Confederate wizards of the saddle /

by Bennett H. Young

On the 16th day of September, Forrest started from Verona, Mississippi, with three thousand five hundred and forty-two effective men. He undertook to cross the Tennessee River at Newport, where boats had been provided. The artillery, ordnance and wagons were crossed at Newport, but Forrest waded the river at Colbert Shoals. Chalmers commanded one division and Buford the other. Reinforcements now joined Forrest, which made four thousand five hundred soldiers, four hundred of which, however, were dismounted and were following on foot with the expectation of capturing mounts during the raid. These hardy men were glad, by walking and many times running, to be allowed to join the expedition. A horse was the most desirable of all earthly possessions. They were hesitant at no fatigue and hardship which led them to a mount. Those who went with Forrest well knew they would at some point be sure of a captured beast. They all had some friend who would ride and tie with them. Here and there, on some short stretch of good road, they might when nobody was looking get a lift in an ammunition wagon. Then, too, they could escape the slush and mud in the bespattered road, and trotting alongside the fences or passway, they would find it no great task to keep even with the artillery and heavily loaded horses, unless when the haste of battle or the rush of pursuit quickened the pace of the advancing column. Life was worthless to a cavalryman under the great leaders of the Confederate troopers if he had no horse, and thus these nervy men for days followed the expedition, with unfailing faith that in a reasonable time General Forrest would at least give them a sufficient chance with their enemies to enable them to forage upon the Federal Government for the much needed steed. None who ever witnessed these dismounted battalions marching on foot to the scenes of devastation and battle could fail to be impressed with the power of the human will or the strenuosity of the human body under the impulse of war’s hopes and calls.

At this time there was a railroad which ran from Nashville, Tennessee, to Decatur, Alabama, called the Alabama and Tennessee Railroad. This had been a feeder for Federal commissary and general supplies, and General Forrest undertook to destroy it. The Confederates had not been expected. Athens, Alabama, was the first Federal stronghold to fall. Forrest’s presence had never been suspected until his troops were in sight of the place. It surrendered without contest. Nine hundred prisoners were captured at Athens. This invasion of Forrest stayed for a little while Sherman’s great march to the sea. From Pulaski, Tennessee, General Forrest moved to the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad. He reported that the enemy had concentrated at least ten thousand men on the 27th of September, and on the 28th he began to play havoc with the railroad at Fayetteville and Tullahoma. The Federal forces, under the direction of General Sherman, were concentrated in the hope of capturing Forrest. General Sherman telegraphed that he could take care of the line between Atlanta and Chattanooga, but the line from Nashville to Chattanooga must be protected by others. The rage of Forrest’s enemies was evidence enough to convince the men of the South that he had done his work well. At that time General Sherman telegraphed to General Grant on the 29th of September, in which he said, speaking of Forrest, “His cavalry will travel 100 miles in less time than ours will travel 10.” He also said, “I can whip his infantry, but his cavalry is to be feared.” Again he telegraphed to General Elliott, chief of the cavalry department of the Cumberland, “Our cavalry must do more, for it is strange that Forrest and Wheeler should encircle around us thus. We should at least make 10 miles to his 100.”

On the 1st of October, on this raid, Forrest reached Spring Hill, twenty-six miles from Nashville. So far no reverses. The time had come now for General Forrest to escape. On the 3rd of October, with all possible speed, to avoid the Federal columns, he marched south, reaching Florence, Alabama, where he had forded the river two weeks before, but now it was swollen and could no longer be passed. At this point, in what would be considered almost a crisis, Forrest was compelled to carry a thousand of his men out to an island in the Tennessee River, which was filled with an impenetrable growth of cane and timber of all kinds, and hide his boats behind the island, while the enemy was still watching to prevent his troops from crossing. General Forrest, in speaking of this wonderful expedition, said, “I captured 86 commissioned officers, 67 government employees, 1,274 non-commissioned officers and privates and 933 negroes, and killed and wounded 1,000 more, making an aggregate of 3,360, being an average of one to each man I had in the engagements.” He further says, “I captured 800 horses, 7 pieces of artillery, 2,000 stands of small arms, several hundred saddles, 50 wagons and ambulances with a large amount of medical, commissary and quartermaster’s stores, all of which have been distributed to the different commands.”

Now a still greater victory and a new departure in military work was to mark the closing months of 1864, in which General Forrest acted with an independent command. Towards the end of the war, Memphis became a center of the most important operations. The Mississippi was always open and it gave entrance into the grain fields of the West and through the Ohio, the Missouri, the Wabash and the White Rivers, and put at the service of the Federal Army abundant supplies of food and raiment.

The Tennessee River, the fifth largest stream in the United States, like the New River, is one of the marvels of nature. Rising far up in the mountains, close to the Virginia line, it pushes its way southwardly through Tennessee, swinging around into Alabama, as if by some capricious fancy, it changes its direction and then turns north about four hundred and fifty miles to its mouth, where it mingles its waters with those of the Ohio, sixty miles above its union with the Mississippi. After leaving Alabama, pursuing its course within fifty miles of the Father of Waters, it appears to be reluctant to reinforce that stream with which it runs parallel for hundreds of miles. It would appear according to reason and nature that it should again have veered to the west and effected its connection with the Mississippi, but as if wishing to defy this mighty stream, it still moves onward and northward. It comes then within two miles of the Cumberland, which is fed by the waters from the mountains close to where the Tennessee River has its source, and then, as if running a race with the Cumberland, it flows along parallel with that stream and, at last, wearied by its tortuous journeys for nine hundred miles, at Paducah it mingles its waters with those of the Ohio, and these in turn pass westward and reach the Mississippi at Cairo.

About one hundred and fifty miles from Memphis, on the Tennessee River, was a little town called Johnsonville, and at that time it was at the head of the navigable part of the Tennessee River. To that point the larger boats could most always come and it was a great depot for supplies, and in an emergency these might be carried over to Nashville or Memphis, as either one or the other might require.

Forrest was beginning now fully to recover from the effects of the loss of the troops he trained in the earlier months of the war. Successful beyond all question in cavalry service, he had again gathered about him a corps of almost invincible men. His new recruits and such soldiers as were reimbued with patriotic impulses, after having left the army when it abandoned Tennessee, by Forrest’s coming into West Tennessee, cheerfully returned to the post of duty and under the impulse of Forrest’s success, and the love and courage with which he impressed all who once saw him enter battle. The ranks of depleted skeleton regiments were partially filled, and the commanders of these new organizations had now, under Forrest’s eye and control, learned how he deemed it wisest to fight, and they were ready to do and dare all that his impetuous valor required, or his marvelous skill as a leader pointed out as the true way to carry on war under the conditions that then existed in his department.

He had now a division of more than four thousand men. He felt sure he could trust them in all emergencies, and he was eager and willing to put them to the highest test, and he undertook at this period what will always be considered as a remarkable cavalry foray, the expedition to Johnsonville, Tennessee.

Before undertaking this arduous work, Forrest had pleaded for a furlough. This had been promised, but an emergency arose which neither he nor General Taylor could foresee or control, and it became impossible for him to be absent even for a brief while; and so Chalmers and his division were directed to report to General Forrest at Jackson, Tennessee, on the 16th day of October.

General Forrest and General Dick Taylor were kindred spirits. Their relations were most happy and pleasant. They were men who fought the same way and thought the same way, and Taylor recognized the greatness of Forrest and fully understood that he did best when left to his own devices.