Whip and Spur

by George E. Waring

It is not worth while to detail all the incidents of the opening of the short engagement; it was ended by the only legitimate cavalry charge made by the “Vierte Missouri” during the whole of its four years’ history.

We had withdrawn from the line where we had been fighting on foot, had mounted, formed, and drawn sabre; the road about one hundred yards in front of us was swarming with Rebels, who crept along the fence-lines and in the edge of the bordering woods, and kept up a steady rain of fire well over our heads, where we heard that pfwit—pfwit—pfwit of flying bullets which, happily, has no relative in the whole chorus of sounds, and which is heard above all the din of battle, and is felt through every remotest nerve.

At the command “Forward,” excitement ran down the line, and there was a disposition for an immediate rush. But “Steady—right dress—trot!” in a measured tone, taken up in turn by the company officers, brought back all the effect of our three years’ discipline of the drill-ground. Later, “Steady—gallop—right dress!” accelerated the speed without disturbing the alignment, and then, at last, “Charge!” and with a universal yelling and brandishing of sabres we went forward like the wind. I then felt how mad a venture we had undertaken, for before us was the enemy, it is true, but the enemy behind a high and stout, staked and ridered rail-fence. As we drew very near this, still under heavy fire, which now at the short range was telling, the command became conscious that the six-foot fence would withstand our shock, and it wavered. I turned to my bugler to sound the recall, when I saw him out of the corner of my eye, his white horse rearing literally to his full height and falling backward with a crash that must have killed the poor boy at once. The recall was not needed: the regiment had turned and was running. The officers, being the best mounted and generally the lightest weights, soon reached the front, and “Steady—right dress—trot! Steady—right dress—trot!” was repeated along the line, until the drill-ground precision was regained, and then “By fours—right about—wheel!” and we stood facing the enemy again, ready for another advance. Max had been struck by a grazing bullet and had been plunging heavily, but the wound was not serious and he was soon quieted. We now saw that our charge, futile though it seemed, had done its work. The advance of the enemy was checked; the sight of troops that could retire and re-form for a new attack seemed to have a stunning effect upon them. Practically the engagement was ended.

Subsequently, one of Forrest’s staff officers told the Hun that the size of the division which had charged was variously estimated at from five to ten thousand, but that he had been accustomed to such things and knew that we were not more than two thousand. In fact, we were less than six hundred. Forrest’s report of the battle of Pontotoc states that the engagement was ended “by a cavalry charge of the enemy, which was repulsed.”

There was still some sharp scrimmaging, and we had to make two or three more squadron and company charges to drive away small attacks upon our retreating guns; but the battle, as a battle, was over, and Forrest’s whole advance had been stopped and ended by six hundred Fourth Missouri Dutchmen, galloping, yelling, and swinging their sabres at several thousand men well secured behind a rail-fence. I had before, in drill-ground charges, seen old soldiers and experienced officers jump down and run away from a fence on which they were sitting to watch the advance of charging cavalry which they knew must wheel before coming within five rods of them; but I had never supposed that hot-blooded soldiers, in the full excitement of a successful attack, could be unnerved and turned by the roar and thundering oncoming of a regiment that could by no possibility reach them. Our first setting out had driven back a thin skirmish-line which had to cross the fence under high speed; this, doubtless, aided in the débâcle; the charge had stunned them, but it was the rally that stopped the pursuit.

The rest of our march was without interesting incident all the way to Memphis, but it was almost incessant, day and night; without incident, that is, that it is worth while to tell here, but our days and nights upon the road were filled with annoyance and disgust, and with a store of unhappy and ludicrous memories that will last the lifetime of all who knew them.

One day, at New Albany, Max and I were feeding and sleeping in the door of an old mill while the command was slowly crossing the antiquated bridge over the Tallahatchie, when I was awakened by Grierson’s riding up in great alarm, calling upon me “for God’s sake” to use the ford as well as the bridge, for Hepburn was being cut to pieces in the rear, and I must give him the full road for his retreat. I had always been a respectful subordinate, but none of us were then in the best temper; I did not believe a word of it, and I frankly told him so. Even old Max pricked up his ears and snorted as if in derision. Almost as we were talking, there came an aid from Hepburn saying that he had found a good supply of forage and would be glad to go into camp for the night. But there was no camp to be thought of for that tired crew; the bogey of incessant pursuit loomed up portentously close upon our rear-guard, and sent its shadow deep into the bowels of our commander, who was miles away in the advance, and who would allow us only the fewest possible hours in the very dead of night for hasty cooking and scant repose. We were a worn and weary lot as we finally went into camp at the rear of the town; worn and weary, sadly demoralized, and almost dismounted. I had lost fifteen hundred good horses, and my men, who had been eager and ready for a successful campaign, were broken in spirit and sadly weakened in discipline.

All who had been compelled to bear the brunt of the hard work now needed for themselves and their horses absolute rest for days; but being called into the city the morning after our arrival, my eyes were greeted with the spectacle of General Sooy Smith, no longer ill, and with no trace of shame or annoyance on his face. He had shed his modest and prudent attire, and shone out with all the brass radiance of a full-fledged major-general. From this time until the Fourth Missouri cavalry was mustered out of service, our headquarters were in the immediate neighborhood of Memphis, and our life was much more active than it had been at Union City.

Not very much is to be said for Max during this time, except in connection with the Sturgis expedition, beyond the fact that we lay long in the immediate vicinity of the race-course, which we repaired and used faithfully, and, so far as he was concerned, with eminent success. The more frequent necessity for duty, the great labor of remounting, reorganizing, and redrilling the command, united with the greater publicity of our position to lay some restraint on our mode of life, and to make our conduct more circumspect. Still we were not miserable, and the neighborhood of a large town has, to a well-regulated headquarters’ mess, its compensations as well as its drawbacks.

Sturgis’s expedition to Guntown and back—especially back—has passed into history, and its unwritten memories will always remain with those who took part in it.