Confederate wizards of the saddle /

by Bennett H. Young

Though Mower had not killed Forrest, on the 12th of August, 1864, he received his commission as major general, and Sherman said to Stanton: “Please convey to the President my thanks for the commission for General Mower, whose task was to kill Forrest. He only crippled him; he is a young and game officer.”

Early in August Generals Washburn, A. J. Smith, Mower and Grierson, by their joint effort, had concentrated a very large force at Memphis, consisting of ten thousand infantry, four thousand cavalry, three thousand colored troops, and three Minnesota regiments. The infantry of this contingent was moved as far as possible by rail, the cavalry was marched overland, and on the 9th of August had reached the Tallahatchie River between Holly Springs and Oxford, Mississippi. At that time Forrest had five thousand, three hundred and fifty-seven men, but the tremendous mortality among his officers had seriously impaired the efficiency of his force. Pathetically, General Chalmers informed General Forrest, “Both of my brigade commanders are wounded, also a brigade commander of General Buford’s division, and most of the field officers of the command were either killed or wounded in the late engagement.”

This advance looked formidable and sorely taxed the genius of General Forrest to face. He was opposed by nearly three to one. It was important to hold the prairie country of the Mississippi, for it was prolific of supplies. Forrest was given carte blanche by General Maury, who was then in immediate command of the territory to be invaded. Forrest was still unable to ride horseback, but nevertheless he resolved to meet his foes. General Chalmers was ordered to destroy all the bridges on the railroad leading south from Holly Springs. By the 14th of August, General Smith had reached a point nearly to Oxford, Mississippi. The force in front of Forrest was thirteen thousand infantry and four thousand cavalry. With his small force, now inadequately mounted, there was no hope for him successfully in the open to fight this great enemy. By the 18th of August Forrest had sufficiently recovered to take to the saddle. He could only use one foot in the stirrup. The other hung loose. The power of no commander in the war was taxed to a greater tension than Forrest at this moment. He dare not face and fight his foes on the field. No courage, no alignment with the past experiences of the Federal commanders and the caution and care engendered by their numerous failures could avail to halt this great army, now organized and sent out to rout and destroy Forrest. Numbers alone, in the field, could defeat this well-armed, well-disciplined corps, but, alas for Forrest, he did not have and could not get the numbers. With only one to three in the coming expedition, the task to most men would have appeared impossible. Had he taken counsel of fear and even of ordinary prudence, he would sullenly have retired before the advance and have been content with delaying his enemies and inflicting what loss he could by way of unexpected assault and quick reprisal. Strategy, skill, surprise, must now win, if winning were at all possible.

Forrest sat down to unravel the difficulties of the hour. Something must be done outside mere resistance. The hour for that expedient alone was gone. Forrest had something that oftentimes was better than legions. Nature had lavishly bestowed on this untutored soldier a something that could now and then defeat the greatest odds, and out of apparent overwhelming adversity win superbest victory. The thing Forrest had could not be bought. No education could supply it. It could only come as nature’s gift and in this supreme hour it came to the rescue of the Confederate leader. The moment called for a transcendent military genius, and this gift nature had bestowed without stint upon the unlearned but born soldier.

There was no lack among Forrest’s men of courage, and upon any dangerous or difficult expedition which he was to enter, it was not a question as to whether his men could fight, but a question as to whether their beasts could carry them to the point to which their great commander had decided to move. The selection of the best horses was now begun. All the men were good enough, but on the work Forrest had now mapped, a strong, dependable horse was as important as a hard, courageous rider. Each man did his best to put his steed upon his mettle. Every soldier was longing to go. None knew where, save the general, but that was all they asked, to be allowed to follow him. With sad hearts, hundreds of the brave troopers looked on intently while their horses were examined and condemned, and with ill-suppressed grief heard the depressing words, “Fall out.” Danger surely, physical weariness certainly, mayhap death, was ahead, but every soldier was burning to go, and when the sorrow-bringing words came that shut out all but one in three of the corps, a wide disappointment spread abroad in every regiment.

Forrest left Chalmers with four thousand men in front of the enemy. He was ordered to persistently attack and oppose them in every way possible, to delay their march and to assail their flanks and communication. Incessant rains had fallen for some days. The roads were muddy, and the streams were full to the banks. Forrest’s chance in the expedition which he now undertook was dependent upon the secrecy with which it should be consummated. If Smith knew that he was not in front, he and Grierson and Hurlbut would run over the small force commanded by Chalmers and march to Vicksburg. No sooner had the sun gone down on the 18th of August than Forrest left Oxford with his two thousand men, the best mounted that he could cull and select. The word to mount was anxiously awaited. These chosen men had gone with their leader before. It was raining furiously—had been raining almost constantly for forty-eight hours previously. With their soggy clothes hanging about their drenched limbs, they were impatient to try out another conflict, and see what glory had in stock for them in a new encounter. The darkness of night was approaching when, amid the thunder and downpour, these Forrest followers sprang into their saddles, gave rein to their steeds, and with a long drawn-out rebel yell, set forth, defying weather, to once again contest with their foes. Rain, floods, mud had no terror for them where their general and duty pointed the way they must go. Marching all night west and north, when the day dawned, notwithstanding the conditions which faced him, he had swung clear off the route of the Federal Army, and was miles away before any Federal officer or commander dreamed that Forrest was gone. Traveling all day on the 19th and part of the night, on the morning of the 20th he had reached Senatobia. This was a long ride for Forrest and his followers. One raging stream and insecure bridge were crossed, and by courier he told Chalmers that he would soon cross another, and, like Columbus, passing westward with only one command, westward, westward, he was going northward, northward.

Forrest directed Chalmers again to “Hold the enemy and press them so as to engage and hold their attention.” Chalmers was faithful to his trust. He fought all day—all night—all hours, and no whisper came to the Federal commander that Forrest was gone away. The aggressiveness of Forrest’s lieutenant hid the mystery of his departure within the Confederate lines.

General Forrest was too much of a leader not to know that this extraordinary task which he had undertaken could only be accomplished by rapid movement and by concealment of his plans. In the early part of August, in Mississippi, usually copious rains fall. The streams at that season are almost always full. This rendered them far more difficult to bridge and made fording impossible. Forrest could ferry his men and their accoutrements and ammunition and artillery, but the horses must swim. In a pinch he might, by rafting and swimming, get his men over the stream, but water was a deadly foe to powder, and without powder Forrest and his men would ride and swim in vain. This meant delay. Delay meant defeat. But above all, Forrest was a practical man. There was no emergency to which his resourceful mind could not rise. Fortunately for his plans on this occasion, the grapevine life of Mississippi is extremely exuberant. These vines run to the tops of the highest trees, sometimes one hundred and fifty feet. Larger than a man’s arms, they would send out their tendrils to the very top of the highest trees and swinging over some limb would spread out their branches and cover the tree tops. These vines were flexible, almost like ropes, very strong. Forrest undertook, as an engineer, by sending forward his best and most intelligent troopers under brave and energetic commanders, to find those grape vines and use them as cables to span the river. Finding the trees convenient to the banks of the stream, the vines were cut down, twisted around the trees, tied as best they could be, carried across the river, and attached to trees on the other side. A ferry boat was placed in the middle of the stream and anchored. Cypress and other logs were cut into proper lengths, floated into the stream and attached at certain distances to these cables. At Hickahala Creek this novel bridge was first inaugurated. Forrest was kept in close touch with his engineers, who were constructing this strangely fashioned pontoon. Within four or five miles from the stream, all the cabins, houses, barns, stables and gin houses were stripped of the flooring and shedding. Each horseman carried on his shoulder one of these planks. Within an hour the planks were laid, the soldiers dismounted, each man led his horse on the boards and crossed the stream in double file. The cables began to stretch, and by the time all the command had passed over, the planks had become submerged, the water was two feet over the flooring and with difficulty the horses could be led across. Nature seemed at this point to be piling up insuperable obstacles in Forrest’s path. He had truly gone seven miles when another stream, twice as broad and equally as deep stood out with its currents and floods to bid the Southern men stay their march. No long drawn out planning was necessary to figure out some way to outwit the defiance of Cold Water River. If a sixty-foot span could be made of grapevines, why not one of a hundred and twenty feet, and the answer was a sharp command to the pioneers to unsling their axes and build the required structure. One hundred and eighty minutes under the whip and spur of necessity saw the new bridge completed, and the men, houses, cannon and caissons speeding across the apparently unsafe length. The horses were led two abreast, the guns were unlimbered and willing hands and seasoned arms dragged them over to the side where Forrest was pointing the way, it may be to danger, but where glory they believed would crown their army and enterprise with a deserved and splendid success. This circumstance so delayed him that on the night of the 20th he was still at Hernando, Mississippi, twenty-five miles from Memphis. The condition of the roads was almost indescribable. The tramping of the horses made a foot of slush, and the wheels of the ammunition wagons and the cannon caissons cut deep ruts in the roads. The cavalry went at a slow walk, and ten horses were hitched to each piece of artillery. Notwithstanding all of these precautions, half of Forrest’s guns had to be left at Penola. It became apparent that they would not be carried along with sufficient rapidity to justify Forrest in running the risk their movement involved. Still twenty-five miles away from Memphis, Forrest knew he must travel all night. It was a task at which any leader might hesitate, but now hesitation meant disaster, and the lionhearted leader was undertaking amongst the greatest feats he had attempted to perform. Tremendous issues were involved. To save at this period Northern Mississippi Territory and to prevent the junction of General Smith’s forces with those of General Sherman at Vicksburg was vital to the hopes of the Confederate authorities. Rain, storm, mud, floods, deep currents, accelerated by torrents, were the contingencies Forrest must face, but he never had stopped for these things before and through the darkness of the night there was only one command, “Forward,” “Forward,” “Forward.” It was bad enough for those who rode. The beasts who bore the men, weakened by the already grievous burdens laid upon them, were spurred to speedier tramp, but hard as were these pressed with their human loads, the awfullest of the terrors of that terrorful night came to the dumb sufferers who pulled the swaying gun carriages and heavy caissons through the ruts and slush of the ever-lengthening pathway. No cry of mercy could avail for these speechless creations. Slashed with hickory or oak wythes, blood streamed from their mouths from the sawing of their bits to keep them straight in the sunken depths of the muddy way, they passed with indescribable suffering the horrible night. When the limits of physical resistance they reached and no longer left with strength or will to continue the impossible tasks that were being laid upon them, with sullen indifference some of these creatures, ready to die rather than proceed another step, with a determination born of despair, refused to make another effort and bade defiance to their pitiless riders and drivers, who were slashing, jerking and beating in their seemingly mad efforts to urge forward these faithful brutes who had done all they could to help in the effort to save the land of those who, with apparently merciless hearts, called for such terrible strain. Horses have wills as well as men, and defying their owners, some stood still in their tracks and no cruel blows could bring them to move a muscle or pull an ounce. The great crisis was ahead. If the one horse would go down another would be harnessed, and if the led horses had all been used, then a luckless trooper with a strong or powerful mount was bade strip his steed, stow his equipment on a gun carriage or caisson, and take his chances farther on to win from his enemies a something to ride, which the exigencies of the hour had taken away from him. The new team took up the burdens their predecessors had laid down, and the sullen horse was led out into the woods, or now and then, fearing that he might prove of value to the enemy, a shot was fired into his heart to end his sufferings or to destroy that which by some possibility might some day aid those who were fighting the cause for which he had met so violent a death.

Forrest had intended to strike Memphis on Sunday morning. One-fourth of all of his horses had broken down under the tremendous strain to which they had been subjected. There were no horses left in the country, the Federals and the Confederates had taken them all, and the dismounted men, dejected, sad and disappointed, were compelled on foot to retrace their steps along the paths which they had come.

There were three generals in Memphis that Forrest particularly desired to capture, Generals C. C. Washburn, Stephen A. Hurlbut and R. P. Buckland. They were scattered over different parts of the city. By three o’clock General Forrest had reached the limits of the city, called his troops around him, and gave to each commander accurate and definite instructions as to what would be done. Scout after scout returned to bring the details of the Federal positions, and even citizens, to whom had been secretly and silently conveyed the news of the coming, slipped by the Federal sentinels to tell Forrest all he needed to know of his enemies’ whereabouts, in order to make surprise and capture sure. Above all, it was earnestly impressed on the squads who rode into the city that there was to be no shouting, no cheering, no battle cry, and that not a gun must be fired under any circumstances. The leaders were told that if they met any Federal troops they were to ignore them, to be extremely careful, bring on no battle and engage in no fighting, but to rush forward over all that opposed.