The engagement at Parker’s Cross Roads, where the commands of Dunham and Sullivan felt that they had severely battered General Forrest, gave the Federals some grounds for believing that even he was not invincible, and encouraged them to seek another trial; and they were, though with many precautions for safety, anxious to again fight out the wager-of-battle.
Twelve miles away from the battlefield, Forrest halted to feed his men and dress the wounds of his patient followers. They had passed the highest physical tests and had come forth victorious, but even Forrest’s followers had limitations and reached a point where nature revolted and peremptorily called a halt.
The Confederate chieftain now determined to recross the Tennessee at Clifton, the same point at which he had passed it fifteen days before. In his hazardous position, this was the only hope of emerging in safety. He had left his sunken boats to rescue him in a last emergency. At no other point was there a substantial chance to find even the crudest means of passing the swollen stream, which, like a great spectre, stood out on the horizon to haunt his dreams and to thwart his escape.
The Federals were glad to leave Forrest alone, and Forrest was glad to leave them alone. With all the vigor and courage the Federals had shown in the pursuit of the Confederates, their failure at the last moment to pursue and attack him while crossing the river is one of the strange and inexplicable delinquencies which now and then appeared in the tactics of both armies, during the four years of the struggle.
When close to the river, the scouts brought information that ten thousand infantry and cavalry were moving from the direction of Purdy and towards Clifton, and this gave General Forrest new cause for apprehension and solicitude.
GENERAL NATHAN BEDFORD FORREST
A few miles from Clifton, across Forrest’s only path leading to the river, he found a regiment of Federal cavalry drawn up in battle line. There was no time for maneuvering, and Dibbrell, always gallant, was ordered to charge down the road across which the Federals had been placed. Dibbrell, realizing the situation, was quick to act, and furiously assaulted the line, cut the Federals asunder, and then Starnes and Biffle, one on the right and the other on the left, went after the detachments, and in a brief space they were scattered and driven from the field.
Strange to say, twenty men were killed on the Federal side and fifty prisoners taken, and only one man struck on the Confederate side. This was General Forrest’s forage master, who was standing by his side, and called his attention to some object. While speaking, he was struck by a spent ball, which flattened on his forehead without penetrating the skull, and the officer fell stunned, but soon revived and only suffered the inconvenience of a severe headache.
Every nerve was now strained to reach the river. The sun was at its meridian when General Forrest rode up and looked across the currents that swirled between him and safety. The skiffs on the other side of the Tennessee, and the flatboats which had been sunk after the passage on the 15th, had been raised, under the direction of Jeffrey Forrest, who, with the speed born of the extremities of the hour, with a small following had galloped forward to put in readiness the meagre flotilla with which the retreating Confederates might cross the river and find safety from their numerous and aggressive foes.