A little way from Waverly, at Hawkins’ Mills, Shelby concluded that his wagons and his artillery would be troublesome, and so he sunk them in the Missouri River and reduced everything to the lightest possible weight. It was of the highest importance that he should safely pass the Osage River. It was a long march from Waverly to this river. Sleep and rest were out of the question. The tired beasts were allowed to feed a little and the men took an hour or two for repose. Even an hour’s delay might bring disaster. Nature pleaded for repose and rest, but safety pointed her finger forward, and fate, willing to extricate the bold horseman, bade him stay not his hand nor speed. Leaving Waverly, on the morning of the 14th, to the evening of the 16th, he had marched more than one hundred miles. He had gone through from the Missouri to the Osage River in two days. This was a tremendous spurt. Nothing now, short of bad management, could prevent Shelby’s escape, and so he began to move somewhat more leisurely. Along by the road at Warrensville, there were two thousand Federals waiting to hold him up; but he passed a few miles west without alarming them, and proceeded on to Johnson County, to which point they pursued him. One of the Federal commanders reported that Shelby’s men were “running like wild hogs,” and another, that, bareheaded and demoralized, they were making their escape in detached parties through the woods, thickets and byways. Even though hard pressed, and with no time to spare, Shelby could not refrain from one effort to punish those who had so vigorously and so sorely pressed upon him. He ordered a dash at his foes, and they, quickly realizing that it was not wise to press Shelby, even if he was running, fled at his coming. On the 17th, 18th and 19th of October, men and horses were put to the utmost limit. The Federals were loth to permit Shelby’s escape, and they hung on to the Confederate rear with the grip of death. With such odds in their favor, they held it a great misfortune to let him get away, and they judged that all sorts of inquiries and criticisms would follow, if, with fifty thousand Federal soldiers in Missouri, even so resourceful and dashing a cavalryman as Shelby could march nearly through the entire State in the face of so many pursuers, and then safely ride away. Energies were redoubled, orders of concentration kept the wires warm; but warm wires, circulating orders and relentless pursuit could not stop the mad speed and the ceaseless tramp of Shelby and his men. They had better reason to urge them escape than those who were following had to run them down. On the 20th of October, he was safely on the Little Osage River in Arkansas, and there, to Shelby’s gratification and surprise, he found the remainder of his command under Colonels Hunter, Hooper and Shanks. Reunited, their spirits rose to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. They had been battered and hammered and pursued, but they were all safe. One hundred and fifty of the eight hundred men who started were either wounded or dead along the line of march; but the expedition was completed, and the apparently impossible was accomplished.
Fate dealt more generously with Hunter and Hooper and Shanks than with Shelby. At Florence and Humansville and Duroc, on the Osage, they had had their troubles with the First Arkansas cavalry. They had a fight with McNeil’s two thousand men at Humansville, but he was held in check. The Federal forces were fierce in their attacks, and they marched with the greatest strenuosity to block the way these men were taking to avoid capture. Artillery with cavalry in a forced march is never a thing to be desired. Guns and caissons make heavy pulling, and no horses can for many miles keep pace with horsemen who are pushed to their highest speed. The help of the cannon had now lost much of its value and as it might retard the speed in some slight degree, it was destroyed and abandoned and the last of Shelby’s battery went down before the aggressive pursuers. It was abandoned at Humansville, and the fleeing horsemen were glad to get rid of such a grievous burden.
The greatest sufferers on the tremendous march had been the horses. They were goaded, tired and driven to the greatest effort. Half starved, with reduced flesh, their speed was ever-decreasing. Mercy was so incessant and so insistent in her appeals that the beasts were given three days’ rest. Not a single soldier was willing to scout except when absolutely necessary to keep in touch with the movements of the enemy. The Federals, under John Cloud, hearing that Shelby had escaped from Missouri, left Fayetteville and went out to hunt him, but Cloud was not very anxious to find Shelby. He followed slowly and at a safe distance and pursued Shelby to Clarksville on the Arkansas River where Shelby crossed the stream twelve miles east of Ozark, where he had passed thirty days before.
A great march was ended, and Shelby, in his reports, claimed that he had in the thirty days killed and wounded six hundred Federals; he had taken and paroled as many more; he had captured and destroyed ten forts, about eight hundred thousand dollars’ worth of property and he had captured six hundred rifles, forty stand of colors, three hundred wagons, six thousand horses and mules, and destroyed a million dollars’ worth of supplies. At one place in Arkansas he had dispersed eight hundred recruits and destroyed fifty thousand dollars’ worth of ordnance. At the time Shelby left Arkadelphia, Rosecrans was calling for help, and one day after Shelby started, the Battle of Chickamauga had been finished and Rosecrans, with his army driven back and discouraged, was at Chattanooga, crying for help. Ten thousand men were kept from reinforcing Rosecrans. All this was accomplished by eight hundred men. Shelby’s superiors had led him to believe that this was a forlorn hope. The young Confederate colonel had shown them they were mistaken in their estimate of him and that he was worthy of the wreath on his collar which would make him a brigadier-general.
Chapter X
BATTLE AND CAPTURE OF HARTSVILLE
BY GENERAL JOHN H. MORGAN,
DECEMBER 7th, 1863
In October, 1862, General Braxton Bragg, after the campaign in Kentucky, had brought his army out by Cumberland Gap, and, resting a brief while in East Tennessee, moved his forces to Murfreesboro, thirty miles southeast of Nashville. During General Bragg’s absence on his Kentucky campaign, the Federals had a large garrison at Nashville. General John C. Breckinridge, too late to enter Kentucky, with General Bragg, had been stationed at Murfreesboro with a small Confederate force to watch and hold this Nashville Federal contingent in check. By the 12th of November, General Bragg had brought his soldiers through from Knoxville to Murfreesboro. It then became apparent that somewhere in and around Murfreesboro, or between that place and Nashville, a decisive battle would be fought. The Nashville garrison, reinforced by the return of General Buell’s army, would be ready for aggressive warfare south of that city, and as Bragg’s army now intervened between these Federals and their advance southward, it required no wise military student to predict that a great struggle would soon be on. At that time few understood how great that struggle would be, or that when it was ended and the losses counted, it would rank as amongst the most sanguinary battles of the war, with a loss of two hundred and sixty men per thousand, making it, in ratio of losses, according to reports, the second bloodiest field of the Civil War. Forty days later this expected conflict took place at Murfreesboro in the Valley of Stone River.
Perryville, Kentucky, where, on the 8th of October, 1862, a battle had raged with such fierceness, had also proved a memorable conflict to the men of the Army of the Tennessee. There the Confederate loss was three thousand, two hundred and twelve, the Federal loss four thousand, two hundred and forty-one. For the number of men engaged, in proportion to the time the battle lasted, it stands in the very forefront of mortalities. General McCook, of the Federal Army, referring to it, said: “It is the bloodiest battle of modern times for the number of troops engaged on our side.” On the Confederate side one hundred and ninety-six in every thousand were killed or wounded.
On the 20th of November, 1862, the army of Tennessee was organized with General Braxton Bragg as commander. The three army corps were officered respectively by Generals E. Kirby Smith, Leonidas Polk and William J. Hardee. General Don Carlos Buell, on the Federal side, on October 30th, 1862, had been relieved, and General W. S. Rosecrans had been put in his place.
At this period of the history of the war in Tennessee, Sumner County, of which Gallatin was the county seat, was one of the richest and most productive of the agricultural districts of the State. Gallatin was thirty-five miles from Nashville, northeast. Sumner County adjoined Davidson County, of which Nashville was the county seat. East of Gallatin, some fifteen miles, was Hartsville, a small town, now the capital of Trousdale County, one and one-half miles north of the Cumberland River. Lebanon, Tennessee, the county seat of Wilson County, was due east of Nashville. A line drawn from Murfreesboro a little east of north would pass through Hartsville a distance of thirty-eight miles. Bragg’s army extended from Murfreesboro in the direction of Lebanon. A portion of his infantry was at Baird’s Mills, a village twenty miles away. Castalian Springs was between Gallatin and Hartsville, nine miles from Hartsville and six miles from Gallatin. At Castalian Springs, the Federals, under John M. Harlan, had a force numbering six thousand men. At Hartsville was Dumont’s Brigade, the 39th in the Army of the Cumberland, consisting of two thousand one hundred men.
General Morgan always maintained a very warm love of Sumner County. Some of the happiest hours of his military life were passed there. He was ever glad of an opportunity to return to Gallatin. Quite a number of his followers were residents of the county. His opportunities for scouting and getting information in that section were most excellent. He learned that the Federals had about thirteen hundred troops at Hartsville, and he calculated that their capture was not only possible, but easy, by a bold, quick dash. On August 17th, 1862, he had captured Gallatin, and with it two hundred prisoners, including Colonel Boone and the other commanding officers of the 28th Kentucky Federal Regiment. He had another remarkable experience there, of which he wrote: “... thus ended an action in which my command, not exceeding seven hundred men (one whole company being in the rear with prisoners), succeeded in defeating a brigade of twelve hundred chosen cavalry sent by General Buell to take me or drive me out of Tennessee, killing and wounding some one hundred and eighty and taking two hundred prisoners, including the brigadier-general commanding and most of the regimental officers.”