FORREST’S PURSUIT AND CAPTURE OF STREIGHT, APRIL 28-MAY 3, 1863
The Battle of Murfreesboro closed on January 2d, 1863. The Army of
the Cumberland under Rosecrans and the Army of the Tennessee under
Bragg made no important moves or advances until late in the spring.
Both armies had suffered a tremendous shock and great decimation, and
it took them some time to recover from the effects of that frightful
conflict.
Among the most enterprising Federal officers in the Army of the
Cumberland was Colonel Abel D. Streight. Born in Wheeling, New York,
in 1829, he was at this time just thirty-four years of age. He had
recruited the 51st Regiment of Indiana Infantry, and his regiment had
been a part of the Army of the Cumberland for some months. The story
of success of the Confederate raids of Wheeler and Forrest and Morgan
and Stuart had kindled the desire among some of the Federals to carry
out similar operations.
During the time that Rosecrans and Bragg were waiting to get ready
for another great battle, Streight conceived the brilliant plan of
moving a cavalry brigade up the Tennessee River by boats to a point
near Tuscumbia, Alabama, and there disembarking, march a little south
of east to Rome, Georgia, a distance of a hundred and sixty miles.
Although an infantryman, he had pondered the marvelous raids of the
western cavalry and he longed to imitate the example of the horsemen.
He calculated that along the route of his march, both coming and
going, he could play havoc, and destroy at will all manufactories
and other property which could be, directly or indirectly, used for
the maintenance of the war. It required a man of great genius and
transcendent courage at that period of the war, who had no more
experience than Streight, to organize and carry out such a scheme.
He argued if Forrest in Mississippi, Wheeler in Tennessee, Alabama
and Georgia, and Morgan in Tennessee and Kentucky, could successfully
win out in their raids, he also might hope for equally good fortune.
It was as bold if not a bolder feat than any Confederate cavalryman
up to this time had undertaken. Streight deserved in this expedition
more than fate accorded him. There had been some Federal companies
recruited in the northern part of Alabama. Quite a portion of the
people in that part of the state were disloyal to the Confederate
cause. Frequent invasions of the Federals had developed this spirit
of resistance to the authorities of the Confederacy and also promoted
enlistments.
Streight had come in contact with these companies of cavalry which
had been recruited while refugeeing from Alabama. They would be
thoroughly familiar with the route Streight intended to travel.
Without the assistance of guides like these, such an expedition would
be impossible. He had heard of the disloyalty of these people, and he
was sure they would be glad to welcome his coming into their midst,
and would in considerable numbers flock to his standard.
In a little while, Colonel Streight, who in sleep or waking pondered
his plans, had so far worked out his project that he put it on paper
and submitted it to his superior officers. They were delighted
with the possibility of such an expedition, capable of doing such
tremendous damage to the Confederacy, and his superiors concluded if
Streight was willing to risk his life and his reputation, the Federal
government could afford to risk a couple of thousand troops, as many
mules and a cannon or two. His associates encouraged him in every way
possible, commended and applauded him, and told him the government
was ready to place at his disposal all the resources necessary to
conduct such a campaign.
He was regarded by his superiors as the most daring and enterprising
man of the hour, and not a word of caution was sounded in his ears.
No echo of possible failure, or faintest warning escaped the lips of
those with whom he counseled. If they questioned, naught of their
doubts came to him.
In order that Streight’s command might start fresh and be prepared to
make a great spurt, his brigade was organized at Nashville and it was
proposed to transport it from there on eight or ten large steamers,
down the Cumberland River to the Ohio, thence to the mouth of the
Tennessee River and up the Tennessee for several hundred miles to
Eastport, Mississippi, and from this point to enter upon the real
work of the expedition. The fact was emphasized that under this
system of transportation, men and horses would start on the campaign
absolutely fresh and ready for a headlong rush of ten days. It was
calculated that possibly even more time could be consumed in the
daring work which had been assigned for this adventurous command. In
these days, on both sides men were prepared to take boundless risks.
Their hopes and not their fears were their guides. It was decided
that Streight might choose his own troops. He selected his own, the
51st Indiana Regiment. He felt that it was reliable. To this he added
the 73d Indiana, under Colonel Gilbert Hathaway, hardly less brave
and resourceful than Streight, the 3d Ohio and the 80th Illinois, and
two companies of Alabama cavalry, with a small battery. They made
up a force of two thousand men. Nobody ever seemed to think it was
necessary to advise with cavalry officers. Streight wanted to make
the raid and he felt that he could accomplish what he had proposed
and he consulted only with infantrymen. These officers, who had had
no cavalry experience, decided that mules would be more reliable than
horses, that they could do better service in the mountainous country
through which the expedition would pass, in that they could live on
less and were hardier. When they came to this conclusion, they made
their great mistake. It was strange that men with the experience and
judgment of the Federal officers who were advising Colonel Streight
would permit him to start out with untrained animals. At Nashville,
they gave him a few hundred mules, some two years old, many unbroken,
and a number of them in the throes of distemper. As the expedition
was to be one of spoliation, the impressment of horses was to be an
essential for success. The troops and such mules as could be spared
were placed on steamers and brought down the Cumberland River, to
a landing called Palmyra, and there they marched through to Fort
Henry on the Tennessee River. This march ought to have been done in
a few hours, but it required four days. Streight’s men were sent out
in every direction in squads and singly to scour the whole country
and impress every mule that could be found. They spared nothing that
could walk or which could be saddled, and they took everything of
the horse or mule kind that was attainable in the territory through
which they forayed. With all this diligence and impressment they were
still short of mounts. They had saddles and bridles, but they had no
animals on which their equipment could be placed. After re-embarking
at Fort Henry, with a convoy of a brigade of marines, and several
gunboats, Streight reached East Port, Mississippi, where he put his
men ashore and dismissed the boats.
General Granville M. Dodge, in command of the Federals in that
locality, had been directed to give Streight every possible
assistance. Dodge was twelve miles away from where Streight landed,
but the leader of the expedition immediately rode over to where Dodge
was. The Federals numbered some seven thousand or eight thousand men.
Colonel P. D. Roddy, with a small brigade of Confederate cavalry,
intercepted the advance of Dodge’s troops. It was the plan that Dodge
should make a feint for a few miles into Alabama. This would protect
Streight until he got started on his march, and would also terrorize
the Confederates by threats of an invasion by a larger force.
At Eastport, the troubles of Colonel Streight began. Mules when
broken are patient workers, but they are very uncertain performers,
and when thirteen hundred had been corraled they all set up a loud
braying. For a while this puzzled and disturbed the Confederates,
but in those days Confederate cavalrymen were very quick-witted and
they took in the situation and stole across the picket lines covering
Streight’s men and mules, crawling in amongst them, and began hooting
and yelling and firing their pistols and guns. This was a new
experience for these long-eared military appliances; they immediately
stampeded, and at daybreak Streight found four hundred of his best
mules gone. This was precious time wasted. He spent thirty-six hours
in recovering his lost property, but more than half of the mules
never came back. They had been picked up by Roddy’s scouts, who
thanked God for this addition to their mounts.
Roddy and Colonel William A. Johnson, with three small Alabama
regiments, were plugging away at Dodge’s advance, and so thorough
were their efforts that it took practically four days to reach
Tuscumbia. Here Streight brought up his own men and mules, and
Dodge gave him six hundred mules and some horses, together with ten
thousand rations of bread and six wagons. The Federal leader realized
the tremendous task that he had undertaken. He looked over all those
who were to go with him, and saw to it that the faint-hearted and the
physically ailing dropped out of his column.
Colonel Streight, with all his courage, was afraid of one man. That
man was General Nathan Bedford Forrest. Dodge told Streight that
Forrest had crossed the Tennessee River, and Streight knew well
that if this was so, it meant trouble. The most precious hours of
Streight’s life were the 24th, 25th and 26th of April. The delays
made on those days were his undoing. The Confederates had not yet
apprehended the Federal purposes. They knew where Dodge was, and
they brought some cavalry down to impede his march, but they did not
know that Streight was behind Dodge and that in a few hours, like a
meteor, he was to be hurled down into their territory under orders
to make a raid of more than one hundred and fifty miles into the
very heart of the Confederacy, to destroy there what no money could
replace, and which was absolutely vital to the maintenance of the
Confederate armies at the front.
It was passing strange that the Federal government, with men wise
in so many military ways, and so many West Point men—like Sherman,
Halleck and Grant—would permit Streight’s enthusiasm to induce
authority to enter upon such an expedition without the most complete
preparation. Under the most favorable conditions, the odds were at
least even, and the Federal soldiers were certainly entitled, in view
of the risk they assumed, to the very best their government could
give. Instead, Streight got the worst. He started short of horses and
mules, and, although brave, intrepid and ambitious, he could not make
a raid without reasonably good mounts. Streight was anxious to go.
He felt that if he succeeded, he would become renowned, and forge at
once to the front as the greatest of Federal cavalry leaders.
Still lacking animals, it was decided that Streight should move out
in front of Dodge’s forces and pounce upon the unsuspecting planters
and farmers in contiguous territory. Several hundred of his men
were still unmounted. Russellville was the county seat of Franklin
County, Alabama—eighteen miles south of Tuscumbia. By swinging down
these eighteen miles, it would permit the scouts from his command
to penetrate ten miles farther, and impressment was driven to the
extremest limits. Some animals escaped, but many were taken. Turning
directly east, Streight moved up to Moulton—twenty miles distant.
This gave him still more territory for impressment and confiscation,
so that when he reached Moulton he had only a few men who had not
some sort of a beast to ride. Upon the day following, Streight left
Moulton, and on the morning of the 29th of April, Forrest was just
sixteen miles away at Courtland. By this time, Forrest had thoroughly
divined Streight’s plan. He hurried in behind him and resolved to
make escape impossible. Streight had left Moulton in the night, and
by the time Forrest reached Moulton his trail was a little cold.
Forrest told his soldiers that whatever else got wet, the cartridges
were to be kept dry. As he rode out of Courtland, a cold, drizzling
rain set in, but there was nothing could dampen the ardor and
enthusiasm of the pursuers. They were man-hunting, and that always
makes the drive furious. With hard riding, Streight had reached Sand
Mountain. He had bravely struggled to get on, but bad roads, bad
weather, inferior mounts, and the wagons and artillery held him up.
He was not sure that Forrest was behind. He earnestly hoped he was
not. Streight rested all night, while Forrest was riding most of the
night. He had only twelve hundred men and Streight sixteen hundred.
There was never a time when Forrest needed more faith in his men.
He had that faith, and he knew that if he could put his followers
to the test, they would be found always dependable. Nobody thought
about leadership or suggested anything to Forrest. The men who rode
with him believed that he knew everything, and all they asked was
to be allowed to follow where he led. Forrest, rushing his men all
the night of the 29th and the morning of the 30th, came close upon
Streight’s command without their knowledge. Both men had started just
at the dawn of day, and both were dreadfully in earnest. Streight’s
men were already marching up the tortuous road to the crest of Sand
Mountain. As the head of the column reached the summit, the bursting
of a shell at the bottom and the driving in of the pickets told
Streight that the man he feared was at his heels and had already
begun to harass and harry. No sooner had the sound of the guns been
heard than Streight, with the instincts of a soldier and the courage
of a warrior, rushed back to the rear. He wanted to be where the
danger was greatest and the conflict keenest. General Dodge had
promised Streight to hold Forrest in check; and, if he got away, to
pursue and nag him. He failed to keep his pledge.
In the beginning, Forrest underestimated both the courage and
resources of his antagonists. Up to this period in his career, he had
never struck anything that was so game and so wary as this intrepid
brigade of Streight’s. He had not then realized that they were
dauntless soldiers—led by a man as brave as the bravest. His first
idea that they would become a lot of fugitives who had neither skill
nor courage was soon dissipated. Captain William Forrest, brother of
General Nathan Bedford Forrest, was in command of the advance guards
and scouts. With a valor born of unlimited courage, he rushed up to
the fleeing Federals, now climbing the sides of the mountain. He
manifested neither fear nor discretion. He had absorbed his brother’s
genius for quick and fierce assault. In a little while he ran into
an ambuscade skillfully designed by Streight, who had left Colonel
Sheets of the 51st Indiana in the rear. A minie ball broke Captain
Forrest’s hip, and he fell in the midst of his enemies. Forrest had
been accustomed to reckless use of his artillery. It was not often
that his enemies disturbed him, but on this occasion he lost two of
his pieces, and, right or wrong, he felt that the young lieutenant in
charge of these pieces had not exactly measured up to his standard of
determination. He requested later that this young officer be assigned
to some other command. This brought about an altercation; the young
officer attacked Forrest and shot him—as was supposed to be—mortally.
Forrest, ferociously pursuing his antagonist, killed him. In death
they were reconciled: the patriotic young officer expressing joy that
his shot had failed of its purpose, that Forrest was to live and he
to die.
Fighting, fleeing, feinting, ambuscading, hammering was now the
order of the day. With his military experience and from fragmentary
statements of his captives, Forrest knew that Rome was the
destination of Streight. He understood what its destruction would
mean to his people and to his country, and he resolved first, that
Streight should never reach Rome, and second that he should never
escape from the Confederate lines into which he had so boldly and
fearlessly moved. At and about Rome, the Confederacy had unlimited
treasures—there were foundries and manufactories of arms and
munitions of war.
To his famous and gallant brother, Forrest gave only one command. He
assumed that he and his forty scouts would need no sleep—at least
they could have no rest—and so he told his brother to keep right
on down the road and get up close to see what the enemy was doing.
Streight made the mistake of ever taking any wagons at all. Climbing
these narrow mountain roads with these impediments, his speed was
greatly hindered. He had not gotten two miles from the top of Sand
Mountain when he saw he must fight. Forrest’s order to “shoot at
everything blue and keep up the scare” was driving his men with
the courage of demons to attack every blue coat, wherever it was
found. He had only one thousand men. He advanced them fearlessly and
recklessly. Streight’s men fought vigorously and viciously. For a
few moments they threw a considerable portion of Forrest’s forces
into disorder, and with a gallant and splendid charge, scattered the
advance guard of the Confederates. When Forrest was told that his
guns were lost, he was beside himself with rage. He had too few men
to use horse holders. He directed his men to tie their horses in the
forest, and then ordered every soldier to the front. The effect of
the loss of his guns upon his men he felt might destroy their morale,
and he assembled his entire force and led them in a charge on the
Federal rear. While Forrest was making these preparations to retake
his guns, Streight’s men were all ready to remount their mules and
ride in haste along the Blountsville Road. Streight had heard much
of Forrest, and he was pleased with this repulse and the capture of
Forrest’s guns. He congratulated himself that he could make a good
showing even if he faced Forrest’s veterans.
[Illustration: GENERAL STARNES]
Something like fifty of Streight’s men had been killed or wounded,
and he left his own lieutenant, Colonel James W. Sheets of the 51st
Indiana, mortally wounded on the field. There was no time for burial
services, regrets, tears or ceremonies. While Sheets was mortally
wounded, Forrest’s brother was desperately wounded. The Indiana
colonel was left in the hands of his captors, and his lifeless body
was consigned to a coffinless tomb. He died as brave men wish to
die—at the front, with his face to his foes.
Forrest had sent two of his regiments by gaps parallel with Day’s
Gap, to attempt to head off the Federals. In this, they failed
because of the long detours they were compelled to make. Forrest now
detached a portion of his command to ride parallel with Streight and
west of him, and to be sure that he would not be permitted to retrace
his steps toward Dodge’s protecting forces at Tuscumbia. It was well
into the day before Forrest and his escort and his two regiments were
able to overtake Streight again. He was once more repulsed. They
fought and battled with unstinted fury until ten o’clock at night,
and then Streight silently stole away. The Federals held their ground
with unflinching courage and far into the night, when their only
guide was the flash of their guns. Forrest had one horse killed and
two others wounded under him in this encounter. A flank movement
impressed upon Streight the danger of his position, and he hurried
away, leaving his dead and wounded in possession of his foes, and
Forrest retook his guns. They had been dismounted, spiked and the
carriages destroyed; but he had them, and, though useless, he had
regained them from his foes.
Streight had a great helper with him, a man who had not so much
experience, but he had as much courage. This was Colonel Gilbert
Hathaway, of LaPorte, Indiana. In August, 1862, he had recruited a
regiment which was mustered in at South Bend. He and his command had
been at Stone River, and there paid very heavy toll. His soldiers
were well drilled and seasoned. Colonel Sheets had gone down at
the front with the 51st, and since he fell, Streight laid heaviest
burden upon Colonel Hathaway. Streight had now behind him a man who
knew neither faintness nor fear, and when he rode away, Forrest and
his men rode savagely behind him. Two or three hours had elapsed,
when the impact in the rear was so fierce that Streight decided to
use another ambuscade to stop, if possible, until daylight, the
impetuosity of the pursuers.
With the obscurity of the night, Streight had used great skill and
genius. Forrest called for volunteers to ride into the Federal lines
and develop their fire, so that he might fix the position of his
foe. Lots of men volunteered, but three were selected. They rode in
knowingly to the death trap that had been arranged with such care and
cunning. All three came out of a storm of shot and shell untouched.
No sooner had the scouts informed General Forrest of the position
of the enemy, than he ordered forward a piece of artillery, filled
almost to the mouth with canister. Noiselessly, the artillery was
pushed up to the Federal position, and then by the moonlight, the
inclination of the gun was fixed so as to reach where Forrest had
been told the Federals were. It was three o’clock in the morning,
an hour that tries men’s nerves. A second piece of artillery was
brought into requisition. This disturbed Streight and his men, and
they were called in and hurried on to Blountsville. From Day’s Gap to
Blountsville was forty-three miles. It had been a march of fighting
and ambuscading, marked on both sides with noblest courage. At
Blountsville, there was yet hope for Streight. If he drove due north,
he was only thirty miles away from Guntersville, on the Tennessee
River. There he might be safe; but Streight had started out to go to
Rome, and to Rome he resolved to go at all hazards. Forrest felt that
the troops he had despatched from Sand Mountain to head Streight off
would meet him, if he veered from the line to Rome. Streight, true
to his plans and promises, kept on the road he had mapped out to
follow. Forrest had now been riding forty out of forty-eight hours,
and for more than a third of the time he had been fighting. Seeing
that Streight had now resolved to keep upon the direct course toward
Rome, Forrest did the wisest thing that any cavalry officer could do.
He concluded to rest his animals, and give his men two hours’ sleep.
The horses were unsaddled and fed the last shelled corn that they had
packed on their weary backs from Courtland.
Streight gave his men no rest, and at ten o’clock, upon the morning
of the first of May, he rode into Blountsville. Strange scenes
were enacted in that little town on that May Day. People from
the surrounding country had come into the village to enjoy the
festivities of such a holiday. They had driven or ridden their best
horses and mules. There was food enough in town for Streight’s men
to eat and enough fresh animals to assure every man in blue a mount.
The pleasures of the picnic were rudely shattered; robbed by hungry
Federals of baskets or lunches, they scattered like bird coveys, and
from the homes of friends, hidden behind fences, or peering from the
bushes with grief, rage and indignation, they witnessed their family
steeds unhitched or unsaddled, harnessed with cavalry equipments,
forced into the Federal column, and galloped away with the hated
soldiers on their back. Girls, with tears raining down their cheeks,
saw their pet saddle horses fade into the dim distance. The older men
groaned in spirit, and the young men writhed in anguish to realize
that the mounts which had long been their chiefest pride were thus
ruthlessly taken from their possession. This first of May was the
dreariest and saddest that ever came into the lives of Blountsville
folk.
Refreshed with food and a momentary rest, the Federal leader realized
that all impedimenta must be thrown away; that to escape Forrest, he
must march with quicker gait and move with longer strides. Rations
and ammunition were counted out to the men. A portion of the contents
of the wagons were packed upon mules. He parked his wagons and set
them afire. They had hardly begun to burn when the 4th Tennessee
Regiment, under Starnes, charged into the village and drove out
Streight’s rear guard. Streight had rested two hours, but he had
rested the wrong two hours. Forrest’s men were fresh from their two
hours’ sleep. Streight’s rear guard was constantly and vigorously
pursued and attacked. Federals concealed in the bushes fired into the
advancing column. Here and there a man fell wounded, maybe dead, and
dying or disabled horses were the markers that were revealing to the
pursued and the pursuers the savageness of war, but none of these
stayed the men who were harrying the Federal rear guard.
Blountsville was ten miles from the Black Warrior River. The road had
become wider and smoother, but Forrest’s pursuit became still more
aggressive. Protecting the crossing by heavy lines of skirmishers on
each side of the river and pointing his two howitzers westwardly,
a spirited resistance was made by Streight, but Forrest’s men,
seemingly never tiring, charging again and again, finally broke the
line. It was five o’clock in the afternoon of May 1st when the last
Federal forded the Black Warrior River. Men sleeping on their horses,
here and there dropping from their steeds by either fatigue or sleep,
reminded General Forrest that he had about reached the limit of human
endurance, that there were some things even his trained riders could
not do. Reserving one hundred men for pursuit, he now permitted his
soldiers to go into camp for three hours. Scant forage furnished his
horses a small ration, but his men preferred sleep to food, and they
laid down to profoundest slumber. This gave Streight surcease from
battle until nine o’clock next morning, but unwisely he drove his
men every moment of the night. He reached Black Creek, four miles
from Gadsden, but he reached it with his men fearfully worn and
depressed. Forrest, true to his instincts and his knowledge of the
powers of human resistance, let every man he could spare from picket
duty enjoy a brief undisturbed repose. He calculated that he could
release some from aggressive assault and sent one of his regiments to
the rear and told them to sleep. Streight had marched during all the
night. Forrest had rested three hours, and he was thereby enabled to
begin pursuit with increased vigor. Riding at the head of his men, he
spurred them on to supremest effort, to reach Black Creek and save
the bridge. He hoped to push Streight so hard that he would not find
time to wreck or burn the structure spanning that stream.
At Blount’s Farm, ten miles from Gadsden, one of the dismal tragedies
of the expedition was enacted. On the first day of May, at 4 p. m.,
Colonel Streight reached Blount’s Plantation. There were only fifteen
miles between him and Gadsden. This plantation furnished abundant
forage for his horses. While the horses fed, the soldiers ate; a
portion standing attentive in line ready to obstruct the advance of
the Confederates. This rear guard was again vigorously attacked by
Forrest. In resisting this advance, Colonel Gilbert Hathaway was
mortally wounded. Forrest had become wary of ambuscades, and was so
cautiously watching for them that Streight declined to waste his time
in further preparing them. The rear guard was under the direction
of Hathaway. This soldier Streight was now cherishing as his best
helper. This Federal hero, leading his men in a charge, fell with his
face to the foe, crying out, “If we die, let us die at the front,”
and there he went down, covered with the glory and honor which fame
always accords to the brave. There was only time for comrades to
request a decent burial for the brave Indiana colonel who had died so
far away from home, and had been cut down in the full pride of his
splendid career. These officers had known different experiences from
the Confederates. They had been accustomed, when men of rank were
killed, to handsome coffins and the consoling ornaments and trappings
which robbed death on the battlefield of some of its terrors. The
owner of the plantation was asked to provide a metallic case for
the remains of the dead soldier. He mournfully said, “There are no
metallic cases in this country.” “Then give him a plain pine coffin,”
pleaded the Federal officer, now exposed to and endangered by the
fire of the advancing Confederates. “We have no coffins,” replied the
man, sadly shaking his head. “Then take some planks and make a box
and bury him and mark his grave.” “You have burned all my planks,”
replied the man, “and I have nothing with which to make even a box.”
“Then,” he pleaded once again, with the bullets whistling around
his head and with the Confederates immediately in sight, “wrap his
body in an oil cloth and bury him, for God’s sake, where he may be
found,”—and this the magnanimous planter agreed to do. He faithfully
kept his pledge, and in the Alabama garden he gave sepulture to the
gallant soldier. The Federal officer, with his enemies at his heels,
and with the Confederate bullets buzzing about his person, waved the
dust of his comrade a last sad adieu, and putting spurs to his horse
galloped away and left the dead hero with his enemies to make and
guard his tomb.
Far down in Walton County in Southwestern Georgia, a plain,
hard-working farmer of Scotch-Irish descent, known among his
neighbors as Macajah Sansom, lived at a little town called Social
Circle. He heard of richer land in Alabama bottoms and decided to
migrate. The youngest child in the family was Emma Sansom, born in
1847.
The change was not propitious for the father, and in 1859, seven
years after his change of home, he died, leaving a son and two
daughters to the care of his widow. In 1861, the lad, Rufus, the
oldest of the family, heard the call of his country and went away
as a member of the 19th Alabama Infantry, to defend its rights. The
little farm was left to the oversight of the mother and her two
daughters. War’s ravages had not reached where they lived. The son
and protector had been away twenty months, and all this desolate
family knew of war was what Rufus had written of his campaigning and
the narratives brought back by an occasional furloughed neighbor, or
some who in battle had lost a leg or an arm, and returned disabled,
bearing in their persons memorials of how terrible was real war.
The father had settled on Black Creek, four miles west of Gadsden,
on the highway from Blountsville to Gadsden. On one side of his
farm was an uncovered wooden bridge, plain and unsightly, but
saved the passers-by from fording the deep, sluggish stream that
essayed to halt man and beast on their travels across this new and
thinly settled country. The dead father had built a small doubled,
one-storied frame house from lumber sawed out of the pine trees
that grew in luxuriance on the hills, a short distance back from
the Creek. These two girls and their mother had but little of
this world’s goods. Some cows, chickens, a few pigs and a horse
constituted all their possessions. They loved their country, and they
gloried in the courage of the young man who was so faithfully and
bravely fighting at the front. Joseph Wheeler was the first colonel
of the 19th. This regiment had been at Mobile and later at Shiloh,
where two hundred and nineteen of its members had been killed and
wounded. It had marched with Bragg into Kentucky and down through
Mississippi, and later in the valley of Stone River, at the Battle
of Murfreesboro, where one hundred and fifty-one of its members were
killed or received wounds. In his simple, guileless, homely way, he
had written the awful experiences through which he and the neighbor
boys had passed, and the mother and sisters were proud of him and
loved him for the dangers through which he had come, and what he had
done made them zealous for the cause for which they had sent him away
to endure and dare so much. Each mail day—for mails did not come
often into this isolated territory—they watched and waited for the
letter to tell what the brother was doing at the far-off front. A
fifth of the neighbors and friends who made up the Gadsden company
were filling soldier’s graves in Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi and
Alabama, and these defenseless women were afraid to open the letters
that were post-marked from the army lest there should come tidings
of the death of the one they so dearly loved.
By the afternoon of May 2d, the pressure of Streight and his men by
Forrest was at its fiercest tension. Guided by his two companies of
Alabama refugee horsemen, Streight had been told if he could only
cross Black Creek and burn the bridge, that he might hope for a few
hours’ respite, and if he could not feed his weary men and wearier
beasts, he could at least let them sleep enough to restore a part of
their wasted energy, and from a few hours’ repose get new strength
for the struggles and trials that yet faced them in this perilous
campaign upon which they had so courageously come.
The rear guard was the front of the fighting, and there the plucky
and indomitable Federal leader was pleading with his soldiers to
stand firm and beat off the pitiless onslaught of the relentless
Confederates, who seemed devilish in their vehement and impetuous
charges. He had chosen men of valor for this work, and they nobly
responded to his every call.
Sitting in their cottage, mayhap talking of the soldier brother,
there fell upon the ears of these defenseless home-keepers strange
sounds: the galloping of horses, the clanging of swords, frequent
shots, sharp, quick commands. They wondered what all this clamor
could mean, and rushing to the porch, they saw companies of men clad
in blue, all riding in hot haste toward the bridge over the creek.
They were beating and spurring their brutes, who seemed weary under
their human burdens, and in their dumb way resenting the cruel and
harsh measures used to drive them to greater and more strenuous
effort. The passers-by jeered the women, asked them how they liked
the “Yanks,” and told them they had come to thrash the rebels and run
Bragg and his men out of the country. They said “Old Forrest” was
behind them, but they had licked him once and would do it again.
The well in the yard tempted them to slake their thirst, and
dismounting, they crowded about the bucket and pulled from its depths
draughts to freshen their bodies and allay the fever that burned
in their tired throats. They asked if they had any brothers in the
army; and not to be outdone, the women said they had six, and all
gone to fight the Yankees. Two cannon went rumbling by. The men on
their horses were belaboring them with great hickory wythes, and were
driving at a mad pace to get over the wooden bridge. Some of the
blue-coated men came in and searched the house for guns, pistols, and
opened and pried through the drawers of the wooden bureau, and looked
in the closets and presses and under the beds; but they found nothing
but a side saddle; and one, more malignant than the others, drew his
knife from a sheath dangling by his side, and slashed and cut its
skirts into small pieces and threw them upon the floor at the feet of
the helpless women.
The line grew thinner. In double and single file some stragglers were
all that was left of the men in blue, and then the rear guard came,
and over the creek the women saw the cannon on the banks, the horses
unhitched, and the little Federal Army dismounted, scattered out
among the trees and bushes and standing with guns in their hands,
waiting for somebody else to come. They saw the men tear the rail
fence down, pile the rails on the bridge, and then one started into
the house; and, seizing a piece of blazing coal from the chimney
place, ran in haste to the bridge and set fire to the brush and
rails, and the flames spring high into the air. They looked down the
road and wished that some men in gray would come and drive away these
rude soldiers who had disturbed the peace of their home, ungallantly
destroying their property, and cutting into fragments their saddle
which had come as a gift from the dead father whose grave was out in
the woods near the garden gate. As they looked down the road, they
saw one single blue-uniformed man riding at highest speed, rushing
along the highway as if mad, waving his hands and beating his tired
mount with his sword. Just behind him, at full speed, came other
men, shooting at the fleeing Federals. In front of the humble home,
the single horseman suddenly stopped and threw up his hands, and
cried, “I surrender. I surrender.” Then up to his side rode with
rapid stride a soldier in gray. He had some stars on his collar and
a wreath about them, and he said to the women, “I am a Confederate
general. I am trying to capture and kill the Yankee soldiers across
the creek yonder.”
Standing on the front porch of the house, these women watched these
startling and surprising proceedings. The leader who was pursuing
this single soldier in blue sat on his panting steed at the gate.
The young girls knew that the gray uniform meant friends, rescue,
kindness, chivalry. They walked to the fence and outside the gate
touched the bridle of their deliverer’s steed and patted his
foam-covered neck, and looked up into the face of the stern soldier,
without fear or dread.
[Illustration: MAP SHOWING LINE OF FORREST’S PURSUIT AND CAPTURE OF
STREIGHT, AND WISDOM’S RIDE]
With tones as tender as those of a woman, the officer who had
captured the Federal vidette said, “Do not be alarmed. I am General
Forrest, and I will protect you.” Other men in gray came riding in
great haste and speedily dismounting left their horses and scattered
out into the forest on either side of the road. The youngest girl
told the Confederate general that the Yankees were amongst the trees
on the other side of the creek, and they would kill him if he went
down toward the bridge. She did not realize how little the man in
gray feared the shooting. Now the flames from the burning rails and
bridge timbers began to hiss and the crackling wood told that the
bridge was going into smoke and ashes and no human power could save
it from ruin and destruction.
The leader said, “I must get across. I must catch these raiders.
Can we ford the creek, or are there any other bridges near?” “There
is no bridge you can cross,” the younger girl replied, “but you and
your men can get across down there in the woods. If you will saddle
me a horse I’ll go and show you where it is: I have seen the cows
wade there and I am sure you, too, can cross it.” “Little girl,”
the general exclaimed, “there’s no time for saddling horses. Get up
behind me”; and, seeing a low bank, he pointed her there. She sprang
with the agility of an athlete upon the bank, and then with a quick
leap seated herself behind the grim horseman, catching onto his waist
with her hands. The soldier pushed his spurs into the flanks of the
doubly burdened horse and started in a gallop through the woods, by
the father’s grave, along the path indicated by his youthful guide.
The mother cried out in alarm, and with ill-concealed fear bade her
child dismount. General Forrest quietly said, “Don’t be alarmed; I’ll
take good care of her and bring her safely back. She’s only going to
show me the ford where I can cross the creek and catch the Yankees
over yonder before they can get to Rome.” There was something in the
look of the warrior that stilled fear for her child, and with eager
gaze, half-way consenting, she watched them as they galloped across
the corn field. They were soon lost to sight in the timbered ravine
through which the soldier man and the maiden so firmly seated behind
him now passed out of view. Following the branch a short distance,
General Forrest found that it entered Black Creek three-fourths of
a mile above the bridge. Through the trees and underbrush, as she
saw the muddy waters of the stream, she warned her companion that
they were where they could be seen by the enemy, and they had better
get down from the horse. Without waiting for the assistance of her
escort, she unloosed her hold from his waist and sprang to the earth.
[Illustration: EMMA SANSOM]
The soldier, throwing his bridle rein over a sapling, followed the
child, who was now creeping on her hands and knees along the ground
over the leaves and through the thicket. The enemy saw the two forms
crouching on the soil and began to fire at the moving figures in the
bushes. Fearing that she might be struck, the soldier said, “You
can be my guide; but you can’t be my breastwork,” and, rising, he
placed himself in front of the heroic child, who was fearlessly
helping him in his effort to pursue her country’s foes. Standing up
in full view of the Federals, she pointed where he must enter and
where emerge from the water. Her mission was ended. The secret of
the lost ford was revealed. Streight’s doom was sealed. The child
had saved Forrest in his savage ride, ten miles and three hours’
time, and now he felt sure that Rome was safe and that Streight and
his men would soon be captives in his hands. As they emerged into an
open space, the rain of bullets increased; and the girl, not familiar
with the sound of shot and shell, stood out in full view and untying
her calico sunbonnet, waved it defiantly at the men in blue across
the creek. The firing in an instant ceased. They recognized the
child’s heroic defiance. Maybe they recalled the face of a sister
or sweetheart away across the Ohio River in Indiana or Ohio. They
were brave, gallant men, the fierceness of no battle could remove
the chivalrous emotions of manly warriors. Moved with admiration
and chivalrous appreciation of courage, they withdrew their guns
from their shoulders and broke into hurrahs for the girlish heroine
who was as brave as they, and whose heart, like theirs, rose in the
tumult of battle higher than any fear.
Forrest turned back toward his horse, which was ravenously eating the
leaves and twigs from the bush where he had been tied. The bullets
began whistling about the retreating forms. She heard the thuds
and zipping of the balls; and, with childish curiosity, asked the
big soldier what these sounds meant. “These are bullets, my little
girl,” he said, “and you must get in front of me. One might hit you
and kill you.” Two or three went tearing through her skirt. General
Forrest was greatly alarmed for the safety of his protege. He covered
her more closely and placed his own body as a bulwark to defend her
from shot or shell. He trembled lest he might be compelled to carry
her back dead in his arms to her mother and sister, and he groaned in
spirit and thought what could he say to the stricken mother if her
child were killed. Death for himself had no terrors. He had faced
it too often to experience even a tremor, but the strong, brave man
shuddered lest harm should come to the child who had, with so stout
a heart, served him and his country. Riding with quickening speed,
he galloped back to the house. He tenderly placed his hand upon the
red cheeks of the girl, now glorified in his eyes by her wonderful
courage. He bowed to the mother and sister. He requested the daring
lass for a lock of her hair, and gave orders to instantly engage the
foe. He sent aids to direct the artillery to the newly-found ford,
and while they were moving with all haste into position, he drew from
his pocket a sheet of unruled paper and wrote on it:
Headquarters in Saddle,
May 2d, 1863.
My highest regards to Miss Ema Sansom for her gallant conduct while
my forse was skirmishing with the Federals across “Black Creek”
near Gadisden, Allabama.
N. B. FORREST,
Brig. Gen. Com’d’g N. Ala.
In half an hour this simple-hearted, untutored country child had
won enduring renown. She had risen to the sublimest heights of
womanly courage—written her name on fame’s scroll in most brilliant
letterings, and taken company with the world’s noblest heroines. The
opportunity came her way, she took advantage of all it brought, and
reaped a harvest of immortality—the most generous award that fate
could bestow.
Emma Sansom married October 29th, 1864, C. B. Johnson, a private in
the 10th Alabama Infantry. She, with her husband, moved twelve years
later to Calloway County, Texas. Her husband died in 1887, leaving
her to care for five girls and two boys. She died in 1890 and sleeps
in the Lone Star State.
The Gadsden Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy
erected a monument to her memory, which was dedicated in 1906. It
rests on a stone base, with a statue of General Forrest with Emma
Sansom riding behind. It was built on the banks of the Coosa River in
the city park and has carved on the base, these words:
In memory of the Gadsden, Alabama, girl heroine, Emma Sansom, who,
when the bridge across Black Creek had been burned by the enemy,
mounted behind General Forrest and showed him a ford where his
command crossed. He pursued and captured that enemy and saved the
city of Rome, Georgia. A grateful people took the girl into their
love and admiration, nor will this marble outlast the love and
pride that her deed inspired.
The Sansom farm is now the site of Alabama City—a hustling, vigorous
cotton town. Gadsden has grown to be a flourishing city, the result
of the development of the Alabama iron and cotton trade, and an
electric line connects the two places. The Sansom house still
remains. The family have been widely scattered. A mill worker rents
the old home. The father’s grave, with its stone monument which was
erected to his memory, is in a cottage yard nearby; but these sad
changes cannot dim the glory of Emma Sansom’s fame, or depreciate the
love and admiration of the men and women of the Southland for the
patriotic courage of the mountain lass.
Within less than thirty minutes after the time that Forrest had
saluted Emma Sansom, his artillery was in place, and the Federals
on the east side of Black Creek were driven away. It was short work
to cross the stream. The guns, with ropes tied to the tongues, were
hauled down to the bank of the stream; the ropes were carried over
and hitched to two artillery horses; and, through the rough ford, the
cannon were pulled across.
These were covered with water; but that did not hurt the guns. The
ammunition was taken out of the caissons, handed to the soldiers who
rode across carrying it in their arms, and, when on the other side,
it was quickly replaced. No sooner was a portion of the advance guard
across than they took up a furious gait, pursuing the Federals into
Gadsden.
No time was given for Streight and his men to do damage there. It was
now well toward noon of May 2d. Forrest had kept well in touch with
the troops which were traveling parallel with Streight. They were not
up, but they were in reach. His escort, by wounds, fatigue and death,
had been reduced one-half. The brave Tennesseans, under Biffle and
Starnes, melted away until there were but five hundred left. Some had
fallen in fatigue and sleep from their steeds. Others were wounded
and died by the roadside. Streight now realized that there was no
escape for him to the west: he must go to Rome. He hoped still to
outride his relentless pursuers.
Gadsden, on May 2d, 1863, produced both a heroine and a hero—Emma
Sansom and John H. Wisdom.
The Federals reached Gadsden about twelve o’clock, m. They came into
the town on the main Blountsville Road, and they came with much
haste. The author had passed through the town five months before,
when on sick leave. It was an insignificant village and had little
to tempt an enemy or to feed a friend. He rode by the Sansom home,
stopped for a meal, a drink at the well, talked to the mother and two
daughters—little dreaming that the younger would, in less than half a
year, spring into a world-wide prominence.
The failure to stay Forrest and his followers at Black Creek had
disspirited some of Streight’s officers and men. These had lost
something of their buoyancy of march, and dark forebodings loomed
up in their minds. They rode as fast as their wearied mounts would
allow, the three and a half miles from the Creek to Gadsden. Emma
Sansom, by revealing the lost ford—the track the family’s cows so
long had used—saved Forrest much of time and ride. Hardly had the
men in blue dismounted in Gadsden before, a mile out, they heard
the clatter of Enfields and the shouts of conflict. They had long
hoped for a brief rest. They were confident Forrest would be delayed
at least three hours at Black Creek. They were now to learn that
Forrest’s delays were most uncertain quantities.
A small stock of provender for beasts and food for man had been
collected from the surrounding country by the Confederate
commissaries; but the country was illy provisioned and there was
but little to either impress or buy. The vigorous onslaught of the
Confederate vanguard soon drove the Federals out of the town and the
new-comers promptly extinguished the fires that Streight’s men had
kindled.
General Forrest, always well up to the front, rode rapidly into the
village. He divined that Streight might push on a detachment towards
Rome and mayhap do savage work there before he and Streight might
reach the river. He called for volunteers to ride to Rome, cover the
sixty miles’ space intervening between Gadsden and Rome, and prepare
the people there for the coming raid. The younger men had long since
gone to the front. The astute Confederate general was no mean judge
of human endurance. Amongst his wearied men and jaded steeds he
doubted if there was one who would cover the sixty miles in time to
save the town; but to Rome a messenger must go with all speed.
The weight of evidence seems to show that Forrest sent a messenger of
his own. There is no account of the route he traveled, and no report
ever came back to tell whether he reached Rome. There were men other
than Forrest who loved their country and who would nobly respond to
its call.
John H. Wisdom, familiarly known in that country as “Deacon Wisdom,”
because of his connection with the Baptist Church, owned the ferry
across the Coosa River at Gadsden. Here the river runs north and
south, and two roads lead to Rome—one on either side of the stream.
Streight chose the one on the west. The ferryman had gone out into
the country in his buggy early in the morning, and when he returned
at three o’clock in the afternoon, he proceeded to hunt for his boat,
which had disappeared. He could find no trace of this, and finally,
two neighbors shouted across the stream, telling him that the Yankee
raiders had come into Gadsden and turned his boat loose and sunk it,
and that they were headed for Rome.
The deacon had heard of the large foundries and manufactories at
Rome. He had never been there, but he knew their value to his country
was beyond count, and in an instant he caught the burden of a great
mission. He bade his neighbors tell his wife and children good-bye
and to say that he had gone to Rome.
He had read the story of Paul Revere’s Ride. “Now something greater
than that,” he said, “is passing my way. Revere rode eighteen miles,
I must ride sixty-seven and a half miles, and two-thirds of the
distance along roads of which I know nothing. I hear voices speaking.
They tell me it is my time now—that fate is beckoning me,” said
the bronzed, wiry ferryman. “I must show myself a real man.” With
the simple faith of a child of God, he turned his eyes heavenward.
He had heard what David has said of Jehovah, and he prayed thus:
“Now, God of Israel! Thou Who dost neither slumber nor sleep, in the
darkness of the coming night, keep me and help me do this thing for
my country and my people.” The humble ferryman in an instant had been
transformed into a hero.
He sprang into his buggy, and his horse, hitherto used to kindly
and gentle treatment, felt the cruel lash upon his sides, as with
relentless fury his master forced him along the rough highway.
Wisdom calculated that it would take twenty hours for Streight to
reach Rome. He believed that he could do it in half the time. He
knew the road for twenty-two miles. Beyond that he must trust to
the signboards, to the stars and to the neighbors. The darkness had
no terrors for his brave heart. There were no telegraph wires, no
telephones, and horses were the only means of rapid transportation.
Upon his steed, and such as he might borrow by the way, he must now
rely to save his nation from irreparable ruin. There was no time to
feed the beast that had already traveled twenty miles. He led him to
the river and let him drink. Moments were too precious for more. The
weather was propitious and the panting of the weary animal in the
wild dash showed how intent was the master in his purpose to thwart
his people’s foes. This steed had probably come from Kentucky, where
speed and endurance were part of a horse’s make-up, and now he must
demonstrate that blood will tell. Wisdom measured the powers of his
animal and exacted from him all that safety and prudence would admit.
There were not many houses on the wayside, but wherever the hurrying
messenger saw a man or a woman or a child, he cried out—“The Yankees
are coming, and they are on the way to Rome!” Some were incredulous.
Many took his warning words to heart and hid their horses and mules
in the forest and buried their treasures in the earth. The messenger
had no time for roadside talk. He felt that he was on the King’s
business and must tarry not by the way. His answer to inquiries was a
wave of his hand, then lashing his reeking steed, and, madman-like,
hurrying on.
[Illustration: (_Upper_) EMMA SANSOM MONUMENT, GADSDEN, ALA. AND
(_Lower_) SANSOM HOME]
By five forty-five he had covered just one-third of the distance. He
had made twenty-two and one-half miles. The detours he felt impelled
by safety to make had increased the distance. He had gone about ten
miles an hour. If he could find two horses as good as his own, he
could reach Rome before dawn. He looked at the sun and wished that,
like Joshua of old, he might bid it stand still.
At the little village of Gnatville, he endeavored to secure a change
of steeds. The best he could find was a lame pony belonging to the
widow Hanks. He unhitched his weary, foam-covered, panting horse and
led him into the stable. The buggy spindles were burning hot and it
must be abandoned. He must now ride if he would save Rome. Borrowing
a saddle and mounting the lame pony, he listened to the many appeals
from the widowed owner to go slow. He then started toward Cave
Spring. When out of sight of the pony’s mistress, he stirred him to
greater effort. Night was now coming on, and the way was exceedingly
lonely. He watched every crossroad, and now and then a fear passed
his mind that he might miss the way. In these days, in Northern
Alabama, there were few who traveled by the stars. Five miles of
vigorous riding and whipping brought the horseman with his limping
mount to Goshen, a little past sundown. Here he found a farmer and
his son returning from their daily toil with two plough horses. The
deacon pleaded with him for a horse, and the father finally saddled
the two and told the messenger he could ride one, but his boy would
go with him and bring them back. Darkness now overshadowed the way.
The boy looked upon the forced ride with distrust and counseled
a slower gait, but the more the lad protested, the fiercer Deacon
Wisdom rode. In the stillness and silence of the night, they dashed
along in a swift gallop for eleven miles. The riders exchanged but
few words. The jolting of the fierce gait allowed no waste of breath.
Here the messenger bargained with Preacher Weems for a fresh horse.
If he was to ride nine and one-third miles an hour, no animal that
could be picked up by the way would last very long. The boy returned
with the led horse, but he had an idea that his companion of the long
ride was an escaped lunatic.
Wisdom cared little for what those he passed thought of him. He had
a message and a vision. All else was now shut out of his mind. He
rode on to John Baker’s—eleven miles further—and here he got another
mount. No sooner was the messenger out of sight of the owner of the
horse than he rushed into a swifter gait, and going down hill at a
gallop, the horse stumbled and Wisdom was thrown violently over his
head, landing in the middle of the road. He lay for a few moments
unconscious, while the beast stood near, munching the bushes in the
fence corner. Thought came back, and, half dazed, he pleaded with God
to let him continue his journey. The thought that he might now fail
burdened his soul with profound grief. He rubbed his limbs, pressed
his temples, relaxed his hands, reached down and drew up his feet. In
a few minutes complete consciousness and motion returned. Crawling,
he reached the horse, and with his hand on the stirrup, he pulled
himself half way up and finally after much effort he managed to get
into the saddle again. Once again mounted, he held the reins with
firmer grip, but still relentlessly drove his steed.
Twelve miles more brought him within six miles of Rome. It was now
half past eleven o’clock at night. He told his errand and asked for
another horse. The farmer gladly granted his request, and whipping
into a gallop, Wisdom soon saw the lights of Rome. He anxiously
peered through the darkness to see if the great wooden bridge over
the Oostenaula was still standing. He could distinguish no flames or
beacon lights of destruction along Streight’s pathway, and he knew
then that he was the first to Rome. A great joy welled up in his
heart. He had not spared himself, and he had saved his country.
He had started late, but he started fresh. He had, as Forrest would
say, “gotten the bulge on the blue coats,” and had beaten them in the
game of war.
From three-thirty in the afternoon until twelve o’clock was eight and
one-half hours. He calculated that he had lost, in changing horses
and by his fall in the road, an hour and thirty minutes. That gave
him seven hours’ actual driving and riding time. He had made an
average of over nine and a third miles in every hour he had been in
the buggy and in the saddle. He had been faithful to his country’s
call.
There were no citizens to receive him. He trotted through the
deserted streets of Rome to the leading hotel, kept by G. S. Black,
and in impetuous, fiery tones made known the cause and reason of
his coming. He pleaded with the landlord that there was no time for
delay, that everybody must awake and get busy and drive back the
Yankees. The inn-keeper told him to ride up and down the streets and
tell the startling news. It was a strange sight and strange sound as
this weary horseman shouted in the highways of Rome, “The Yankees
are coming! The Yankee raiders are coming to burn up the town.” Some
believed, some doubted, but still the tired man cried out and with
shrill calls he yelled, “Wake up! Wake up! The Yankees are coming!”
Rome was not as big then as it is now. Half dressed, scurrying hither
and thither, old men and boys came rushing out on the sidewalk to
inquire the details of the startling story of the Federal invaders.
The women and children, slower of movement, soon joined the excited
throngs, and with speechless wonderment hung with breathless interest
upon every word that fell from Deacon Wisdom’s lips. The court
house and church bells rung out with dismal warnings. These sounds
terrified even brave hearts, but to the mothers and their clinging
offspring, they appeared as omens of woe and disaster. Rome was
stirred as never before, and for the moment there was dismay and
direful dread.
There were some in this appalling hour who knew what to do. One-armed
and one-legged soldiers and convalescents were there, and in a moment
they became the recognized leaders. Squirrel rifles, shotguns and old
muskets—such as were left—were pressed into use and a little railroad
from Rome to Kingston made rapid trips, bringing in all who were
willing to help defend the town.
A little way out from Rome was the bridge across the Oostenaula
River. It was the only gateway from the west into the city. Negro
teamsters were awakened, horses and mules were harnessed and hitched
to wagons, the warehouses were broken open and everybody began to
haul out cotton bales and pile them along the highway by which
Streight must ride to reach the bridge or the town. The sides of the
bridge were filled with straw, and great stacks were piled on the
roof. The straw was saturated with turpentine, so that when the test
moment came, if the soldiers could not beat back the assailants, a
flaming bridge would bar the way of the blue-coated invaders into
the city. At least, it would stay their coming until the implacable
Forrest, in their rear, might reach the scene of action.
Captain Russell, the Federal vanguard leader, had ridden as hard as
he could ride with his weary men and his tired steeds. A little after
sun-up, he approached the stream west of Rome, and when he looked
he saw cotton breastworks and soldiers with guns behind them. On
the hill outside the town he met an old negro woman and inquired if
there were any soldiers in Rome, and she answered, “Yes, Massa, de
town am full of sogers,” and then he knew that he had lost and that
the day ride and the long night ride, with all their suffering, had
been without avail; that, though he had done all that he and his
followers could do, fate had decreed that Rome should be saved. The
defenders began to exchange shots with the invaders. The men at the
bridge fired the cannon. The Federals answered with their carbines,
but the casualties were few. Russell, with his two hundred followers,
had done all men could do. They had come as fast as they could march;
they had acquitted themselves as intrepid heroes; but John H. Wisdom,
the brave, hardy Baptist deacon, in the language of Forrest, had
“gotten there first,” had beat them to the town and told them of
their coming. Fate had decreed that Streight must fail, and Russell,
with a heart full of sorrow and disappointment, faced about and rode
back to meet his chief. While Russell looked over the river at Rome,
Streight was fighting at the Black Creek Bridge. The people of Rome
presented Deacon Wisdom with a silver service, still preserved by his
descendants as a priceless treasure, and they sent to widow Hanks,
the owner of the lame pony, a purse of $400.
Darkness, Streight’s best friend, began to hover over his weary and
depleted brigade. He had directed Russell to ride over all barriers
and to let nothing deflect him on the road to Rome. If he failed, he
hoped Russell would succeed. Russell, through the long, long hours
of the night, faithful to his orders, rode and rode and rode. After
six hours of tireless effort, Russell reached the Chatooga River.
He found a small ferryboat and managed to get his men over; but he
forgot a most important thing. He failed to leave a guard to protect
the little craft so that his comrades could find some means of
crossing when they arrived. The citizens calculated the value of the
craft and poling it down the stream, hid it where Streight’s men, in
the dark, would never discover its whereabouts.
Streight rode all night and struck the Chatooga River where Russell
had crossed some hours before. He realized that he must go higher to
get over. He found a bridge above; but it cost him a weary, dreary
night’s march. Several times his detachments lost each other, and
it was not until daylight in the morning of the 3d of May that he
got his last man across the river. He burned the bridge. He made no
halts. He had marched twenty-eight miles from Gadsden under appalling
difficulties. Most men would have stopped and either surrendered or
died in the last ditch; but Streight had started to Rome, and to
Rome he was bound to go. In this last effort, he reached Lawrence. A
little way off, near the Georgia line, he ordered his men to halt;
but there was no use for an order to halt. Nature, the greatest of
captains, issued its command; and, while their ears were open, they
heard and heeded no voices, but sank down on the ground—unconscious
and powerless in sleep.
Streight had found some provender: his horses were as weary as his
men. Still brave and hopeful, with a few of his iron-hearted and
almost iron-bodied officers, he rode through the camp, picking
out here and there a man, who with a stronger physique than his
comrades had stood the pressure of the tremendous ride and incessant
fighting. These he directed to feed the horses of their less vigorous
companions. A little while before going into camp, Streight passed
another ordeal. A squad of his returning soldiers told him the story
of Captain Russell’s failure. There were no foes in front of Russell.
Streight was between him and the pursuers. He had hoped great things
from this vanguard, and when he learned that Russell had turned back,
even his brave soul began to question whether, after all he had dared
and suffered, he must at last fail.
The scouts told him that Russell had seen Rome, but as an ancient
negro said, “Dat Rome is plum full of sogers and dem big guns is a
p’intin’ down all de roads.”
Russell had lost out, and his mission, upon which he had gone with
high hopes and bright expectations, had failed, and with a heart
burdened with disappointment and chagrin, Streight’s messenger had
turned his face back to the west.
He understood how Russell might have ridden through to East
Tennessee, or marched north to the Tennessee River, but Streight was
glad he had not deserted his commander and had come back to face with
courage any disaster or ruin that the end might bring.
No thought of yielding came into Streight’s mind. If he had chosen to
map out the future, rather than surrender, he would have preferred
death on the field amid the carnage and storm of conflict. No call
of patriotism, no appeal of duty, no echo of glory could reach the
ears of his men, now dull with sleep, or bodies overwhelmed with
weariness. In the midst of these sad and harassing surroundings,
with two-thirds of his command asleep on the ground, his persistent
enemies again appeared on the scene. They looked to him to be
tireless, vindictive, and with a strength more than human. Streight,
still game, fearless, called upon his men to respond to the rifle
shots which came whizzing from the guns of the Confederate advance.
No order or pleading could move the men, now unconscious with sleep.
With a touch of mercy in this supreme hour, when they were put into
the line of battle, they had been told to lie down with their faces
to the foe. When the foe came, they were reposing prone upon the
earth, with their guns in their hands, cocked; but the motionless
fingers had no will power behind them to pull the triggers; and
thus, ready for battle; ready, if awake, to die—but unconscious and
silent, they lay immovable and helpless. Streight walked through the
ranks of his once valiant soldiers; and, pleading with tears in his
eyes, begged them once more to rise and defend themselves from the
foe—men, who, like mad devils, had relentlessly pursued them for one
hundred and twenty hours.
[Illustration: JOHN H. WISDOM AND THE BLACK CREEK BRIDGE]
In the midst of this direful extremity, Forrest appeared at the head
of his vanguard a few hundred feet away. He was surprised that only a
few shots were fired by the enemy, and that of those he was fighting
and pursuing, there rose up only here and there an isolated form.
He sent forward a flag of truce, demanding surrender. This Streight
refused; but consented to imparl with the Confederate chieftain.
These two brave men met between their lines. Forrest told Streight
he had him surrounded, and that therefore resistance was useless;
that it could only result in loss of life, and that, in view of the
experiences of the past few days, it might be that no prisoners would
be taken. Streight inquired how many men he had with him, to which
Forrest replied, “More than enough to whip you, and I have more
coming.” Fortunately, Forrest’s artillery appeared upon the scene.
They came slowly, lashing and slashing the exhausted beasts as they
dragged the heavy guns through the sand. Streight requested that they
should not come nearer; but out in the road they made the appearance
of more guns than Forrest really had. Streight, disturbed and still
defiant, but not despairing, rode back and called a council of war.
In saddened tones, rendered even sadder by fatigue and exhaustion,
his officers advised surrender. They were as brave as Streight,
but they had less to lose. They took a more rational view of the
desperateness of the surroundings, and without a dissenting voice
advised a capitulation. Fearlessly and dauntless of spirit, Streight
still urged a last conflict. He pled with them for one more fight,
telling them that Forrest’s men were as tired as they were and they
ought not to yield with fourteen hundred soldiers in line; but the
burdens of wearied nature depressed their brave spirits and they
said, “We had better yield.”
With a calmness and courage born of a spirit that knew not fear and
with grief depicted on every lineament, if not with tears streaming
down his cheek, he told his comrades that he yielded to their
judgment; but he would never vote to give up the fight. Forrest was
glad enough to get the surrender. He granted most honorable terms,
retention of side arms and personal property. The sleepers were
awakened and marched out into an open field and stacked their guns,
and Forrest’s weary, tired men, marched between them and their only
hope. Disarmed, there was nothing to do but accept the sad fortune
of a defeat. Defeat it was; but these men were glorious even in
defeat. Streight had only one request to make—that his men might give
three cheers for the Union, and this was done with lusty shouts and
enthusiasm in the Alabama forest. These brave men, valiant and loyal
even in defeat, flung into the faces of their triumphant foes hurrahs
for their cause and their country.
Streight says, “Nature was exhausted. A large portion of my best
troops actually went to sleep while lying in the line of battle under
a heavy skirmish fire.”
Confederates and Federals were marched into Rome. To the
Confederates, it was the greatest triumphal march of the western
war. Brave men pitied the misfortune of the Federal raiders. They
deserved, though they had not achieved, success.
War’s wrecks were yet to be collected: there were Federal and
Confederate wounded along the line of this remarkable march who were
witnesses to war’s savageness. The surgeons had hastily dressed
wounds and amputated limbs; but somebody must now go back and gather
up and care for these ghastly evidences of the horribleness of
battle; and, with these, ended one of the most remarkable of all the
experiences in cavalry service on either side from 1861 to 1865.
Streight was carried to Richmond and confined in Libby prison, and
with one hundred other officers escaped through a tunnel in February,
1864. Hid by friends for a week, he finally reached the Federal
lines; and, undaunted, returned to his regiment. He was offered
command of Chattanooga; but, still brave and active, he declined the
post and asked to be assigned to active service in the field. He was
yet to see more of war. He was at Dalton when it was besieged by
Wheeler. He was at the Battle of Nashville in the winter of 1864, and
commanded a brigade in that memorable conflict. He was mustered out
of the service in 1865, returned to Indianapolis, Indiana, and opened
a furniture manufactory, and afterwards developed a wholesale lumber
business. A man of such tremendous energy and physical endurance was
bound to be successful. Elected State Senator from Marion County,
of which Indianapolis is the county seat, he introduced a bill
for the erection of the magnificent capitol since constructed at
Indianapolis. In 1880 he was candidate for governor; but was defeated
by Albert G. Porter. He died at his home near Indianapolis in 1892,
in the 63d year of his age. He was never fully appreciated by his
countrymen; and, when the story of his raid shall be fully and fairly
told, he will take a high rank among Federal heroes.
General Joseph E. Johnson once said of Forrest that if he had
received a military education, he would have been the greatest figure
of the war. General Sherman declared Forrest was the greatest cavalry
genius in the world’s history. It was his judgment that if Forrest
had been educated at West Point, it would have spoiled him; that he
was greater as an untutored military genius than if he had received
the benefits of the most thorough martial education.
North and South, the story of Streight’s pursuit filled the people
with wonder. In the South, to wonder was added an admiration which
became almost idolatry. The men and women of the Confederacy might
well adore this marvelous soldier. They placed him on the highest
pedestal. He was so great and so brave that they saw none of the
defects of his character, and nothing could make them believe but
that he was all that was good and true and patriotic and grand. They
looked upon him as a fierce, intrepid, determined, successful cavalry
soldier, who was ever courageous of heart, in whose bosom fear never
found place, and before whom difficulties melted away whenever the
touch of his transcendent power passed their way.
Harper Brothers, the publishers of Dr. John A. Wyeth’s “Life of
General Forrest,” kindly granted permission for copying several
illustrations from that splendid work.