MIDDLE TENNESSEE
After our return from this raid, we rejoined Bragg’s army near
Murfreesboro, Tenn.; and Generals Wheeler and Forrest took all the
cavalry and made a raid on Fort Donelson. Against General Forrest’s
judgment, General Wheeler, the senior in command, decided to attack the
garrison. With heavy loss, we were repulsed, and retired without
accomplishing anything.
Our next move was to join the forces of General Van Dorn in Middle
Tennessee; and on March 5, 1863, we surrounded Thompson’s Station, on
the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, and, after a sharp fight,
captured the garrison and 1,306 men, including the two commanders,
Colonels Coburn and W. R. Shafter. The latter was a conspicuous general
in the Spanish-American War of 1898.
We spent March fighting detachments in and around Franklin, Tenn. On
March 25 we captured Brentwood and destroyed the bridge over Harpeth
River between Franklin and Nashville.
Here I had another close call. The Union Army had sent out a large force
after us, and had succeeded in getting between a part of our command and
the river, forcing us to ford at a point extremely dangerous. We were
fighting as we ran, and were compelled to jump our horses from a high
embankment into the river. My horse carried me under to a great depth;
but he was not disabled, and, by great exertion, came up and swam
across. Some of our men were drowned, and many were shot by the enemy as
the mass of men and horses struggled in the river.
I had read, as a boy, the thrilling story of Israel Putnam’s reckless
ride over a precipice, but I never dreamed that I would one day be
forced to the same extremity.
In the hard school of war I learned that, under the stress of great
danger, a man, in mind and body, will perform the unbelievable.
After making our get-away from Harpeth River, on April 10, we had
another fight at Franklin, Tenn., capturing the enemy’s wagon train, two
cannon, and a number of prisoners. We then returned to Bragg’s army in
the vicinity of Chattanooga.
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