Confederate wizards of the saddle /

by Bennett H. Young

Both sides felt the importance of the issue, and both were eager to secure the advantage in positions. Forrest’s artillery, always well placed, was now concentrated upon the Federal lines. The men in blue advanced resolutely to within a hundred and eighty feet of the artillery, but they only came to be repulsed with great slaughter. The Confederate leader thought it was better to make this first an artillery fight, and to reserve his small arms for the later period, when the second force should try issues with him.

Colonel Dunham, in command of the Federals, showed himself to be a fighter. Repulses did not weaken the courage of either himself or his troops, and they renewed charge upon charge. At last his lines were broken, and his men left their cover and ran across the field, where many of them were captured and slain.

Colonel Starnes attacked the enemy in the rear. He had been detached for making this kind of assault; always one of Forrest’s chief maneuvers, who often declared that one man in the rear was worth two in the front. On Starnes’ arrival in the field, white flags were hoisted and Forrest and his troopers were masters of the situation.

While Forrest was congratulating himself upon his safety, Colonel Carroll, a staff officer, rose up to inform him that a superior number of Federals had come into action and were now in his rear. This was a great surprise and an unlooked-for emergency. A full brigade of fresh troops, now behind him, pressed on with remarkable vigor and spirit, and the attack was so sudden and fierce that two hundred and fifty of Forrest’s men were captured, four caissons and two brass cannons were disabled in an attempt to withdraw from the field, and these were abandoned, with a loss of a number of troopers and some artillery.

The newcomers were quite as game as the men who had withstood Forrest’s several assaults. They poured a heavy fire into the Confederate line sustained by their artillery and fiercely and furiously assailed the several Confederate positions. It looked as if the wily Confederate leader had been caught napping, and that favoring fortune, which had so often and so propitiously come to his rescue, was about to desert his standard and give the victory to his enemies.

With only a hundred and twenty-five men, Forrest made one of his characteristic dashes upon the artillery of the enemy, which was being served in such efficient manner as to inflict great loss. Fortunately the horses attached to three of the pieces took fright and ran in the direction of the Confederate lines, where they were seized and driven away.

In the meantime, Colonel Starnes had attacked Dunham’s rear and this halted him, and enabled General Forrest to capture General Dunham’s wagon train with all his supplies, and this was skillfully carried from the field.

General Forrest had now all the fighting he wanted for one day. He had put in nine hours. Twenty-five officers and men had been killed, seventy-five wounded and two hundred and fifty captured. Three caissons, five wagons and mules and seventy-five thousand rounds of ammunition had been left with his enemies.

The Federals had fared even worse than the Confederates. A colonel and lieutenant colonel and one hundred and fifty rank and file had been wounded; fifty dead lay on the ground.

Forrest, with twelve hundred fighting men, had whipped eighteen hundred and then finally stood off a fresh brigade. It was not often that General Forrest was taken unawares, and those who knew his marvelous ability to get information wondered how General Sullivan with a fresh brigade could approach his rear and attack it without notice. Forrest, however, had not forgotten to look after this end of the line. The directions were misunderstood by the officer. He, hearing the guns, deemed it necessary to make a detour in order to reach Forrest. Had this officer promptly reported the presence of Sullivan, Forrest would have been able to destroy Dunham before the arrival of fresh Federal forces, and then with his usual vehemence turned upon the Federal reenforcements and chosen his battlefield with his fresher foes. For once the Confederate chieftain was glad to get out of reach of his enemies. He felt that he had fully enough of conflict, and his best thoughts and energies were engaged in devising ways and means to extricate his command from what even he, chief of military optimists, must admit was a most difficult and dangerous situation.