BATTLE OF BRICE’S CROSS-ROADS
In the beginning of the spring of 1864 it became very necessary that the
granaries of South Mississippi and Alabama should be carefully guarded
against a raid from the Union forces, these sections being absolutely
essential to the sustenance of the Confederate armies. The task of
protecting this land of plenty was assigned to General Forrest.
When General Sherman was pressing back the Confederate Army under
General Joseph E. Johnston, he told his people at Washington that they
must keep General Forrest from following his rear; also that the crops
of South Mississippi and Alabama should be destroyed.
Accordingly, the Union commander at Memphis, Tenn., was ordered to
assemble the largest possible force and place it under an able
commander, so that Forrest could be permanently disposed of.
The force, when assembled on June 1, 1864, consisted of 3,500 cavalry,
under two veteran commanders, Grierson and Warring, and 4,500 infantry,
under McMillen, Hogue, and Bouton, the latter commanding a regiment of
negroes. This army carried 250 wagons and twenty pieces of artillery.
The supreme command was given to Gen. Samuel D. Sturgis, an experienced
warrior and brave fighter.
To meet this force, General Forrest had about 5,000 mounted troops, with
two batteries of artillery--Morton’s and Rice’s.
The Federal Army left Memphis on June 1 for Ripley, Miss. Upon reaching
that point, they halted and sent a cavalry force east to Hatchie River,
and circulated the report that they intended to strike the Mobile and
Ohio Railroad at Corinth, Rienzi, or Booneville, and then advance south
or go east and cover General Sherman’s rear while he was pressing
Johnston back through Georgia.
Of course this was done to mislead Forrest, hoping that he would throw
his force as far north as Corinth, leaving the enemy time to march his
force to Brice’s Cross-Roads, in which position he would block the
Confederates and force them out through North Alabama, leaving open to
Sturgis the rich country of South Mississippi and Alabama, which he so
earnestly desired to reach. But Forrest never reached conclusions upon
appearances, especially when he had reasons for believing that
appearances were being made to deceive. On the 8th of June his command
was strung out between Baldwyn, Booneville, Rienzi, and Corinth, Miss.,
as he was not yet certain as to what his foe contemplated in the
invasion of this territory. It was naturally expected that some new
tactics would be put forth by the new Union commander.
General Forrest came to our command at Baldwyn, and called for a
reliable squad of four or five scouts who knew the country through the
Hatchie Hills. I was one of the number furnished, and the General called
us before him and told us that the Union commander was circulating the
report that he was crossing the Hatchie River at Kellum’s Mill, and
that they were going to Corinth, Miss., as soon as their infantry and
artillery came up. Forrest told us that he wanted positive and exact
information on this point, and that we must go until we could secure it;
that we must not come back with a report that some one had told us so
and so, but that we must go until we could see the enemy and know as a
fact that they were there in force as represented.
Under these exacting instructions, we set forth, and reached the
vicinity of the mill about dark. We went through the woods after we had
passed the picket post, and carefully approached the miller’s house that
stood on the hill overlooking the river.
It was late at night when we reached the house; but our pilot was well
acquainted with the family, and they readily told us that the enemy had
a pontoon bridge across the river, and that at sundown of that evening
there was a brigade of cavalry on each side of the stream; but as
General Forrest had told us to go until we could see for ourselves, we
mounted and rode down to the bridge. We felt sure that we could ride in
among the enemy and secure our information without betraying our
presence if we had no mishap. In case we were discovered, we could fire
on any one attacking us, and in the confusion and the darkness we could
escape. But when we reached the bridge, there were neither soldiers nor
horses to be found, though there were visible evidences of the very
recent presence of a large body of horsemen on the ground.
The Union troopers had evidently left at nightfall, and had gone to
Ripley to join their main column for the march toward Brice’s
Cross-Roads. As soon as our captain made this discovery, he sent me back
to Booneville to tell General Forrest what was transpiring, and that the
captain and the other scouts would follow and endeavor to overtake the
enemy and report later the number of the different organizations.
I left Kellum Mill about midnight of June 8, had a hard and lonely ride,
and reached Booneville about noon of the 9th, almost exhausted, as was
my horse. I found General Forrest occupying an old warehouse as
headquarters, and reported to him. He asked me several pointed
questions, and, as soon as my message was delivered, he dismissed me and
told me to take nourishment and rest--an order which I obeyed very
punctually.
Before I got out of the building I heard the General issuing orders for
immediate preparation for marching.
At this date our forces were located as follows:
Bell’s Brigade was at Rienzi, twenty-five miles from Brice’s
Cross-Roads.
Rucker’s Brigade, with Morton’s and Rice’s Batteries, was at Booneville,
eighteen miles from Brice’s Cross-Roads.
The brigade of Lyon and Johnston was at Baldwyn, six miles from Brice’s
Cross-Roads.
General Forrest had instructed all commanders to be in readiness to
march on Brice’s Cross-Roads at daylight on the morning of June 10. He
knew that the enemy heavily outnumbered him, and that General Sturgis
was bending every effort to outmarch him to that point in order that he
might force the Confederates to attack at a great disadvantage.
It had been raining for some time, and on the night of June 9 there was
almost a deluge.
Late in the afternoon of the 9th I was unable to locate my company, as I
had left it at Baldwyn; so I rode out toward Blackland and secured
lodging in a farmhouse that belonged to a former comrade, and had a good
supper and a comfortable night of rest. I found that General Lyon, of
the Kentucky Brigade, was spending the night under the same kindly roof.
At daylight of the 10th everything in Forrest’s command was on the move.
The clouds lifted and the day grew intensely hot.
The Union commander, evidently feeling that he had the situation well in
hand, was not so zealous in getting all of his command to the
Cross-Roads.
The enemy camped on the night of the 9th of June at Stub’s farm, nine
miles from the battle field, while the bulk of our force was twenty
miles away. Sturgis sent forward his two brigades of cavalry and took
possession of the Cross-Roads, throwing forward a strong force on the
Baldwyn and Guntown Road. I marched with General Lyon’s force until we
met General Forrest with his escort, and then I fell in with the escort.
We marched rapidly until we struck the Union pickets about three miles
out on the Baldwyn Road. These we pressed back until we came up on
Warring’s Brigade, posted behind a rail fence around a small field of
corn. One organization of this command was armed with Colts’ repeating
rifles, the most dangerous weapon the war had developed up to that time.
Forrest, with only about 800 of his men at hand and facing 3,500 men,
knew the danger of bringing on a fight. The units of his army were
scattered far back on the muddy roads, moving with all possible
swiftness to the field. Never did the infinite boldness of Forrest stand
out more startlingly than at that moment of danger. He dismounted every
trooper and ordered their horses tied to the trees in our rear. Then he
strung out our thin line as far as possible, so that the enemy’s line
would not overlap us, and we marched boldly up to the opening and began
a rapid fire with our rifles. By this front we completely deceived the
enemy and held him to his first line until we were reinforced with a
part of our army. With this our force was increased to about half the
number facing us, and General Forrest now felt that he must force the
fighting in order to defeat the cavalry before the Union infantry could
come up. Meantime, General Sturgis was urging his infantry through the
intense heat. As the foot troops arrived almost exhausted, the Union
cavalry was being pressed back, and Forrest’s artillery and Bell’s
Brigade were swinging into view to reinforce the Confederates.
Forrest then resolved to stake the day on a charge against the enemy’s
infantry before it could gain time to rest and while their cavalry was
falling back.
We were then instructed to take advantage of the thick undergrowth and
conceal our advance as much as possible until very close to the enemy
and then rush the line with our six-shooters.
Forrest announced that he would take one end of our line and Rucker the
other, and that we could not fail. We believed it, because he had never
failed. Dismounting and drawing their pistols, Forrest and Rucker placed
themselves in the line of battle and went forward with us. As we moved,
there was not a word spoken in the throng--only a tense and anxious
hurrying, as much as was possible in such a thicket. As we advanced, we
were searching with anxious eyes every turn and undulation of the
landscape to discover the enemy’s line, when suddenly the long, massed
column, only a few feet in front of us, rose from a prostrate position
to their knees and delivered in our faces one of the most withering
rifle fires that our men had ever encountered. We were almost close
enough to be powder-burned by the blaze from their long Springfield
rifles, and the fire staggered us into a momentary confusion; but
Forrest was there, and a single blast of his clarion voice was worth
five thousand men in that vortex of danger and doubt. We were fighting
an enemy that had two to our one, and nothing but our confidence that,
in some way, Forrest would lead us to victory, could have sustained us.
His escort moved as one man with him, and, with revolvers drawn, we
charged the line of infantry before they could reload. Every man in our
line had from five to ten shots, and we made them count. They broke in
confusion and got away pellmell, but not before we had riddled them
unmercifully. I never saw in any battle of the war as many arms and legs
amputated as were lost at the field hospital at Brice’s Cross-Roads. It
seemed that every pistol ball found its human mark. If it did not kill,
it pierced an arm or a leg.
When the Union commander brought up his brigade of negro troops which
had been held in reserve, he told the blacks to form in line and allow
the defeated white troops to pass to their rear, and that they would
reform and support them; but about the time this arrangement was made,
Barteau’s regiment, which had been sent around to fall upon the rear of
the Union column, made its appearance, and our artillery began to rake
the retreating white troops with grape and canister. The brigade of
blacks took to their heels without firing a shot and scattered through
the woods like wild deer.
After the war, I knew an old negro in Corinth who was in the battle of
Brice’s Cross-Roads, and I asked him one day if he ran away from the
battle field. He replied: “No, boss, I didn’t run; I flew.”
A cold appraisement of this fight shows it to have been one of the most
remarkable of all military history. With a force but little more than
half as large as his enemy, this strangely gifted fighter of the
Confederacy shattered a trained army of 8,000 men, and chased the
remnant back to its base, forcing it to a speed seldom equaled in the
wildest panics of war. The panoplied and militant host of Sturgis
consumed nine days in the march from Memphis to Brice’s Cross-Roads,
but, with Forrest on its trail, what was left of that host covered the
same distance on the return in two nights and one day.
We captured 250 wagons and ambulances, eighteen pieces of artillery,
5,000 stands of small arms, 500,000 rounds of small-arms ammunition,
and all the enemy’s baggage and military stores.
But, notwithstanding the great victory, this battle took heavy toll from
our ranks.
“Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green,
That host with its banners at sunset was seen.
Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay scattered and strewn.”
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