FORREST’S RAID INTO WEST TENNESSEE, DECEMBER, 1862
To the great Volunteer State, Tennessee, belongs the credit of having
produced, in many respects, the most remarkable cavalry leader in
the world—Nathan Bedford Forrest. He was born near Duck River, at a
little hamlet called Chapel Hill, then in Bedford County, Tennessee,
but now comprised within the boundaries of Marshall County.
Scotch-Irish and English blood flowed through the veins of this great
warrior. This strain rarely fails to produce courage, fortitude and
enterprise.
When Nathan Bedford Forrest was thirteen years of age, the financial
affairs of his father, William Forrest, had gone awry. Leaving
Tennessee with seven children, he entered a homestead in Tippah
County, North Mississippi, a region which had just been opened to
settlement through a purchase by the Federal Government from the
Chickasaw Indians. The magical hand of immigration had as yet done
little for this region. The Indians had hunted over the lands, but
civilization had not given it prosperity and fitted it for the homes
of peaceful agriculturists.
Death, with rude hand and pitiless dart, cut down the father, William
Forrest. His oldest boy, not sixteen years of age, became the head
of his family, including his mother, six brothers and three sisters,
and then four months after the father had passed away, there came
a posthumous boy, Jeffrey, who, on the 22nd day of February, 1864,
was to die a soldier’s death at Okolona, Mississippi, resisting Sooy
Smith’s raid. In the supreme moment of dissolution his valiant and
heroic brother pressed his dying form to his heart and imprinted upon
his cheek, now damp with the death sweat, a last kiss of affection
and love. The death of this young brother, upon whom Forrest lavished
an immeasurable wealth of tenderness, was the greatest blow the war
brought to his fearless heart.
Forrest, deprived of education by the calls of filial duty, secured
only such learning as could be obtained at a primary school in
Middle Tennessee and in Mississippi in 1836 and 1837, which was
scant enough, and which was won between the fall harvest and spring
planting seasons.
Within three years, by his indomitable will, his great industry,
his shrewd judgment and unceasing labor, he had won for his mother,
sisters and brothers agricultural independence.
Typhoid fever, with malignant fierceness, had stricken down two of
his brothers and his three sisters, one of these last being a twin
sister of Forrest himself.
When twenty years of age, the war spirit of Forrest was moved by
the struggles of the people of Texas in their contest with Mexico
for independence, and among the adventurous and gallant boys of the
South, who cast in their lot with the people of Texas, was this young
Tennessean. After reaching the scenes of war, lack of transportation
and of necessity for their services forced these young men to either
settle in the new republic or to return to their homes. Forrest was
penniless, but he split enough rails in a little while to pay his
passage to his home in Mississippi, which he reached after an absence
of four and a half months.
In 1845 Forrest involuntarily became an actor in a tragedy in
Hernando. Four men, grieved at some act of his partner and uncle,
Jonathan Forrest, undertook to kill him. Single-handed and alone,
Nathan Bedford Forrest severely wounded three of the assailants and
drove the fourth from the field. In the conflict, the uncle was
mortally wounded, although he had taken no part in the affray.
After reverses in business, Forrest left Hernando, in 1852, and
established himself as a broker in real estate and dealer in slaves
in Memphis.
In 1861, General Forrest was a cotton planter in Coahoma County,
Mississippi, growing a thousand bales of cotton per annum, and with
his fortune increasing every year.
He now stood high among the most successful and active business men
in Memphis. He had won a fortune by sagacity, integrity and sobriety,
and though lacking in education, there was something in his personnel
that impressed men with his right to be a leader. He was a born
captain, and nature wrote his right to command on his face.
In April, 1861, his foresight assured him that war was inevitable,
and he proceeded to arrange his affairs for the impending conflict.
His whole soul was centered in his desire to make the South free, and
the independence of the Confederate states, he firmly believed, was
the only guarantee for a permanent peace.
After a visit to Mississippi, he returned to Memphis and immediately
became a private in the Tennessee Mounted Rifles, under Captain
Josiah H. White. He sought no rank. His highest aim was to serve his
country, and, resolved upon the utmost effort to uphold her cause, he
was willing to face all dangers where duty pointed the way. The pupil
soon taught the master, and within a month Isham G. Harris, Governor
of Tennessee, and General Leonidas Polk urged and commissioned
Forrest to recruit a regiment of cavalry. A hurried visit to Kentucky
enabled him to purchase five hundred Colt’s navy pistols and a
hundred saddles with their equipments.
While in Louisville, he learned that a company of cavalry was being
organized for him by Captain Frank Overton, at Brandenburg, Meade
County. Hastening thither, he mustered in the Boone Rangers, ninety
stalwart sons of Kentucky, which became the first company of the
regiment.
Forrest was not long in reaching Bowling Green with his Boone
Rangers. A skirmish or two on the way demonstrated his marvelous
genius for war, inspired his men with absolute faith in his
leadership, and left behind him an ominous warning to those who later
in the struggle should be so unfortunate as to cross his path.
A company was organized in Memphis during Forrest’s absence, called
the Forrest Rangers, under Captain Charles May,—and the Boone Rangers
became the nucleus of Forrest’s famous regiment, which in a few
weeks grew to be a battalion of eight companies, and, which in a few
days by active operations, laid the foundations of their leader’s
astonishing reputation and success.
Two of Forrest’s companies were from Kentucky, one from Meade County
and one from Harrodsburg. Alabama contributed four, Texas one, and
Memphis one, so that as far as his fame was to become coextensive
with the South and West it would seem as if fate had spread over
Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and Texas a call for these men who were
to make their commander renowned.
In a little while, Alabama sent two more companies, and the regiment
became of sufficient numbers to make Forrest lieutenant colonel.
Alabama troops predominated in his own regiment.
Many skirmishes and marches marked the career of this active and
aggressive command prior to February, 1862, and then Forrest was
ordered to repair to Fort Donelson, where as senior officer, he
assumed command of the cavalry of the army here concentrated. The
cavalry consisted of Forrest’s regiment, Colonel Gantt’s Tennessee
Battalion, and three Kentucky companies under Captains Huey, Wilcox
and Williams, counting, all told, eight hundred men.
Twenty-five thousand Federals surrounded fourteen thousand
Confederates at the eventful siege of Fort Donelson. By the
exigencies of war these men were surrendered. Whose fault brought
about this unfortunate result has long been one of the most fiercely
discussed of Confederate military problems.
When a council of war had decreed that a surrender was inevitable,
Forrest entered an earnest protest; and at the suggestion of General
Pillow, he was allowed to effect his escape, upon condition that he
should do so before a flag of truce had communicated with the enemy.
The sequel shows upon what slight events human destiny hinges. Had
Forrest been less courageous or determined, his future would have
been entirely changed. His pluck and his pride revolted at a cavalry
soldier yielding without a vehement wrestle with the god of chance;
and his brave soul cried out against becoming prisoner without one
impetuous appeal to fate for a juster determination of the conflict
which raged at this crucial hour.
In the darkness and frost of a cold winter night, Forrest immediately
laid his plans to bring his horsemen out of the beleaguered fort.
By four o’clock in the morning, with five hundred men and officers,
he undertook to ride away. He could only conjecture as to what was
ahead. He had no time to send out scouts to reconnoitre as to the
presence or position of his foes. He was not so much concerned as to
who and where they were. The only anxious inquiry that crossed his
mind was how many they were and whether the waters that traversed
his path were too deep or too swift for him and his followers to
ford or swim in their struggle to find a way of escape from the
clutches of their enemies. He had no guides to point the road. He
knew that safety beckoned for a southward march. A great host was
encamped somewhere in the vicinity. He knew they were ready to
dispute his going. He had never traveled the road he was to follow.
His keen vision could only pierce a few feet into the blackness of
the night. He had only one plan and that was to fight and ride over
whatever obstructed his chosen track. With one hand to guide his
steed and the other grimly gripping his faithful revolver, he led
his followers cautiously and yet speedily amidst the oppressive
silence. Every slip of his floundering steeds amidst the gloom of
the cold and dreary night, seemed full of awful portent and danger,
and yet, amidst all these depressing conditions, the gallant leader
entertained no thought of a retreat and sternly ordered all to go
forward. It required an iron will and an invincible soul to thus
lead five hundred men on this desperate and difficult ride. A few
wounded Federal soldiers, crouching by the fires of the rails they
had kindled into flames to keep the warmth of life in their maimed
bodies until their comrades with the dawn of day should bring succor,
were the only sentinels that called to the riders to halt. These were
not disposed to question Forrest’s right to pass on into the outlying
darkness and he was glad to leave them alone in the cheerless hours
of that dread night, which the misfortunes of war had forced them to
face.
Once, back water seemed to stop the course of the gallant troopers,
but it was only for a moment. His advance guard hesitated, but
calling them to clear the way, he fearlessly crushed the ice with
his sword, and bade those behind to follow where he so promptly and
confidently led.
[Illustration: MAP OF FORREST’S RAID INTO TENNESSEE, DECEMBER, 1862]
This sally and escape of Forrest, in the face of almost
insurmountable obstacles, gave him a reputation for courage and
enterprise that betokened how great his future would be. That this
determined cavalryman marched safely away, was to the ambitious and
glory-seeking youth of the Southwest a special invitation to enlist
under his banners; and decided many of the bravest and most
patriotic men of middle Tennessee to enlist under the guidons of such
fame-winners as Forrest, Wheeler and Morgan. Succeeding events would
only magnify his promise and his skill. Forrest had already shown
himself in the briefest while to be a great cavalry leader, and his
genius, to those who watched and interpreted it ever so slightly,
shone with transcendent brilliance and indicated that he would win
renown and attain the highest rank.
On the 16th of March, 1862, two other Tennessee companies came to the
regiment; these gave it a full roster, and by acclamation he became
colonel; Kelly, lieutenant colonel; and a private, R. M. Balch, major.
When General Bragg marched into Kentucky in the summer of 1862, he
left Nashville behind him, under the control of the Federals. After
returning from Kentucky, in October, through Cumberland Gap, by
degrees he marched westward, and in early winter at Murfreesboro,
thirty miles south of Nashville, established his lines.
General Bragg, in December, deemed it important for General Forrest
to make a raid into West Tennessee, destroy connections with Memphis,
apparently threaten the Louisville & Nashville Railroad between
Louisville and Nashville, damage the railroads and break up, if
possible, the lines of transportation which enabled the Federals to
maintain themselves at Memphis and the adjacent territory.
General Wheeler had been promoted and assigned to the chief command
of the cavalry, with headquarters at La Vergne, and Forrest was
ordered to report to General Bragg in person. Thereupon, General
Forrest was assigned to the command of a brigade of about eighteen
hundred men, consisting of the 4th, 8th and 9th Tennessee Regiments,
Russell’s 4th Alabama and Freeman’s Battery. This promotion of
General Wheeler over Forrest and Morgan greatly disappointed both of
these leaders and excited much criticism amongst the rank and file.
Not only with the cavalry, but with infantry, was this action most
severely condemned. At this time General Wheeler had won neither
the record nor the fame which later excited the admiration of all
the men in the armies of the South. Morgan’s two Kentucky raids and
the Battle of Hartsville, one of the most brilliant achievements of
the war; Forrest’s escape from Donelson, his magnificent service at
Shiloh, and his assault on Nashville and capture of Murfreesboro, had
already made both marked men and given them the admiration and love
of the entire army, and there was much indignation at the apparent
subordination of Forrest and withdrawal from his forces of the men
who had been taught in his campaigns his methods of fighting, and who
had learned to believe in him as one of the most wonderful soldiers
of the Confederacy.
General Bragg received, with some degree of impatience, General
Forrest’s complaints as to either insufficient equipment or
undisciplined troops, and directed General Forrest to march westward,
to cross the Tennessee River, and operate north and west of Memphis,
up to the Kentucky line as far as Moscow, some hundred and sixty
miles away.
Taking his final orders on the 10th of December, 1862, and reviewing
his command, at the risk of being reprimanded for insubordination, in
writing he again called the attention of General Bragg to the lack
of ammunition and supplies, and proper arms for his men.
The soldiers under him were largely raw new levies, armed chiefly
with flintlock rifles, many without flints. They possessed ten caps
per man, and a very meagre and scanty supply of ammunition.
In response to his second demand for better guns and more ammunition,
he was curtly and peremptorily ordered to march without delay and
take his chances with what had been assigned him for the raid.
Forrest keenly felt this treatment. His best troops had been taken
from him. Only four old companies remained with him, men who had
already shown great aptitude for partisan work and knew his method of
fighting, and were prepared to follow him under all conditions.
To the untrained student General Bragg’s orders bordered on cruelty,
and Forrest fiercely resented in his heart the great wrong thus
inflicted upon him. He was proud, brave and profoundly patriotic,
and no man in the South was more deeply attached to the Southern
cause than he. For awhile he brooded over this injustice, but he
loved his country too much to falter or hesitate even if he felt and
believed that this treatment was indefensible. General Bragg, to him
it appeared, had sent him upon the most dangerous mission of the war,
and as if to render the task doubly hazardous, had taken from him
the men he so much needed for the work he was required to do, and
had given him instead men whose inexperience and lack of drill and
discipline would render his success full of uncertainty and well-nigh
impossible.
He was commanded to undertake and possibly to force the passage of
the Tennessee River, when it was swollen by the winter rains, and
without even the semblance of a pontoon bridge, he was expected to
cross his men, horses, artillery and supplies as best he could. He
was either to construct ferry boats, or raise those that had been
sunken to hide them from Federal eyes; to search in the creeks or
thickets for a few skiffs, or to fashion them from the boards he
might pick up in a country already impoverished by the ravages of
war. He was to cross the river in face of a vigilant and expectant
foe whose garrisons were ordered to be upon the alert for his coming;
and were a long time before urged to watch for the presence of
the man whose fear was in every heart and whose desperate courage
and resistless onslaught had made him a very terror to the peace
and quiet of those who were to prevent his coming, or expected to
punish his appearance in the country, the holding of which was an
essential to the safety of their operations on the Mississippi River
below Memphis. Thereafter, he was to move into a region filled with
large Federal garrisons, all thoroughly armed, very many times more
numerous than his own force, and to ride over roads softened by
the winter rains, which by the travel of his horses and guns, were
churned into slush, reaching above the knees of the animals, and
through which his artillery could only be drawn at an average speed
of less than a walk. The conditions of these highways would not only
disspirit his followers, but subject them to such physical strain
as would possibly render them unable to perform the duties that the
campaign necessitated.
He had eighteen hundred troops and four guns. Baggage was reduced to
a minimum. Marching westward from Columbia, Tennessee, he reached
a place called Clifton, on the Tennessee River. An old, leaky
ferryboat, “a tub,” raised from the bottom of the stream where it had
been sunk to save it from Federal destruction; a hastily constructed
similar craft made from hewed logs, and a half dozen skiffs, were
his only means of transportation across the deep stream. The boats
were either rotten or leaky, and all dangerous. Horses and mules
were driven into the stream and forced to swim, while the men with
their saddles, blankets, frying pans, guns, cannon caissons and
ammunition wagons, were with the constant fear of Federal gunboats,
Federal cavalry and infantry ever in their minds and with constant
apprehension of resistance, as speedily as possible, under these
adverse conditions, ferried to the western bank of the swollen river.
Only a great soldier and a great leader could have maintained his
own equanimity with such adverse surroundings, or could have kept
his followers under control with destruction every moment staring
them in the face. On the shore, now on the western bank, now in the
turgid waters, again on the eastern side, he calmly directed every
movement, and his presence gave his followers hope when hope seemed
absurd, and imbued them with a sublime courage they themselves could
not fathom or understand. That he was there quieted every impulse
to fear, and that his eye was upon them spurred every man to the
noblest endeavors. Before him, every thought of cowardice became a
retreating fugitive, and his example taught every trooper in the
brigade that no foe was invincible and no task impossible. Morgan and
his men crossing the Cumberland to reach Hartsville, Wheeler and his
men forcing a passage of the Tennessee to destroy Rosecrans’ trains,
were full of sublime heroism, but Forrest’s passage of the Tennessee
River at Clifton, on December 16th and 17th, 1862, will long live as
one of the most persistently courageous achievements of cavalry in
any age or war.
The strain on man and beast was almost unbearable. Forrest had with
him many officers as brave as he but less experienced; but Starnes,
Dibrell, Russell, Jeffrey Forrest, Freeman, Morton, Biffle, Woodward,
William M. Forrest, Cox, Gurley and many others in this command held
up the hands of their beloved leader and aided him in giving even the
humblest private a spirit of devotion that made every man who wore
the gray jacket an intrepid hero, and a soldier who was without fear,
even unto death.
Scouts above and below, ever vigilant, watched for coming gunboats.
Pickets, hastily sent out on the western side of the stream, guarded
every road that led to the ferry, and eager eyes, quickened by
impending danger, scanned every hilltop and watched every avenue
of approach. Two nights and a day were consumed in this arduous
undertaking. The gunboats could not safely travel at night and
Forrest availed himself of this to further his difficult work. He
was crossing, with most inadequate means, the fifth largest stream
in the United States. The distance from shore to shore was more than
half a mile, the current was rapid, and while poling flatboats is
a slow and tedious process by day, by night the difficulties were
much enhanced. Forrest and his men successfully defied and overcame
these natural obstacles, and by the morning of the 17th his men and
equipments were all over, the boats were poled back to the western
shore, sunk, committed to the care of a few guards, who protested
at being left behind for what they esteemed an inglorious task, and
with a questioning gaze, Forrest looked across the stream, wondering
if he could later repass its currents, and with a wave of his sword,
launched forth on his hazardous mission. Aligning his small command,
he bade them go forward, not doubting that even with such odds
against him, fate would lend a helping hand and safely bring him back
from sure yet unknown dangers and fierce battles to his own, again.
This tremendous task accomplished and his scattered forces united, he
marched eight miles to Lexington, Henderson County, and encamped for
a little while, to allow his wet, hungry and tired soldiers to dry
their clothes, inspect their guns, and to relieve their minds as well
as their bodies of the great strain to which they had been subjected
in the extraordinary and eventful experiences of the past forty-eight
hours.
On examination, it was found that the greater part of the ammunition,
in crossing the Tennessee River, had become wet and consequently
unserviceable, and while this loss of the slight supply of ammunition
which had been assigned to his command was being considered, a
blockade-runner who had been sent through the lines, appeared with
fifty thousand caps.
Forrest had sent forward his agents to secure this supply of
ammunition. Already the Federals had had warning of Forrest’s coming,
and he had barely advanced a mile until he had encountered squadrons
of the Federal force moving along the same road to check his farther
advance. Prepared or unprepared, Forrest had come to fight. He
viciously assailed the Federals and quickly captured or routed one,
a Federal Tennessee regiment, and the other the 11th Regiment of
Illinois Volunteers, in which last Robert G. Ingersoll became a
Confederate prisoner.
Refreshed and strengthened by Federal supplies, and new and better
mounts, he pursued the fugitives furiously, and three days after
crossing the river reached Jackson, Tennessee (fifty miles away). He
had rested only a day, and his march was never without opposition
from his foe.
The Federals quickly concentrated troops at Jackson from the North
and South. The railroads from the north were immediately torn up,
isolated stations were captured, and guns and ammunition provided
for thoroughly arming the Confederates. Forrest was not slow and by
the removal and bending of the rails, he cut off further succor or
supplies to the garrison at Jackson from the north.
At this time, the force at Jackson was estimated at fifteen thousand.
Maneuvering so as to create the impression of an army of a larger
force than was really at his call, and with only one regiment
apparently in front of Jackson, he started northwest to Humboldt,
and here found his richest booty. Two hundred prisoners, four gun
caissons, five hundred standard muskets and three hundred thousand
rounds of ammunition, and equipments of all sorts here fell into
Forrest’s hands.
Reserving the best for himself, the torch was applied to the
remainder and the insatiable flames ate up the property that Federal
foresight had collected to feed the garrisons that now filled every
town of any importance in the adjacent country. His force, had now
become steadied by the influence of his example and by his brilliant
success. The experiences of a few days had made them veterans, and
taught them the ways and genius of their resourceful leader and he
too now began to realize that even these new and hitherto untried men
were dependable soldiers in any crisis that his daring might invoke.
Five days out from the Tennessee River, General Forrest reached
Trenton, and prepared for its capture. A man of intensive action,
he quickly surrounded the town. It did not take long to drive the
enemy into their breastworks. A charge from Forrest and his escort
completed the work. With two hundred and seventy-five men, some
of them inexperienced volunteers, General Forrest had captured
four hundred prisoners of war, including two colonels, many field
officers, a thousand horses and mules, wagons and ambulances, and
ammunition, and two hundred thousand rations of subsistence, all
worth a half million of dollars.
Flintlock muskets and shotguns were now thrown away. Enfield rifles,
the best possible Confederate arm of that period, were issued to his
entire command, and with an equipment, the same in most respects
as that of their foes, the new soldiers caught the true spirit
of war and were eager to meet their adversaries upon more equal
terms. Recruits had more than made up for the losses which Forrest
had suffered, and well-equipped and well-armed, he still numbered
eighteen hundred men and officers.
With the exception of the Tennessee Federal Regiment, all other
prisoners were paroled, required to march to Columbus, Kentucky,
under an escort, and there turned over to the Federal commander.
The way was now clear, and General Forrest marched toward Union
City, on the line between Kentucky and Tennessee. Stockade after
stockade was taken, and the real and greatest work of the expedition
was now begun. He had come to destroy the railroads. A few of his
companies had done such work before, and with eagerness and spirit
they gleefully set about the pleasing task. Spikes were drawn, rails
were stacked on piles of logs, and the fiery flames assisted in
the work of demolition. The iron rails, under the influence of the
savage glow, began to twirl and twist and, bent in all directions
by the increasing heat furnished by renewed giant piles of wood,
they seemed almost alive in their strange contortions; and curved,
crooked and ill-shapen lengths of iron were soon all that remained
of the tracks that were so essential to transport food supplies for
the armies which encamped toward the south, who were dependent upon
these rails for their daily bread. He followed the line of the Mobile
and Ohio railroad and destroyed it, and tore up its track for fifteen
miles, burning down trestles, removing cattle guards, and inflicting
tremendous losses upon the line.
In the meanwhile, the forces at Jackson had gotten their second
breath. They undertook now to intercept Forrest and prevent his
recrossing the Tennessee River. Short work was made of Union City;
two hundred and fifty officers and men entrenched, surrendered with
their arms and supplies. Here three hundred more prisoners were
paroled.
General Forrest had now reached the northern limit of the lines of
his expedition, at Moscow, a few miles over the Kentucky border.
Several days were spent in demolishing the heavy trestles on the
north and south forks of the Obion River.
Twelve thousand Federal soldiers had now been concentrated at
Trenton. Forrest had not been out from his crossing of the Tennessee
River nine days. Marching twenty-six miles to Dresden, and realizing
the work that was before him, he resolved to give his animals and his
men a day’s rest to prepare them for the well-nigh superhuman tasks
which were before them.
The Federal commanders resolved to prevent General Forrest from
recrossing the Tennessee River, and to this end, they applied all
the means at their command. They had plenty of men, but the trying
problem was to anticipate Forrest’s track and to cope with his
wonderful methods for outwitting his foes.
With the keen mind of the great cavalry soldier, it did not
take General Forrest long to understand that his enemies were
concentrating their forces to prevent his re-passage of the river. He
fully understood that it was impossible for him to escape south, that
he must go east, and in going east, he must get over the Tennessee
River. Before he could start well upon his return, it was necessary
for him to cross the Obion River, which empties into the Tennessee,
but this was now full with winter floods. All the bridges but one
had been destroyed. Across this dangerous and uncertain stream,
the bridge had been partially torn out, and it was left undefended
because it was regarded as impassable.
Within an hour, the men were at work getting together timber with
which to repair the bridge, so as to admit of the passage of
artillery. The seemingly hopeless task was accomplished in the
briefest period. Within an hour, the causeway was made passable.
It was a cold, dark midnight, and a sleeting, drizzling rain was
falling, chilling the bones but not the hearts of the Confederate
command.
General Forrest, in order to nerve his soldiers for the dangers of
slipping from the tottering bridge, himself mounted the saddle horse
and drove over the first wagon. Catching the inspiration of their
great leader’s courage, two teamsters attempted to follow. They
slipped or fell from the bridge and plunged into the deep stream and
freezing mud, from which they were with difficulty released.
Men, who had hitherto looked on with undisturbed hearts, now began to
question if the crossing of the stream could be made, whether in the
gloom of the dark hours which precede the dawn, and the dawn was far
off, it would be possible to carry over his sixteen hundred soldiers
now present with their equipments. But there was no difficulty or
danger that could quail the heart of Nathan Bedford Forrest. The
muddy, slushy roads made the passage more dangerous. Conscious of
the lack of supplies in the territory into which he must return,
Forrest was endeavoring to carry a number of wagon loads of flour,
coffee and sugar. The safety of his command and the lives of his
soldiers rose higher than all thoughts of the commissary, and the mud
and chuck holes were filled with sacks of flour and coffee, and along
these and over these the wagons passed.
The trains, by three o’clock, had been gotten over the bridge, but
the muddy, sloppy condition rendered it impossible for the artillery
horses to draw the guns and caissons. The horses were knee deep in
mud, and the men waded in slush half way up their limbs. Fifty men
were detailed with ropes to pull each piece of artillery, and only by
these superhuman efforts, at three o’clock in the morning, the Obion
was passed.
The only rest that could be allowed after the awful experiences of
the night was a short halt for food; and hardly had men and beasts
satisfied nature’s craving until the scouts informed General Forrest
that twelve miles away were several thousand men, converging upon his
small and valiant force.
General Forrest had no idea at this time of giving any intimation
where he would pass the Tennessee River. And he pursued his way
southward toward Lexington, over a wild, rough, hilly, rocky
road. The tramp of the horses and the cutting of the wheels of
the artillery and the wagons made the road a veritable bayou. The
friable soil, stirred and cut by cannon, caisson and wagon wheels,
and mixed by the six thousand hoofs of the cavalry horses, became
a canal of freezing slush. The animals and their equipments were
bespattered with this horrible material, and the clothing, necks,
faces, saddles, blankets and guns of the riders were covered with
mud, making the march extremely distressing. With grim courage, they
ceased endeavoring to wipe the disgusting slime from their faces
or clothing. They gritted their teeth, clenched their reins with a
stronger grip, and, uncomplaining, rode on in the dark stillness
of the awful night; they could at least, they believed, endure the
horrors of the situation until dawn of day. This, they hoped, would
bring some relief and somewhat assuage the dreadful punishment of
this night march. The scouts reported one brigade of the enemy within
six miles of General Forrest, another, six miles from this force.
Resting until four o’clock, his men were aroused, ordered to saddle
and prepare for the advance upon the Federal armies.
General Forrest determined to force the fighting, and he had only
a brief time to form a line of battle. Biffle, with his regiment,
had moved towards Trenton, but the soldierly instinct told him that
his chieftain was calling for him, and so he paroled his prisoners,
destroyed his supplies, and turned his face toward the battlefield
which was now to decide the fate of the command. General Forrest
believed he could destroy one brigade, under Colonel Dunham, before
the other, under General Sullivan, could march six miles over the
terrible roads along which it must advance, and he resolved to try
his fortunes with Dunham first.
The Federals were quite as eager for conflict as General Forrest, and
as soon as they felt the impact, pressed forward with great vigor.
General Forrest had six pieces of artillery and about fourteen
hundred available fighting men; he was hunting a fight, and he was to
get quite all that he desired.
Both sides felt the importance of the issue, and both were eager
to secure the advantage in positions. Forrest’s artillery, always
well placed, was now concentrated upon the Federal lines. The men in
blue advanced resolutely to within a hundred and eighty feet of the
artillery, but they only came to be repulsed with great slaughter.
The Confederate leader thought it was better to make this first an
artillery fight, and to reserve his small arms for the later period,
when the second force should try issues with him.
Colonel Dunham, in command of the Federals, showed himself to be a
fighter. Repulses did not weaken the courage of either himself or his
troops, and they renewed charge upon charge. At last his lines were
broken, and his men left their cover and ran across the field, where
many of them were captured and slain.
Colonel Starnes attacked the enemy in the rear. He had been detached
for making this kind of assault; always one of Forrest’s chief
maneuvers, who often declared that one man in the rear was worth two
in the front. On Starnes’ arrival in the field, white flags were
hoisted and Forrest and his troopers were masters of the situation.
While Forrest was congratulating himself upon his safety, Colonel
Carroll, a staff officer, rose up to inform him that a superior
number of Federals had come into action and were now in his rear.
This was a great surprise and an unlooked-for emergency. A full
brigade of fresh troops, now behind him, pressed on with remarkable
vigor and spirit, and the attack was so sudden and fierce that two
hundred and fifty of Forrest’s men were captured, four caissons and
two brass cannons were disabled in an attempt to withdraw from the
field, and these were abandoned, with a loss of a number of troopers
and some artillery.
The newcomers were quite as game as the men who had withstood
Forrest’s several assaults. They poured a heavy fire into the
Confederate line sustained by their artillery and fiercely and
furiously assailed the several Confederate positions. It looked as
if the wily Confederate leader had been caught napping, and that
favoring fortune, which had so often and so propitiously come to his
rescue, was about to desert his standard and give the victory to his
enemies.
With only a hundred and twenty-five men, Forrest made one of his
characteristic dashes upon the artillery of the enemy, which was
being served in such efficient manner as to inflict great loss.
Fortunately the horses attached to three of the pieces took fright
and ran in the direction of the Confederate lines, where they were
seized and driven away.
In the meantime, Colonel Starnes had attacked Dunham’s rear and this
halted him, and enabled General Forrest to capture General Dunham’s
wagon train with all his supplies, and this was skillfully carried
from the field.
General Forrest had now all the fighting he wanted for one day. He
had put in nine hours. Twenty-five officers and men had been killed,
seventy-five wounded and two hundred and fifty captured. Three
caissons, five wagons and mules and seventy-five thousand rounds of
ammunition had been left with his enemies.
The Federals had fared even worse than the Confederates. A colonel
and lieutenant colonel and one hundred and fifty rank and file had
been wounded; fifty dead lay on the ground.
Forrest, with twelve hundred fighting men, had whipped eighteen
hundred and then finally stood off a fresh brigade. It was not often
that General Forrest was taken unawares, and those who knew his
marvelous ability to get information wondered how General Sullivan
with a fresh brigade could approach his rear and attack it without
notice. Forrest, however, had not forgotten to look after this end
of the line. The directions were misunderstood by the officer. He,
hearing the guns, deemed it necessary to make a detour in order to
reach Forrest. Had this officer promptly reported the presence of
Sullivan, Forrest would have been able to destroy Dunham before the
arrival of fresh Federal forces, and then with his usual vehemence
turned upon the Federal reenforcements and chosen his battlefield
with his fresher foes. For once the Confederate chieftain was glad to
get out of reach of his enemies. He felt that he had fully enough of
conflict, and his best thoughts and energies were engaged in devising
ways and means to extricate his command from what even he, chief of
military optimists, must admit was a most difficult and dangerous
situation.
The engagement at Parker’s Cross Roads, where the commands of Dunham
and Sullivan felt that they had severely battered General Forrest,
gave the Federals some grounds for believing that even he was not
invincible, and encouraged them to seek another trial; and they were,
though with many precautions for safety, anxious to again fight out
the wager-of-battle.
Twelve miles away from the battlefield, Forrest halted to feed his
men and dress the wounds of his patient followers. They had passed
the highest physical tests and had come forth victorious, but even
Forrest’s followers had limitations and reached a point where nature
revolted and peremptorily called a halt.
The Confederate chieftain now determined to recross the Tennessee
at Clifton, the same point at which he had passed it fifteen days
before. In his hazardous position, this was the only hope of emerging
in safety. He had left his sunken boats to rescue him in a last
emergency. At no other point was there a substantial chance to find
even the crudest means of passing the swollen stream, which, like a
great spectre, stood out on the horizon to haunt his dreams and to
thwart his escape.
The Federals were glad to leave Forrest alone, and Forrest was glad
to leave them alone. With all the vigor and courage the Federals
had shown in the pursuit of the Confederates, their failure at the
last moment to pursue and attack him while crossing the river is one
of the strange and inexplicable delinquencies which now and then
appeared in the tactics of both armies, during the four years of the
struggle.
When close to the river, the scouts brought information that ten
thousand infantry and cavalry were moving from the direction of Purdy
and towards Clifton, and this gave General Forrest new cause for
apprehension and solicitude.
[Illustration: GENERAL NATHAN BEDFORD FORREST]
A few miles from Clifton, across Forrest’s only path leading to the
river, he found a regiment of Federal cavalry drawn up in battle
line. There was no time for maneuvering, and Dibbrell, always
gallant, was ordered to charge down the road across which the
Federals had been placed. Dibbrell, realizing the situation, was
quick to act, and furiously assaulted the line, cut the Federals
asunder, and then Starnes and Biffle, one on the right and the other
on the left, went after the detachments, and in a brief space they
were scattered and driven from the field.
Strange to say, twenty men were killed on the Federal side and fifty
prisoners taken, and only one man struck on the Confederate side.
This was General Forrest’s forage master, who was standing by his
side, and called his attention to some object. While speaking, he
was struck by a spent ball, which flattened on his forehead without
penetrating the skull, and the officer fell stunned, but soon revived
and only suffered the inconvenience of a severe headache.
Every nerve was now strained to reach the river. The sun was at its
meridian when General Forrest rode up and looked across the currents
that swirled between him and safety. The skiffs on the other side
of the Tennessee, and the flatboats which had been sunk after the
passage on the 15th, had been raised, under the direction of Jeffrey
Forrest, who, with the speed born of the extremities of the hour,
with a small following had galloped forward to put in readiness the
meagre flotilla with which the retreating Confederates might cross
the river and find safety from their numerous and aggressive foes.
When General Forrest arrived, the boats were ready to move, the
horses were detached from all the wagons and artillery, driven
into the river and made to swim across. The same process was gone
through with the cavalry horses. It was a wonderful sight to a
looker-on,—hundreds of horses struggling in a swollen stream. All
understood what even an hour’s delay might mean. The beasts could
swim, but no man could endure the freezing waters, or hope after half
a mile of immersion under its chilling currents to emerge on the
other side alive. Logs were searched for in the drift, fence rails
were hunted. These were lashed together with grape vines, halter
ropes or bridle reins, and on these improvised rafts, bushes and
drift were piled, and with poles or board paddles, pushed and pulled
across the stream.
The artillery and wagon horses and a majority of the cavalry mounts
were animals which had been captured from the Federals. The supreme
hour was at hand. Only the speediest action could hold out the
slightest hope of escape. One section of artillery, under Captain
Douglass, and one regiment were posted a mile away from the ferry.
These were directed to fortify their position as best they could,
to hold it in the face of all odds, under all circumstances, and to
fight even to annihilation. Only brave men, who have received such
a command, can realize how calmly human courage rises to its very
zenith under such conditions. No one detailed for this important duty
sought relief. Forrest himself told them they must stay and if need
be, die to save their comrades. They made no excuses, they asked no
exemption. They were ready to serve as told and, had the occasion
required, every man was ready to fall where his country, at that
hour, called him to stand.
The river was eighteen hundred feet wide, but it had banks which were
favorable for the escape of the animals from the stream.
From twelve o’clock until eight o’clock at night, the flatboats
pulled up stream half a mile and were then permitted to drop down
with the current, and were drifted and poled across, and after eight
hours the five pieces of artillery, six caissons, sixty wagons and
four ambulances, equipments of all kinds, and the whole command had
been carried over the swollen stream and were landed on the eastern
side of the river. Thirty-six hours out from Parker’s Cross Roads,
where Dunham and Sullivan and Fuller had raised such a rough-house
with Forrest, he had marched forty miles, and safely passed all
his forces with their horses and trains over the Tennessee. This
remarkable feat again demonstrated Forrest’s wonderful wealth of
resource, and served notice on his enemies that there was nothing he
would not dare and few feats that he could not accomplish.
Fourteen days had elapsed since the passage of the river, but what
marvelous experiences had Forrest and his raw levies passed. They
had traveled over three hundred miles, had been in three sternly
contested engagements, with daily skirmishing, had destroyed fifty
large and small bridges on the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, and had
burned trestles, so as to make it useless to the enemy; had captured
twenty stockades, captured and killed twenty-five hundred of the
enemy, taken and disabled ten pieces of artillery, carried off fifty
wagons and ambulances with their teams, had captured ten thousand
stands of excellent small arms and hundreds of thousands of rounds
of ammunition, had returned fully armed, equipped and mounted; had
traversed roads with army trains which at that season were considered
impassable, even by horsemen. Only one night’s rest in fourteen days
had been enjoyed, unsheltered, without tents, and in a most inclement
winter, constantly raining, snowing and sleeting; but these wonderful
men had endured all these hardships, neither murmuring, complaining
nor doubting, but always cheerful, brave and resigned to do any and
every duty that sternest war could bring.
This one campaign had made Forrest’s new troopers veterans. There
was now no service for which they were not prepared. They were ready
to follow their leader at any time and everywhere, and thereafter no
troops would perform more prodigies of valor or face a foe with more
confidence or cheerfulness; and yet before them were many of war’s
sacrifices, dangers, disasters, toils and trials, which would call
for the best that was in man.