PURSUIT OF THE STREIGHT RAIDERS
Late in April came news that the Union Army around Corinth was making a
demonstration into North Alabama.
Forrest’s genius had already become known, and he was sent with 800 men
to uncover the design of the enemy.
When we arrived in the vicinity of Tuscumbia, Ala., we found a part of
General Roddy’s Confederate command fighting and retreating before the
advancing enemy from near Cherokee.
On reaching Tuscumbia, Forrest sent out scouts in all directions to
ascertain the purpose of the enemy. Upon the reports of these scouts,
Forrest understood the general plan of the foe.
Col. A. D. Streight, in command of an Indiana regiment of infantry, was
to raid
[Illustration: MRS. JULIETTE ELGIN DUNCAN
Wife of Thomas D. Duncan]
through Alabama and on to Rome, Ga., cutting the railway and destroying
factories.
But--alas for the plan!--General Forrest did not remain in Middle
Tennessee, where they had placed him.
Learning from a citizen that Streight’s column had passed the little
town of Mount Hope, only a few miles from Tuscumbia, on the evening of
April 29, Forrest ordered every available man with a good horse to
prepare for the pursuit. With 500 of his own men and 800 from Roddy’s
command, he began the chase with 1,300 men and with Streight twelve
hours ahead.
Forrest’s calculation was that Streight would camp at the base of Sand
Mountain and begin the ascent early the next day, and so it was. Just at
sunrise our advance guard came on the enemy’s pickets. The army was
breaking camp as we came into view, and a chorus of 2,000 braying mule
voices greeted us, as Streight’s men were mounted on mules for mountain
climbing.
We were a little too late to strike the enemy in camp according to plan,
but a hasty and too eager company of our advance rushed in and fired on
the rear of the column; whereupon the enemy turned and fought back,
holding us off until he got his force on top of the mountain. Then he
placed his men back in ambush and drew us into a deadly trap. In a
rushing movement we were surprised and knocked out of all formation. It
was the only time in my entire service of four years with Forrest that I
ever saw him purturbed. He tried with all possible boldness to stem the
tide; but our men had ridden hard all night, and they simply could not
meet the advantage and the odds of fresh troops.
After losing a number of men, we “stood not upon the order of our
going,” but recoiled from the front of flame; and on our retreat the
enemy pursued us so closely that we lost two of our field pieces. Our
retreat so enraged General Forrest that he was as ferocious and wild as
a lion. He was so harsh in his treatment of the young captain of
artillery on account of the loss of his guns that he afterwards, at
Spring Hill, Tenn., attacked and shot General Forrest.
After this repulse, we brought up the remainder of our troops and
turned the pursuit and kept it up so vigorously that they soon began to
try to get away from us, and we pressed the running fight until we put
these 2,000 raiders out of business.
After this fight of Day’s Gap, on Sand Mountain, followed that long and
relentless pursuit of Streight and his men, which must forever stand as
one of the most daring and spectacular exploits of military history.
Forrest had picked 500 men for this great running fight with a foe 2,000
strong.
Our fight was, of course, with the rear guard, for our leader never
permitted us to be drawn into a general engagement.
When the enemy would set traps for us, Forrest would invariably discover
them and shell the ambush out and keep up his nagging, sleep-destroying
pursuit day and night.
It was in the course of this pursuit that we came to the deep,
high-banked waters of Black Warrior Creek and found the enemy on the
opposite bank and the bridge in flames.
Near the burning bridge lived the Widow Sanson, whose fifteen-year-old
daughter, Emma Sanson, made her name immortal in the records of the
Southern Confederacy and in the sacred, tear-stained archives of
Alabama. She it was who rode on Forrest’s horse behind him through the
zone of danger to point out a little-known and isolated ford where she
had seen her mother’s cows cross when the summer waters were low. By her
timely help Forrest was enabled to pursue the enemy’s column in its last
stretch of the long march to Rome.
For this intelligent, fearless, and patriotic service, her State, after
the war, granted to Emma Sanson a section of land and in 1907 erected a
monument to her memory at Gadsden.
Before Streight’s column reached Rome, Ga., Forrest sent a courier
around the flying foe and called upon the city officials to raise a
force and seize the bridge and either hold or burn it. The response was
prompt, and the Union commander found a hostile reception awaiting him
and the bridge barricaded and guarded with cannon.
Our advance arrived within striking distance of the enemy’s rear just
as he received the word that the city had refused to surrender, and so
the really courageous Union commander, after reaching the edge of his
goal, surrendered his nearly 2,000 soldiers to Forrest’s little band of
less than 500.
With chagrin and humiliation, Colonel Streight learned too late the
strength of the column that had harassed his troops over so many hills,
and then compelled them to stack arms.
While I was but a unit of that swift band, my experience brought to my
understanding the awful tragedy of war and taught me the strange truth
that the will and the genius of the commander are the preponderant power
of every bannered host, the fineness of a brain cell, the courage of a
heart, the coolness of a nerve, outweighing the mass of legions.
Soon after this we marched back to Bragg’s army in Tennessee. We were
sent out on scout service toward Nashville, and fought a number of minor
engagements, including those of Tullahoma and Shelbyville, Tenn. After a
little while, we joined Wheeler’s command; and our activities were then
directed against the forces of Generals Wilder and Stanley, who were
making strenuous efforts to cut the Western and Atlantic Railroad line,
Bragg’s line of communication.
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