, Charles C. Crews, Alfred
Iverson, P. M. B. Young.
Florida, General G. M. Davis and Colonel J. J. Dickinson.
South Carolina, M. C. Butler, Thomas F. Drayton, John Dunnovant,
Samuel W. Ferguson, Martin W. Geary, Thomas M. Logan, Wade Hampton.
North Carolina gave Lawrence S. Baker, Rufus Barriger, James B.
Gordon, Robert Ransom, William Paul Roberts.
Maryland, Bradley T. Johnson and Joseph Lancaster Brent (the latter
only an acting brigadier).
West Virginia, William L. Jackson, Albert Gallatin Jenkins, John
McCausland.
Virginia, Turner Ashby, Richard L. T. Beale, John Randolph Chambliss,
James Dearing, John D. Imboden, William E. Jones, Fitz Hugh Lee, W.
H. F. Lee, Lumsford L. Lomax, Thomas Taylor Munfod, William Henry
Fitzhugh Payne, Beverly H. Robertson, Thomas L. Rosser, J. E. B.
Stuart, William C. Wickham.
Louisiana, Daniel W. Adams, Franklin Gardner, Thomas M. Scott.
Arkansas, William N. R. Beall, William L. Cabell, James F. Fagan,
James McQueen McIntosh.
The Indian Territory, Stand Watie.
Texas, Arthur Pendleton Bagby, Hamilton P. Bee, Xavier Blanchard De
Bray, Thomas Green, W. P. Hardemen, Thomas Hamson, Ben McCulloch,
James P. Major, Samuel-Bell Maxey, Horace Randal, Felix H. Robertson,
Lawrence Sullivan Ross, W. R. Scurry, William Steele, Richard
Waterhouse, John A. Wharton, John W. Whitfield.
This one book must, in the very nature of things, be limited to a few
hundred pages.
It does not and cannot undertake to tell all that was glorious
and courageous in the service of the men who led and composed the
Confederate cavalry. There will doubtless be some who will ask why
certain battles and experiences were omitted. The author may have
selected, in some instances, what would appear to many critics and
readers not the most notable events in the Confederate cavalry work.
He may have inadvertently left out names that ought to have been
mentioned, campaigns that were of vast importance, and battles that
were full of sublime sacrifice and marked by the _superbest_ skill.
The book is written with the bias of a cavalry man. It is written
by a man who knows, by personal experience only, some of the things
that happened where Forrest, Wheeler and Morgan fought. He only knew
personally three of the men whose leadership and skill are detailed
in the book. He never saw Stuart but once, and Forrest a few times,
but he loves the fame of all these splendid men and has endeavored to
do each the fullest justice.
There were one hundred and four Confederate generals, from brigadier
up, who at various times led the horsemen of the South. A volume
could be written of the services of each. A majority of them were
equally brave and valiant, but fate decreed some should pass under
the fiercest light, and win from fame its most generous awards. It
may be that hereafter other volumes will be written to tell, if not
who, what the Confederate horsemen were. One of the chiefest aims
of this volume is to give Confederate cavalry leaders and their
followers their just place in the history of the great war. There is
neither purpose nor desire to take aught from any other branch of
the service. The Confederate infantry, artillery and navy have each
a distinct place in the struggle of the South for its national life.
Every Confederate loves every other Confederate and glories in all
that he did to win the immortality of the Confederate armies. The
cavalryman asks that his work may be recognized and that his proper
place shall be assigned him in the phalanxes of the brave who stood
for Southern independence. He covets none of the fame that justly
belongs to his comrades in other lines. He only seeks that what he
did may be honestly told, and his achievements be truly recorded. He
feels that he did the best that he could and that he is entitled to
a complete narrative of that which he did and endeavored to do for
his country. He does not claim that he was braver or more patriotic
than his comrades who fought in other departments. He only asks that
the world may know the dangers he had faced, the difficulties he
overcame, the sacrifices he made, the sufferings he endured and the
results his work accomplished. A true account is his only demand, and
all the world will feel that this is his right.
The writer may not always be literally accurate in the things he
undertakes to recount in this book about Southern cavalry. He may
here and there have made slight mistakes in the description of
the marches and battles he has essayed to describe. Relying upon
books and participants, he could not always get the things just as
they occurred. Eye witnesses often differ in discussing the same
occurrence. There are hundreds of dates and names recorded in these
pages. Error must have crept in, but in the main the history is what
really happened, and these happenings alone will give Confederate
cavalry fame and renown in all ages and amongst all nations.
They make up a great history of great leaders and valiant soldiers,
and they must surely add something to the store of human heroism.
There is no desire to depreciate what men on the other side did.
In the later years of the war, the Federal cavalry apprehended
the tactics and the methods of Confederate horsemen, and they
became foemen worthy of any steel. The third year of the struggle,
the mounts of the Southern cavalry became less efficient and the
disparity in arms and supplies more and more depressing amongst the
Confederates. The Federal generals undertook then to cut Confederate
lines of communication, and to destroy their commissary depots and
to disrupt railway transportation. In such work, in 1864 and 1865,
they laid heaviest burdens on the Confederate cavalry; and in many
instances the jaded and starving horses, the illy-fed men, their
scanty supply of ammunition put them at great disadvantage, but they
were, in face of all these difficulties, game, vigilant, aggressive,
enterprising and defiant to the end; and from April, 1864, to April,
1865, there was nothing more brilliant nor historic than the work
of the Confederate horsemen, performed under the most unfavorable
conditions, to stay the tide of Federal advance and success and to
maintain to the end their nation’s hope and their nation’s life.
If the sketches these pages contain shall add one leaf to the
Confederate Laurel Wreath, or bring to Confederate fame fuller
recognition, the author will be many times repaid for the labor,
expense and time expended in their preparation.
BENNETT H. YOUNG.
Louisville, Kentucky.
1914.
CHAPTER I
FORREST AT BRYCE’S CROSS ROADS, JUNE 10TH, 1864
The spring and summer of 1864 in Virginia, Tennessee, Mississippi,
Georgia and in the Trans-Mississippi Department proved one of the
most sanguinary periods of the war.
During this time, Joseph E. Johnston made his superb retreat from
Dalton to Atlanta, regarded by military historians as one of the
ablest strategic movements of the campaigns from ’61 to ’65, and
General Robert E. Lee, in his famous defensive campaign culminating
in the decimation of Grant’s armies at Cold Harbor, had killed or
wounded more than eighty thousand of General Grant’s followers,
twenty thousand more effective men than Lee’s whole army numbered!
In the Trans-Mississippi, between April and August, ’64, General Dick
Taylor at Mansfield and Pleasant Hill gained glorious victories in
attempting to stay the advance of General Banks into the heart of
Louisiana; and Kirby Smith, Price, Shelby and Marmaduke in Arkansas
still maintained a courageous front to the foe. After three years
of constant fighting, their soldiers were more thoroughly inured to
the hardships of war, better trained to face its dangers, and men on
both sides exhibited a recklessness in facing death which marked the
highest tide of courage.
Early in the war the cavalry became one of the most effective arms
of the agencies of the Confederates. With the vast territory in the
West defended by the Confederacy, with a frontier line twenty-five
hundred miles in extent, the marching speed of which mounted men are
capable, the cavalry of the South, at this period, enabled them to
do more, man for man, than any arm of the South’s defenders. They
proved not only the best allies of the Confederate cause, but later
developed some of the most renowned cavalry leaders of the world.
There were many cavalry battles during the fifteen hundred and twenty
days of the war—Trevilian Station, Fleetwood Hill, sometimes called
“Brandy Station,” Harrisburg, Hartsville, Okolona, Murfreesboro,
Shiloh, Parkers Cross Roads, Reams Station, all of which gave
resplendence to the fame of the Confederate horsemen. Over and above
these cavalry battles, there was Bryce’s Cross Roads, designated by
the Federals as the Battle of Tishomingo Creek. Measured by losses,
it stands pre-eminent; along strategic lines it is amongst the first,
and counted by results to the defeated foe, it has no counterpart in
any engagement fought entirely on one side by cavalry.
On the Federal side, two thousand officers and men, including the
wounded, were made prisoners, and more than twelve hundred dead
were left on the battlefield or in close proximity thereto, if
Forrest’s contemporary reports be correct. The Confederates lost a
hundred and forty killed and three hundred wounded. General Forrest
held the battlefield. His forces buried the dead, and his count was
based upon the fullest knowledge of the tremendous mortality of this
sanguinary engagement. There were differing statements concerning
the casualties. The numbers here given are from men who saw the havoc
on the field.
At Fleetwood Hill, the Confederates lost five hundred and
twenty-three killed and wounded, and the Federals nine hundred
and thirty-six killed and wounded. At Trevilian Station, a purely
cavalry engagement, June 11th, 1864, Hampton carried into battle
four thousand seven hundred men against nine thousand Federals.
After the battle and in ten days’ subsequent fighting, his losses
in killed, wounded and prisoners were less than seven hundred.
He captured six hundred and ninety-five Federals, including one
hundred and twenty-five wounded. Hampton’s killed numbered less than
seventy-five. In the Trevilian campaign, continuing fifteen days,
Hampton’s losses did not exceed seven hundred and fifty killed,
wounded and missing, while the Federals report a loss of one thousand
five hundred and twelve, more than twice that of the Confederates.
At Hartsville, the Confederates lost a hundred and twenty-five
killed and wounded, and the Federals four hundred and thirty, with
eighteen hundred captured. At Harrisburg, Mississippi, one thousand
two hundred and eighty-seven Confederates were killed and wounded. At
Bull Run the Federals lost in killed and wounded one thousand four
hundred and ninety-two, with one thousand four hundred and sixty
missing. The Confederates lost one thousand eight hundred and seven.
On both sides approximately fifty-six thousand men were engaged.
At Shiloh, April 6th and 7th, 1862, the Federal death roll was
seventeen hundred and that of the Confederates seventeen hundred and
twenty-eight, and yet on both sides ninety thousand men were engaged
in the struggle. At Wilson’s Creek, the Federal loss was one thousand
three hundred and seventeen, the Confederate loss one thousand two
hundred and eighteen. There the forces were nearly evenly matched,
and there were about ten thousand in the struggle. Accepting General
Forrest’s report to be true that more than twelve hundred men were
killed and wounded in the six hours of fighting at Bryce’s Cross
Roads, then more men were killed and captured on that day than in any
two other purely cavalry engagements of the war.
By June, 1864, Forrest had reached the full tide of his fame. He had
improved every opportunity to develop his genius, and he never failed
to make use of all the fighting opportunities that came his way. He
did not always get the best the quartermaster had, and he had been
hampered by interference from headquarters. He had long since ceased
to rely upon his government for his mounts, clothing, arms and food.
He had months before learned from actual experience that the Federals
had better supplies than it was possible for the Confederacy to
distribute, and that capture from his enemies was a quicker and surer
way of getting what he wanted than to risk the red tape and poverty
of Confederate quartermaster regulations.
Beginning as a private, Forrest had reached most distinguished rank.
Both friends and enemies awarded him a high place among the great
commanders of the war, whether in infantry or cavalry. Fort Donelson,
Shiloh, Nashville, Murfreesboro, his raid into West Tennessee, his
capture of Streight, and conflicts at Brentwood, Harper’s Bridge,
Chickamauga, his raid into middle Tennessee, West Point, Mississippi
and the capture of Fort Pillow, had woven about him and his work a
crown of romance and glory, and had justly, on his absolute merits,
made him one of the most renowned leaders of the Confederacy.
His enemies feared and hated him as they did no other general of the
South. War with Forrest was not only “hell,” but savagest hell. His
idea of war was to fight and kill and destroy with fiercest energy.
It has been said that he considered the raising of the black flag as
the most economical and merciful way of ending the war. His methods
were not calculated to impress his foes with admiration. The many
reverses they had suffered at his hands, the wholesome fear of his
presence, his desperate courage, boundless resources, rapidity of
movement, rapidity of onslaught, recklessness in facing death, and
insensibility to fatigue made failure practically unknown in his
campaigns, and he became a terror to his foes and a tower of strength
to his comrades.
There was no Federal commander that did not count Forrest as a power
to be considered, or a potent factor against which it was wise
to calculate. General Grant and other Federal commanders did not
hesitate to declare that Forrest had the Federal forces in Tennessee,
Alabama and Mississippi hacked. They called him “scoundrel” and
“devil,” and put a price on his head, but this did not drive fear
out of their hearts, or prevent some degree of tremor when they knew
of his presence in the places where they were going, or where they
thought he might happen to come.
Prior to and shortly after the battle of Bryce’s Cross Roads, all the
Federal generals were devising ways and means for the destruction of
Forrest. On June 24th, 1864, General Sherman sent President Lincoln
the following despatch:
“I have ordered General A. J. Smith and General Mower to pursue and
kill Forrest, promising the latter, in case of success, my influence
to promote him to Major General. He is one of the gamest men in
our service. Should accident befall me, I ask you to favor him, if
he succeeds in killing Forrest.” Signed, William T. Sherman, Major
General.
This was the highest price put on any Confederate officer’s life
during the war, and there is no other instance in American military
history where one general found it necessary, in order to destroy an
opposing major general, to offer a premium for his life and to openly
declare that his death was the highest aim to be sought.
It will be observed that the offer was not for dispersing Forrest’s
forces; it was not for his capture; but “to pursue and kill.” General
Sherman did not want Forrest alive, else he would have framed his
murderous suggestion in a different form. The idea of a possible
surrender was ignored. Sherman seems to have proceeded upon the idea
that dead men cease to fight or destroy communications. He told Mower
to take no chances, but to “kill.” This is the only instance among
the Confederate or Federal commanders where a superior incited a
subordinate to murder. He said once before in speaking of Forrest,
“That devil Forrest must be eliminated, if it costs ten thousand
lives and breaks the treasury.” See despatch. Twice, in his telegram
to President Lincoln, he lays stress upon the word “kill.” First he
says, “if he pursues and kills I promised him a major generalship;”
second, “if he succeeds in killing Forrest, and aught happens to me
so that I cannot make good, I ask you to favor him and give him the
promotion which is the price of Forrest’s death.”
How transcendent Forrest’s success must have been in his operations
along the Federal lines to have produced this degree of fear in
General Sherman’s mind! Sherman was a brave and skillful general, but
he seemed to consider that General Forrest’s ability to injure the
Federal armies was greater than that of any other living man, and
with malignant hate, extreme fear, and almost barbarous cruelty, he
offered a major generalship to an ambitious young brigadier general,
if he would pursue and kill the Confederate leader. War amongst
civilized nations is carried on against commands or organized bodies,
not individuals. General Sherman reversed this well-recognized
principle and declared war on an individual and offered a price
for his destruction. He asserted that he had better sacrifice ten
thousand of his countrymen and expend all its treasury contained than
to let one man live to fight. The pressing exigencies invoked by
Forrest’s campaigns silenced the traditions and usages of war, and
made his destruction, in Sherman’s mind, justifiable by any means,
foul or fair, and at any cost, however extravagant or hurtful, to rid
his department of a brave and aggressive foe.
This proposition to reward General Mower was not to General
Sherman’s credit. He declared “war was hell,” but at no period of
the war’s history and by no other Federal general was the death of
any one man made a patriotic duty, or recommended and encouraged in
the service of the Federal army. The South never had any reason to
love General Sherman. He and Sheridan never respected as did other
Union generals the rights of non-combatants. His subsequent burning
of Columbia created in Southern breasts the harshest memories, but
the incitement to killing Forrest, as the surest means of promotion
and success for his subordinate added much to the grounds of the
South for the bitterest hate. With half a century to calm passion, to
still prejudice and restore reason, it is difficult to realize what
a frenzy of fear and hate Forrest had aroused in the hearts of his
enemies.
After failures, not necessary to recount, one last effort was made
to run Forrest down and to annihilate or cripple his command.
Forrest had been transferred to the Mississippi and West Tennessee
Department. It was known as Forrest’s Department. General C. C.
Washburn, in command at Memphis, was ordered to send six thousand men
in a final effort to rout General Forrest. Instead, he says he sent
eight thousand, but he really sent ten thousand five hundred. Colonel
George E. Waring, who commanded one of the Federal brigades, says,
“We were a force of nine thousand infantry and artillery sent as a
tub to the Forrest Whale.” Captain Tyler, who operated in Sturgis’
rear, captured the returns made out for the day. These showed ten
thousand five hundred present for duty.
[Illustration: MAP OF BRYCE’S CROSS-ROADS]
Other Federal generals had been tried out and found wanting, and
in this last effort General Sherman called an experienced soldier,
General Samuel Davis Sturgis, who had won great reputation in other
departments. He had seen service under Lyon in Missouri, and after
the death of that general, succeeded to command at the Battle of
Wilson’s Creek. Assigned to the Army of the Tennessee, later he was
ordered to the command of the Department of Kansas. In 1862 he was
summoned to Washington and given charge of the defense around the
city, and he commanded a part of the 9th Army Corps at the Battles
of South Mountain, Antietam and Fredericksburg. For nearly a year he
was chief of the cavalry in the Department of Ohio, and there he did
most effective work for his country’s cause. He was counted as “dead
game,” a man of great force and energy and of extended experience. He
was born in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, on the 11th of June, 1822,
and was forty-two years old at the time of the Battle of Bryce’s
Cross Roads. With him was assigned General B. H. Grierson, who was
just thirty-seven years of age. As early as 1862 he had been placed
in the command of a cavalry brigade, and had been conspicuous in
skirmishes and raids in North Mississippi and West Tennessee. Under
General Grant’s eye he had made what was considered a particularly
fortunate raid from La Grange to Baton Rouge. In June, ’63, he was
brevetted a brigadier general of Volunteers, and was regarded as a
most stubborn fighter.
To these brigadier generals was added Colonel George E. Waring.
At twenty-eight he became major of the 39th New York Volunteers.
In August he was sent West as a major of cavalry, and shortly
afterwards he became colonel of the 4th Missouri Cavalry. In 1863
he was in command of the cavalry brigade in South Missouri and North
Arkansas. In 1863 he had command of sixty-five hundred men, mainly
cavalry. He had gone with Smith and Grierson, and was now to go with
Sturgis. His experience was wide and his courage of the very highest
order. He was a gallant, good-natured and fierce fighter, and was
not ashamed to admit the truth when he was fairly defeated. It was
said by General Forrest of Colonel Waring, that his cavalry charge at
Okolona, Mississippi, some time previous to this date, was the most
brilliant cavalry exploit he had ever witnessed.
It was unfortunate for the Confederates that General S. A. Hurlburt
was not added to this trio. In one of his reports, found in the
Official Reports, Volume 31, Part 1, Page 697, after failing to
capture General Forrest, he said, “I regret very much that I could
not have the pleasure of bringing you his hair, but he is too great a
coward to fight anything like an equal force, and we will have to be
satisfied with driving him from the State.” General Hurlburt studied
the results of Bryce’s Cross Roads and learned that, after all the
abuse heaped upon him by his enemies, Forrest occasionally enjoyed a
fight even though he was compelled to try out conclusions with his
foes with an odds against him of more than two to one.
This boastful soldier, more bloodthirsty even than his associates,
not only proposed to kill Forrest, but after death to scalp his
fallen foe and lay at the feet of his superior a savage trophy like
the Indians of old, in the pioneer days of Kentucky and Tennessee.
In addition to this array of distinguished and experienced officers,
the most careful provision was made in arming of the troops that were
to undertake the expedition. They were given Colt’s five-chambered,
repeating rifles or breech-loading carbines, and were also supplied
with six-shooters.
Two cavalry brigades and three brigades of infantry made up the force
which was deemed capable of coping with Forrest under all conditions.
Curiously enough, there was added a brigade of colored infantry. The
events at Fort Pillow, on the 12th day of April, 1864, sixty days
before, had been used to arouse the animosity and fiercest hate of
the colored troops. It was claimed that General Forrest had refused
to allow the colored forces quarter and had shot them down after
they had surrendered. While this was amply disproved by overwhelming
testimony, it served a good purpose to make the colored troops
desperate in any fighting which should fall to their lot, and to
make them unwilling to surrender to Forrest’s men under any possible
circumstances.
Correspondence between General Washburn and General Forrest brought
out mention of no quarter, and it was claimed that General Washburn,
in dispatching these troops, had suggested to this colored contingent
to refuse quarter to Forrest’s command. If not actually advising,
he certainly acquiesced in their wearing some badges pinned upon
their lapels, upon which had been printed these fateful words: “No
quarter to Forrest’s men.” To a man of Forrest’s successes and with
his wonderful record in the capture of Federal prisoners, this was
a most unfortunate declaration for those who were to pursue him,
considering the uncertainty that attended those who might engage him
in battle.
The object of this expedition was to drive Forrest from Western
Tennessee and fully restore communication from Memphis down the
Mississippi River.
The Federal commander did not take into account the heat of a
Mississippi summer nor the torrential rains that so frequently
inundate that portion of the South in June and July. On the day of
the battle, the thermometer rose to one hundred and seven degrees;
not a ripple stirred the air; the leaves were as still as death
itself; men panted for breath.
The thicket was so dense that no eye could penetrate its recesses for
twenty feet, and vision was so circumscribed that foes were almost
invisible. In its impenetrable and pathless precincts, black jack and
small oak trees had grown up into a jungle, and the men entering this
gloomy and perplexing battlefield were unable to even conjecture what
a minute would bring forth. Every nerve was strained; every muscle
tense. No one cared for a second to avert his gaze from the front.
At any instant a foe might spring up and fire in the face of the man
who was advancing. A single step might reveal a line of battle, and
the flash of gun or crack of a rifle was momentarily expected. A
movement of the branches and rustling of the leaves might draw fatal
volleys from carbines, rifles or revolvers, and here and there the
crash of shells and the roar of cannon added to the fearfulness of
the situation. The dangers and dread of every step were accentuated
by the harassing uncertainty of the surroundings.
The western Confederate cavalry at short range always found the
revolver the most effective weapon. Enfield rifles were good enough
up to three hundred feet, but closer than that Forrest’s and Morgan’s
and Wheeler’s men relied upon their six-shooters. The men under
Stuart and Hampton loved “the white arm,” the knightly sabre; they
found that it helped at Fleetwood Hill and Trevilian Station. Mosby’s
greatest reliance was on “Colt’s Navies,” and there were but few
swords ever found with the cavalry of the Army of Tennessee. To
the western Confederate horsemen, their heavy revolver was a great
equalizer. The Federal soldier, when it came to short range, had no
better weapon. At close quarters, with a firm grip on a six-shooter,
a Confederate soldier felt he was the equal of any foe from any
place, and thus armed when it came where he could see the color
of the other soldier’s eyes, he considered the Navy revolver the
choicest weapon man could make. It was a destructive weapon in the
hands of brave, calm soldiers. The bayonet lost all terrors to those
who possessed this effective pistol. No advancing antagonist could
hope to safely reach a man of nerve with a pistol, amidst this black
jack and heavy foliage. There, ears sharpened by battle’s dangers,
and eyes made brighter by hidden foes, gave great zest to the game of
war.
Leaving Memphis on the 1st of June, the approach of Sturgis and
his command was slow and careful, surrounded with every possible
precaution against surprise. The leaders knew the character of the
enemy they must face, and they resolved to leave nothing undone which
should prepare them for his furious onslaughts.
Bryce’s Cross Roads, or Guntown, was seventy-six miles from Memphis.
Nine days were consumed in the march. On the night of the 9th,
Sturgis and his forces encamped on the Stubbs farm, about six
miles from Bryce’s Cross Roads. At this point was a blacksmith’s
shop and a store, and two roads crossed each other, one running
southeast and the other almost directly south. A mile and a half
away was Tishomingo Creek, a slimy and almost currentless stream
at this period, although it had been replenished by the rains two
days before. The soil of the road was the friable bottom land of
Mississippi, which churns quickly into slush and then soon dries out.
About the time that Sturgis left Memphis, Forrest had started on a
raid in middle Tennessee to break up the railroad connection south of
Nashville. At the same time General Sherman was trying to fight his
way to Atlanta, and it was deemed important to destroy the railroads
between Chattanooga and Nashville.
Forrest had only gone a short distance when he was notified by
General Stephen D. Lee to give up his raid and return to face Sturgis
and his command, which had left Memphis a few days before.
There has been a good deal of discussion as to whether General Lee
was willing for Forrest to fight at Bryce’s Cross Roads. Certainly
General Lee hoped that Sturgis would be permitted to march farther
down into Mississippi before the contact should be forced. It seems,
however, from what General Forrest told General Buford that he had
made up his mind to bring on the engagement just where it occurred.
And yet his troops were not in position to justify his engaging in a
great battle.
Lyon, with his eight hundred men from Kentucky, Johnson, with a small
brigade of Alabamians, were six miles away from the scene of battle
at Baldwin; the artillery was at Booneville, eighteen miles away.
It rained heavily on the 8th and 9th. General Forrest had said to
General Buford, “They outnumber me, but I can whip them; the cavalry
will be in advance, and we can defeat the cavalry before the infantry
can march to their relief. It is going to be as hot as hell. The
infantry will come on the run into the battle, and with the muddy
roads and hot weather, they will be tired out, then we can ride over
them. I will go ahead with Lyon and my escort and open up the fight.”
The wily Confederate general knew that soldiers never do their best
when they enter battle after great physical punishment.
Sturgis knew that Forrest was around, and he felt sure that if he
did not find Forrest, Forrest would find him. The night before the
battle, Sturgis had intuition of disaster. Caution warned him to go
back, and the temptation was very strong, but he had promised General
Washburn and General Sherman much before he had started. He had
boasted what he could do, or would do, and the instinct of courage
prevailed over his instinct of fear and bade him go on.
At break of day Forrest’s forces were all moving. They were
converging to Bryce’s Cross Roads. Grierson, in command of the
Federal column, had left Stubb’s farm to march toward Bryce’s Cross
Roads. The Federal infantry cooked their breakfast in a leisurely
way, and were not ready to march until seven-thirty. Experienced and
faithful scouts were bringing to Lyon, who was in the Confederate
front, the accurate information of the movements of General Waring,
who led the Federal advance with his brigade.
On the road, a mile and a half away from Tishomingo Creek, General
Lyon had placed a strong picket. Two videttes were at the bridge that
spanned Tishomingo Creek. These were not particular upon the order of
their going. They fled southward, pursued by Waring’s advance guard,
which was followed by his entire command, and also by the other
brigade of Federal cavalry. Lyon needed no commander to tell him what
to do. To him belongs the credit of having opened the greatest of
all cavalry battles, and to have done more than any one Confederate
officer, other than Forrest, to win the crushing defeat of the Union
forces on that historic field.
Forrest, with his men all counted, had only forty-seven hundred
cavalry. This was the most he could rely on when more than half of
them should gallop eighteen miles. Deducting horseholders, one in
four, and the men who could not keep up in the mad pace necessary
to get into position, Forrest could not have more than thirty-two
hundred fighters in any period of the battle. Against these were
Sturgis’ cavalry and infantry and twenty-six pieces of artillery—all
told, over ten thousand effectives. At the opening of the engagement,
Forrest had eight hundred men with Lyon, eighty-five men as escort,
and fifty men in Gartrell’s company, making a total of nine hundred
and thirty-five.
Forrest resolved to have what he called “a bulge” on the enemy. In
his plain, untutored way he had said “bulging would beat tactics.”
Forrest had with him leaders who knew their business, and who
understood his methods. They had been apt scholars in his school of
war, and they were now going to put their teaching into practical
effect, and under his eye and leadership win applause and glory for
centuries to come.
One of Forrest’s favorite maxims was, “Keep your men a-going.” With a
fierce feint, he undertook to deceive General Grierson, the Federal
cavalry leader, as to his real strength. He had two-thirds less men
than Grierson, and he was afraid that Grierson would attack him and
rush his line, which he could have done, and scattered his forces.
With his limited numbers, he made the greatest possible show. Lyon
had entrenched his men behind brush heaps, rail fences and logs. This
was very warm, but it was much safer than out in the open. Finally
Forrest ordered his soldiers to cross the open ground, and doubling
his skirmish line, boldly marched out. They were widely overlapped
by Waring and Winslow with their brigades, and for an hour Lyon
bravely and fiercely kept up his feint, and then retired behind his
entrenchments. A great burden was on Lyon’s mind, but when it was
most oppressive, the glad sound of the rebel yell fell upon his ears
and then appeared horses flecked with foam, with their mouths open,
breathing with stentorious sounds, panting as if ready to fall.
Rucker and his tired troops, after a ride of fourteen miles, were
on the ground, and quickly dismounting they went into line. Haste
was the order of the hour. Lyon, to be saved, must be strengthened.
Alone he had faced the thirty-two hundred Federal cavalry, and while
he maintained his ground, no idea of running away had ever come into
his mind. Three and one-half to one man had no terrors for Forrest
with these Kentucky men. They were mostly mounted infantry, who had
often heard the storm of battle.
Forrest patted Lyon on the back, and commended him for the splendid
stand which he had made. Rucker, brave, gallant, chivalrous, had
heard the roar of cannon, and although his tired horses were supposed
to have reached their limit, he pleaded with his men to force them to
still greater effort. He could hear through the cannon’s roars the
voices of comrades calling. He knew they were outnumbered nearly four
to one and were being hardly pressed, and that he was their only hope
of rescue.
The scene changes! They are now only two to one, and Forrest again
advances and presses his lines close up to the Federal position.
Before, he was afraid his enemies might realize his inferior numbers
and rush him; now, with Johnson and Rucker, he had one to two.
Before, nine hundred men had constituted his fighting force; now,
sixteen hundred were hurried to the front. The lines of anxiety
disappeared from Forrest’s face; he never doubted when he could count
one to two. At eleven, the fighting had been going on an hour and a
quarter. Time was precious. The Federal infantry, struggling through
the heavy mire and panting under that awful heat, were pressing on
as fast as human strength and endurance would permit. General Bell
was not yet in reach; he had to ride twenty-one miles to get on the
ground and join in the fray. If Waring and Winslow could be swept
out of the way, Forrest felt sure he could take care of the infantry
when Bell came. Prudence might have dictated delay until Bell was on
the scene, but the exigencies of the moment called for instant and
decisive action. Morton, with his invincible artillery, was slashing
his horses and with almost superhuman energy was urging his beasts to
the highest tension to join in saving the day, but the longing eyes
of Forrest, Lyon, Johnson and Rucker could not detect his coming, and
no sign of Bell’s shouting riders came through the murky air to tell
them that succor was nigh at hand.
The time for feinting was past. Forrest understood that the crisis
was upon him, and he always grasped the crucial moment. Riding
swiftly in front of his forces through the jungles, he told his men
that the time had come to win, that when the bugle sounded every man
must leave cover, cross the open space, where it was open, and charge
through the thickets where they prevailed, and rush their enemies.
He rode like a centaur, giving his orders along the line. The
comforting, encouraging word, the hardly pressed soldiers speaking
bravely together, was ended now. Action, sharp and decisive, was the
watchword. The clear, sharp tones of the bugle cut the murky air; the
sound waves drove its inspiring notes across the battle front and,
like a crouching beast springing upon its prey, every Confederate
bounded forward. The sharp rebel yell filled the surrounding space
and fell ominously upon the expectant ears of their foes.
The men of Waring and Winston braced themselves for the coming
assault. Their fire was reserved to the last moment, and then the
repeating rifles with their unbroken volleys, increasing in volume
every moment, created a din that was appalling. The Confederates had
only one fire, and that they reserved to the end. Their enthusiasm
was at fever heat, and rushing on to close with their foes, fear
was cast aside. The enemy was in front; tiger-like, the men in
gray sprang forward. The keen, sharp whistle of the carbine balls
and the buzz of the bullets filled the air in their passage, and
cut the leaves and branches from the trees so that they fell like
showers of dew upon the rushing Confederates. The Federals hurled
their deep-toned battle-cry across the narrow space. They had come
so close that they could now see face to face, and each line shouted
defiance at the other. The blue and gray rushed upon each other with
the ferocity of uncaged lions. The single shots from the Confederate
Enfields, so long held, were now by pre-arranged command fired, and
then the Confederates were ordered to draw their six-shooters and
rush upon their foes. And quick as thought, the sharper sound of the
six-shooters filled the air.
The Confederates had momentarily recoiled before the first terrific
fire so unexpectedly poured into their ranks, but the Federals, in
the face of the six-shooters, began to waver. One or the other must
yield. The Confederates were pushing the conflict. Waring ordered
up two new regiments to halt the advancing tide. The contest was
short, but it was vehement. At close range, nothing could equal the
six-shooter. The sword and carbine could not stay its murderous
effect in the hands of the brave and determined Confederates.
Hand to hand, the conflict went on, but flesh and blood could
not withstand such an assault. The Federal line began to yield.
Lyon, Rucker, Johnson and Forrest urged their brave men to supreme
effort. The tide was still for an instant, but only an instant. The
reinforcements of Waring were brushed away, his lines broken. The
apparent yielding of the Union cavalry encouraged and emboldened the
men of the South, and now they drove forward with increasing energy
and ferocity to the death grapple. Ammunition failing, the men used
the empty rifles and carbines as clubs. A hand to hand fight cannot
last long. Decimation of numbers soon weakens its intensity, but the
proximity of men, looking each other in the eye, shouting defiance
into the very faces of their foes, proves a tremendous strain upon
any soldiers, and such fearful tension weakens enthusiasm and one
side or the other begins to consider yielding. Rucker, Lyon, Hall
and Johnson of Alabama were terrific fighters; they had caught
Forrest’s spirit and they advanced with such vehemence that it was
almost impossible for any line to withstand them. The moment Waring’s
men began to give way, victory deserted the Federal standards. The
piercing of the Union lines, the loss of its initial position, gave
the Confederates added impetuosity and intensity in their advance.
Nature was adding renewed difficulties to the conflict. The fierce
summer sun was almost scalding. Perspiration burst from every pore.
Men, under the intense heat, panted for breath. Forrest’s men knew
they must win at once or fail in the struggle. Not waiting even to be
called, they pressed forward over the bodies of their fallen comrades
and enemies. The Southern troopers seemed imbued with an insatiate
thirst for the blood of their opponents. They remembered what Forrest
had told them to do when the bugle blast brought them out from cover,
and bade them press the fighting, and drive the Federals back. Thus,
impelled by the necessity of immediate victory, answering the summons
of their well-beloved commander, and thrilled by the memory of their
past glorious achievements, they became almost a line of demons. They
cared nothing for wounds or death; they were bent only on the defeat
and destruction of their foes, and for the accomplishment of this
were ready to win or fall, as fate should cast the die.
Forrest, within fifteen minutes of the time when the first shot
was fired, had sent one of his most trusted staff officers to meet
General Tyree H. Bell and bid him “move up fast and fetch all he’s
got,” and to this he added a word to his beloved boy artillery man,
Captain Morton, to stay not his coming but to bring up his horses at
a gallop. Forrest’s keen eye was watching with deepest anxiety to
catch some sight of the coming ones, his ears attuned to catch the
echo of the cheers of Bell’s men or the rushing tramp of the tired
steeds; but nothing was heard of his allies, needed so badly at this
crucial moment.
He knew that Sturgis with his infantry would soon be on the ground,
and that his tired and powder-grimed men could not withstand this new
ordeal, when four thousand fresh infantry would change the alignments
and render resistance of their impact impossible. A thousand
conflicting emotions filled Forrest’s heart, but Forrest was not to
be stayed. “Forward, forward!” he cried to his men. Slowly, then
quickly, the Federal cavalry yielded, and then Forrest pressed them
back in disorder.
The spirit of resistance was broken. Waring and Winston could
not, with all their courage and skill, stay the work of Forrest’s
battalions. They rushed from the front, giving to the men in gray
complete possession of the coveted battlefield.
General Sturgis, in advance of his panting infantry, had arrived at
the scene of the struggle. Message after message of emergency had
come to him by swift-riding couriers. His infantry were forced all
that nature would allow. These Federal soldiers were weighted down
with their accoutrements, and suffering the almost resistless heat of
the burning rays of a fierce summer sun and an atmosphere so sultry
and humid that human lungs inhaling it were weakened rather than
refreshed.
The Federal cavalry were glad to ride away, and, hurrying from such
scenes of carnage and woe, disorganized and beaten, they tried to
reform behind the upcoming infantry. It was with a profound sense
of relief that they gave over the field to the footmen and let them
face, in the bushes and jungle, the Confederate cavalrymen, who with
such devilish fury had worsted them in the fighting of the past
three hours and thinned their ranks by killing and wounding a large
percentage of their number.
The Federal cavalry, in this brief struggle, had pushed their
magazine guns and carbines to the highest pressure. Their ammunition
was gone, and without bayonets they could not halt the Confederate
assailants, who behind their six-shooters let no obstacle, even for
an instant, stay their progress.
Forrest’s prediction that he would whip the Federal cavalry before
the infantry could get up was verified, but unless Bell with his
reserves and Morton with his artillery were quickly at hand, his
success would avail nothing.
The Federal infantry was quickly put in line, and even Forrest felt
for an instant a sense of doubt, as he surveyed his tired followers,
and scanned their faces, worn and sharply drawn by the harrowing
experiences of the past three hours.
However resourceful, he could not immediately reach a conclusion as
to what was best. His soul abhorred yielding now that he had won
glorious victory, and the thought of abandoning it all at last and
leaving his dead and wounded followers on the field and the triumph
of his hated foes, filled his soul with keenest anguish. For himself,
he would rather die a thousand deaths than to do this hateful thing.
At his command, by superhuman courage, his boys (as he called them)
had discomfited and driven away their foe, and as he looked down into
the pale faces of the dead, who lay amidst the bushes and debris of
the torrid forest, as he heard the groans of his gallant wounded and
dying, burning with thirst and fever, as they pleaded for water, he
dared not forsake them. The whistle of the rifle balls, the screech
of the shrapnel again beginning to play upon his position urged him
to speediest decision.
[Illustration: GENERAL ABRAM BUFORD]
[Illustration: CAPTAIN MORTON]
[Illustration: GENERAL LYON]
At this critical moment, while the firing on his side was spasmodic
and occasional, he heard cheers and shouts. A moment later, from
the woody recesses of the thicket, he caught sight of the face of
Tyree H. Bell. The message he had sent two hours before had been
heard. Bell had “moved fast and fetched all he’s got” and Morton had
“brought on his artillery at a gallop.” True, many of the artillery
horses had dropped dead by the wayside, overcome by the terrific
punishment they had received in hastening to the scene of action, but
as the dropping beast breathed his last, the harness was snatched
from his dead body and flung upon another beast who had galloped
or trotted behind the guns. These brutes had seen their fellows
belabored with whips to increase their speed to the utmost, and if
they reasoned at all they reluctantly assumed the burdens of their
dead brothers and regretfully and sullenly took their places in front
of the guns, made so heavy and so oppressive by the heat and by mud
of the slushy roads.
When the supply of horses, in this mad rush of nineteen miles, gave
out, cavalry men were dismounted and despite their protest, their
horses were harnessed to the guns and caissons, which now at the
highest possible speed were being dragged and hauled to the front,
where Forrest was holding his foes at bay, or driving them in
confusion from the field.
The first act of the grim drama had come out as Forrest had expected,
and now the second was begun. He had vanquished the Federal cavalry
and now he must destroy the Federal infantry. Bell had brought him
two thousand men who, although wearied by a twenty mile ride during
the past seven hours, had fired no guns and faced no foes. He had
tried these newcomers in the past, and he did not fear to trust them
in this supreme moment.
The Confederate chieftain did not long hesitate. He knew whatever
was done must be done quickly. The Federal cavalry would soon be
reorganized; the clash with the infantry (if they withstood the
onslaught from the Confederates) would give the defeated horsemen new
courage, and they would come back into the struggle far fiercer than
before, for as brave men they would long to wipe out the memories and
avenge their humiliating defeat with final victory.
The Federal infantry did not reach the battlefield until 1 p. m. They
came under the most trying circumstances; the roads and the weather
together were against them. The human body has its limitations. The
Federal infantry did all men could have done; a majority of them were
unaccustomed to the dreadful heat of the Mississippi thickets and
swamps; they had been forced to the very highest efforts on the way;
the sounds of battle were ringing in the ears of their leaders—the
sultry air did not conduct the sound waves distinctly, but they
heard enough to know that a desperate struggle was already on, and
they were soon to participate in its dangers and its experiences.
Aides came riding in hot haste from where the noise of strife was
heard; the messages were delivered to the advance guard, but the
hard-riding couriers were hastily escorted to the Federal leaders,
and the solemnity of their faces and the seriousness of their visage
unmistakably proclaimed that sternest business was being enacted at
the place from which they had in such haste so furiously ridden.
The Federal cavalry, in squads and disorganized masses, was
retreating from the front. No shout of victory or cheers had come
from the horsemen to urge the infantry forward to the conflict, which
had gone sorely against those who rode. Here and there an ambulance
bearing wounded officers and privates told in unmistakable terms what
losses were awaiting those who were pressing toward the conflict, and
bandaged heads and bloody faces, and wounded arms and legs told the
story of carnage where these sufferers had been.
Regimental and company officers were commanding more rapid marching.
These men in blue had suffered, on the way, dreadful punishment from
the sultry heat, still they were bidden with loud and vociferous
orders to press forward. They were now beginning to catch sight of
the wreckage, an overturned ambulance, a dead horse, streams of
disabled men, broken wagons, fleeing teamsters, riding detached
animals with the harness swinging about their legs, all made a
depressing scene.
The Federal infantry were of good stuff. When within half a mile
of the Confederate lines, they vigorously responded to the command
“double quick march” and ran forward to meet a foe of which they
could see but little. The buzz of the rifle balls they heard on every
side, and the defiant yells, which came from the bushes and recesses
of the thickets, into which the men in blue were being hurried to
find somebody to fight, were no pleasant sounds.
As the Federal infantry swung into line, yells and cheers from
the Confederate forces came across the short space between them.
Something important was happening. Some relief and mitigation was at
hand. The shouts were of gladness and not those of grief or even of
battle. The Confederate artillery was swinging out to the front. The
Confederate cavalry always had good artillerists, Pelham, Chew, Cobb,
Rice, Morton, Thrall and Freeman were men whom any commander might
covet and in whose services they might glory.
Forrest had two wonderful qualities. He made all his associates
recklessly brave. They absorbed the touch of strange and
ever-masterful courage that came oozing from his every pore. He was,
besides, a wonderful judge of men; all his staff were men not only of
intrepid spirit but of quick intelligence and infinite patriotism.
They knew Forrest’s limitations, but they understood his marvelous
greatness. That Forrest was sometimes harsh, even cruel and bitter
in his judgment and in his words and acts, none knew better than the
superb men on his staff; but his transcendent genius, his matchless
courage and his immeasurable loyalty overshadowed his faults, so that
the light which came from his greatness so magnified his presence and
power as to dwarf and blot out that which in many men would have been
hateful deformities.
The battle line was not an extended one. Well for the Confederates
that this was so. With no reserves and outnumbered two to one, the
shorter the range of action the better, for the smaller force.
Three thousand six hundred fresh infantry were now thrown into the
whirlpool of battle. The Federal cavalry cowered behind their allies,
who had walked and then ran in that dreadful summer heat to help them
in their extremity. The heavy fire of the infantry, the constant
peal and boom of the artillery notified Forrest that the best
reliance of the Federal general was at hand. It looked gloomy for the
Confederate commander, but while the character of men and the fire
on the Federal side had changed, General Forrest also had a present
help in this trouble. Brave, gallant Tyree H. Bell had come. True,
his troopers with jaded steeds had trotted or galloped for nineteen
miles under the blaze of the torrid sun, but the poor beasts who had
carried the men could calmly rest while the fighting part of the
outfit were now ready to take their place in the freshening fray.
Bell had a noble record. He had been from the first captain of the
12th Tennessee Infantry. He had acted as colonel at Belmont, and on
the bloody field of Shiloh again commanded this splendid regiment.
Made its colonel, he had won fresh laurels at Richmond, Kentucky,
in the great victory there under Kirby Smith, and still later he
had become commander of a cavalry regiment, and at Murfreesboro and
Chickamauga had furiously hammered the Federal flanks. In January,
1864, Forrest, who knew good fighters by instinct, gave Bell a
brigade with five regiments. The most of these on this glorious
day at Bryce’s Cross Roads were to give another good account of
themselves. At Fort Pillow, Bell with the rifle and revolver had
assailed and won a very strong position, and now again in this
conflict, and in many afterwards, he was to win his great commander’s
admiration and trust.
The pace set by the Federal infantry was fierce, but Bell’s men made
it fiercer. General Buford had come to join in the battle. Forrest
trusted this Kentucky general as probably he trusted no other man
under him. With an immense body, weighing three hundred pounds,
he had a sharp, quick, active mind, a fearless soul and splendid
military instincts. A West Point graduate, he won a brevet at Buena
Vista and was in the Santa Fe expedition in 1848. He gave up a
captaincy in the First United States Dragoons in 1854, and settled
on a splendid blue-grass farm in Woodford County, Kentucky, the
asparagus bed, as Tom Marshall called it, of the blue-grass. Made a
brigadier in 1862, he led a few hundred Kentucky boys from the State
with Bragg, and with General Joe Wheeler had thoroughly demonstrated
his great ability as a cavalryman.
Those who kept pace with Wheeler and Forrest must not only be great
fighters, but they must be great cavalrymen. He placed great store by
three Kentucky regiments of infantry, whose longing to ride was at
last gratified by the War Department at Richmond, and on mules and
broken down artillery horses, they had come to fight with Forrest.
These men with Buford had passed through the roughest military
training as infantry, and when the romance and glamor of cavalry
service came their way, with abounding gratitude for being allowed to
become cavalrymen, they had the manliness and appreciation to show
their government that they fully deserved the great favor that had
been bestowed upon them.
The Federal men were sturdy Westerners. They were as brave as the
bravest. They had trotted three miles, double-quicked another mile
and marched four miles; and they had borne this severe punishment
without a murmur. They longed for victory. To defeat Forrest would
give them the approval of their government and the applause of
their comrades; and they were very anxious to crown the conflict
with one crushing blow at the hated Confederate chieftain who, with
his followers, had not only evaded the Federal forces sent for his
capture, but very often had dashed their hopes of victory and driven
them discomfited from many fields of strife. These men in blue
trusted that fate would now deliver him into their hands, and though
they feared, they hoped, and this gave firmer tone to their onslaught.
There was no cleared space for maneuvering. Men who fought in this
battle must go into thickets and through underbrush to find the foe
they sought.
Forrest was too wary a general to allow the Federals to rest
sufficiently long to recover from the depressing effects of their
heated and wearying march. He well knew that in immediate and
decisive attack lay his only hope of defeating his assailants, who so
greatly outnumbered him. He had genius for finding the places where
the fiercest fray would take place. Grierson’s cavalry had, like
worsted gladiators, sought refuge behind the men whom they jocularly
called “webfeet.” They had borne the brunt of the battle from ten to
two, had been worsted, and were glad enough to let the walking men
test the mettle of the foes they had failed to defeat.
Lyon, Johnson and Rucker had fought with the men under them,
with vigor, against Waring and Winston, and they had longed for
a breathing spell, but as Bell’s brigade, after their twenty-one
mile ride, swung into line, tired though they were, they were yet
indisposed to unload on the newcomers, and so gathering themselves
together, they resolved not to be outdone by their comrades who had
on that dreadful morning not felt battle’s grievous touch nor hunted
through the heated thickets for those who sought their undoing.
Buford was ordered to slowly press the Federal right. Fronting
Forrest and Bell the Federals were massing, and here Forrest realized
must come the “tug of war.”
Cautiously, but quickly, Bell’s men sought the newly aligned Federal
infantry under Colonel Hoge. As Bell’s men advanced, with acute
vision, born of expected danger, they could not even see the men in
blue as they stood with their guns cocked, waiting for a sight of
those who so fearlessly were seeking them in the recesses of the
jungle. They heard the silent, stealthy approach of the Confederates.
The rustle of the leaves, the pushing aside of the bushes told
them the Southern soldiers were coming. In an instant, without a
single note of warning, the murderous, blazing fire of a thousand
rifles flashed in their faces. Many brave men fell before this
terrible discharge. The dead sank without noise to the earth and
the unrepressed groans of the wounded for an instant terrorized the
Confederate line. The instinct of safety, for a brief moment, led
them to recoil from this gate of death, and a portion of Bell’s brave
men gave way. The Federal officers quickly took advantage of the
situation and made a strong and valiant rush upon the broken line.
With a shout of victory upon their lips, they fixed their bayonets
and rapidly pushed through the thicket to disorganize those who,
under the dreadful shock of an unexpected fire, had momentarily
yielded to fear. This was Forrest’s time to act. The expected had
come. Tying his own horse to a tree, he bade his escort do likewise,
and he and Bell, calling upon their men to follow, revolvers in
hand, rushed upon the vanguard of the Federal line. Quick almost as
thought itself, the Tennesseeans came back to the front. Wisdom,
with two hundred and fifty of Newsom’s regiment, leaped also to the
rescue, and those who for a brief space recoiled now turned with fury
upon the line that had dealt them so sudden and so grievous a blow.
Rucker, hard pressed, bade his men kneel, draw their trusty revolvers
and stand firm. It was now brave infantry with bayonets against brave
cavalry with revolvers. No charge could break such a line, and the
men of the bayonet drew back from impact with this wall of revolver
fire. Hesitating for a brief space, they recoiled before the charge
of the gallant Confederates. Hoge’s men crumbled away in the face of
the short range and effective aim of the Southern cavalry. A fierce
dash of Forrest, Bell and Rucker completed their demoralization,
and the men with the bayonets, vanquished, pulled away from further
conflict with these revolver-firing cavalrymen.
At this moment, war’s sweetest music fell upon the ears of General
Forrest. Away north he heard the sound of conflict. Miles away from
the scene of battle, Forrest had ordered Barteau’s regiment to
proceed west and strike the rear of the Federal forces. The Federal
commanders deemed it wise to hold the colored brigade in reserve.
They were about the wagon train. Forrest was again to astonish his
enemies by a flank and rear attack. This was unexpected, but it
was none the less decisive. No Federal cavalry could be spared to
reach the front. Whipped in the morning, they were not even now,
in the middle of the afternoon, ready for a second tussle with
those who had vanquished them. Barteau had been well trained by
his chieftain, for whom he had aforetime made daring assault under
similar circumstances. The wagon train guard sought safety in flight,
and the colored troopers began to tear from their breasts the badges
printed with those fateful words, “Remember Fort Pillow. No quarter
to Forrest’s men.” These boastful exhibits were good enough at
Memphis on June 1st, but they became most unsatisfying declarations
at Bryce’s Cross Roads on June 10th. It made a great difference where
they were shown.
A stampede began among these black-skinned warriors. Vigorously they
pulled the badges from their stricken breasts and trampled them in
the dust, ere Barteau and his furious horsemen could reach their
broken phalanxes. The Federal front was still stubborn and sullenly
refused to yield further ground. To win it was necessary that this
front be broken. With startling rapidity, Forrest again mounted his
horse, rode the entire length of his line, declaring that the enemy
was breaking, and that the hour of victory was at hand. Two hours
of carnage and conflict had passed since Bell came. Finding his boy
artillerist, Morton, he ordered him, at a signal, to hitch his horses
to four guns, double shot the pieces with grape and canister, rush
them down close to the enemy’s line, and deliver his fire. There were
no reserves to protect the artillery, and Morton and Buford spoke
a word of caution as to this extraordinary movement, but Forrest
was firm in his resolve to test out the movement, if it cost him
one-third of his artillery.
Tyler, with his two companies of the brave 12th Kentucky, Forrest’s
escort and Gartrell’s company of Georgians, were to go west and
charge around the Federal right, forcing their way to the Federal
rear, on Tishomingo Creek, and engage with pistols any Federal force
that might resist their progress.
Barteau, further east, was pounding the Federal rear, while Tyler,
Jackson and Gartrell with great fury were hammering the Federal
right. One-sixth of Forrest’s fighting men were now in the Federal
rear. Morton, doubtful, but brave, drove his four guns into the
very face of the enemy, advancing upon them amidst a storm of fire.
His men, leaving their horses behind, as a small measure of safety,
pushed the guns along the narrow, muddy road with their hands, firing
as they moved. They seemed the very demons of war, courting death or
capture in this grapple for mastery. The roar of the guns quickened
the hopes of the Confederates, and all along the entire Confederate
line a furious rush was made upon the Federal position. So close
were the opposing forces to each other that they exchanged words of
challenge, and at every point the Confederates forced the fighting
and doubled up the Federal advance. The game was too fierce to last
long. The brave and daring men in the rear, with Tyler and Barteau,
were riding with a vengeance in every direction, and with their
revolvers were doing deadly work upon the fleeing foes. This charge
was aimed chiefly at the colored troops, who, with visions before
their eyes and echoes in their ears of Fort Pillow, were ready to
flee away, without standing upon the order of their going.
Of this eventful moment, General Sturgis said, “I now endeavored
to get hold of the colored brigade which formed the guard of the
wagon train. While traversing the short distance to where the head
of the brigade should be formed, the main line gave away at various
points, order soon gave way to confusion and confusion to panic.
The army drifted toward the rear and was beyond control. The road
became crowded and jammed with troops; wagons and artillery sank
into the deep mud and became inextricable. No power could check the
panic-stricken mass as it swept towards the rear. The demoralization
was complete.” Even General Sturgis proposed to take the 19th
Pennsylvania Cavalry as an escort, and through the cross roads of the
country, to seek shelter in Memphis. The bridge across Tishomingo
Creek became blocked by overturned wagons, the fleeing Federals
found climbing over the wagons too slow, and waded or swam the
Creek. Impeded in their flight, great numbers were shot down as they
attempted to pass the stream. Morton’s artillery rushed to the bank,
and hundreds of the Federals, still exposed to fire, were cut down
at this point. Forrest was as relentless in pursuit as he had been
furious in battle.
As the closing scenes of the battle were concluded, the sunset came
on. Now was the hour of the greatest triumph. The foe was fleeing,
and the horse-holders, mounted upon the rested beasts, were rushed
forward to gather up the fruits of the splendid victory. There was
to be no let up even in the coming darkness, and the Confederates
who were able, cheerfully hurried to the front. The Federals formed
line after line, only to see them crushed and broken, while weary
fugitives, driven by increasing fear, pushed on with all their
remaining strength, to find some place of safety and rest. The
Federals dared not stop for an instant during the lengthening hours
of the dark, dark night. With sad hearts they kept up their flight,
and when the sun dawned they had reached Ripley, twenty-two miles
from the dreadful scene which long haunted the memories of the
vanquished men in blue.
At 3 a. m., Buford, a few miles from Ripley, came upon the remnant of
the Federal wagon train and the last fourteen pieces of artillery.
General Grierson, at earliest dawn had attempted to stay the pursuit
until he could reorganize his beaten battalion, but Forrest and
his escort, with the 7th Tennessee, closed in upon them, and they
dispersed in the by-roads and through the plantations. All semblance
of order was gone. No genius could evolve a complete organization
that would for one moment resist the foe.
The Confederates seemed as demons, relentless and insatiable. All
through the day and night of the 11th of June, the tired Confederates
followed, and, with boundless energy, pursued the fleeing foes.
The retreat began at 4 p. m., June 10th. The next morning the
Federals were at Ripley, twenty-five miles away, and the night of
the same day, they reached Salem, forty-eight miles from Bryce’s
Cross Roads. Nineteen pieces of their twenty-six cannon had been
captured with twenty-one caissons, two thousand men, including the
wounded and captured, and twelve hundred lay dead on the field of
battle and along the ways by which the Federals had retreated. It
took nine days to march from White Station near Memphis to Bryce’s
Cross Roads. The fleeing Federals had traveled the same road in one
day and two nights. No pursuit was ever more vigorous or effective.
Forrest gave the fugitives no rest or peace. Changing his pursuing
column from time to time, he made every moment count, the Federals
scattered through the fields and forests and the Confederates scoured
the country to take in those, who, forgetting the first principles of
a deserting and defeated army to keep together, fled into the byways
and through the wooded country, in their mad effort to hide from
Forrest and his avenging huntsmen.
There was no reasonable explanation of the stupendous victory.
General Sturgis tried to excuse it by saying the Confederates had
twelve thousand men, including two brigades of infantry, but the only
infantry there were, were Lyon’s troopers, who for more than a year
had fought on foot in the campaigns of the Army of Tennessee.
General Sherman frankly said, “Forrest had only his cavalry, and I
cannot understand how he could defeat Sturgis with eight thousand
men.”
Later he said, “I will have the matter of Sturgis critically
examined, and if he should be at fault, he shall have no mercy at
my hands. I cannot but believe he had troops enough, and I know I
would have been willing to attempt the same task with that force;
but Forrest is the devil, and I think he has got some of our troops
under cower. I have two officers at Memphis who will fight all the
time, A. J. Smith and Mower. The latter is a young brigadier of fine
promise, and I commend him to your notice. I will order them to make
up a force and go out to follow Forrest to the death, if it costs ten
thousand lives and breaks the treasury. There will never be peace in
Tennessee until Forrest is dead.”
The Kentucky brigade opened the battle, bore its brunt for more
than three hours, and this gave to five Kentuckians a prominent and
important part in battle on that day. First came General Hylan B.
Lyon. Born in Kentucky in 1836, he entered West Point in 1852 and
graduated in 1856. He first saw service against the Seminole Indians
in 1856 and 1857, and after frontier work in California was engaged
in the Spokane Expedition and in the battle of September 5th-7th,
1858. On April 3rd, 1861, he resigned his commission in the United
States Army and was appointed First Lieutenant of Artillery in the
Confederate Army. He organized and became captain of Cobb’s Battery,
but in ten months was made lieutenant colonel of the 8th Kentucky
Infantry. He led this regiment at Fort Donelson, surrendered and was
exchanged; and became colonel of the 8th Kentucky. At Coffeeville,
Mississippi, he acquitted himself well. In 1864, he was promoted to
be brigadier general and assigned to the corps of General Forrest,
his brigade consisting of the 3rd, 7th, 8th and 12th Kentucky
Regiments. They were brave, seasoned, fearless soldiers, and were
prepared with their distinguished brigadier general on that day to
give a good account of themselves.
Edward Crossland, Colonel of the 7th Kentucky Cavalry, did not go
to the front in this great battle. Lawyer and legislator, he was
one of the first men in Kentucky to organize a company for service
in the Confederate Army, and for a year was in the Army of Northern
Virginia. A lieutenant colonel for one year, he became colonel of the
1st Kentucky Infantry in May, 1862. He was at Vicksburg and Baton
Rouge and Champion’s Hill with Breckinridge. He was with Forrest to
the end. He had the unfortunate habit to stop the flight of a bullet
in almost every conflict in which he was engaged. Wounded again and
again, he survived it all, and was with Forrest at the surrender.
Upon his return, he was made judge, then congressman, and then judge
again.
He had been wounded at Paducah, and if he had been at Bryce’s Cross
Roads, he would surely have drawn another wound. It always grieved
him that he was not present at this greatest triumph of his idolized
leader. This day found Colonel Crossland’s regiment under command of
Henry S. Hale. In the blood-stained thickets, Major Hale won deserved
distinction. On one occasion his men hesitated, but he seized the
colors and ran forward, flaunting them in the face of the enemy. No
soldier could run away after such an exhibition from his commander,
and they returned with exceeding fierceness and cheerfully followed
their valiant leader.
This and like intrepid conduct on this glorious day added another
star to Major Hale’s rank, and he became lieutenant colonel of the
7th Kentucky Regiment, a just tribute to a gallant soldier. Kentucky
sent none braver or truer to fight for the Southland.
[Illustration: FIGHTING AT BRYCE’S CROSS-ROADS]
Among the officers who proved themselves heroes on that day, none
deserved higher honor than Captain H. A. Tyler, of the 12th Kentucky
Cavalry. His assault on the flanks and his charge on the rear of
the enemy were noble and superb exhibitions of the highest courage.
He played havoc with the colored reserves who were protecting the
wagon train. His voice was heard above the din of firearms and at
the head of his squadron; he descended upon the black soldiers with
such furious war-cries as to chill their blood and set in motion the
retreat, which soon developed into an uncontrollable rout.