Whip and Spur

by George E. Waring

Guntown is far away in Northeastern Mississippi. It is not laid down on the map of the country, but it lies just across the Tishamingo Creek, and it consists mainly of two plantation houses and a school-house. Our stay there was not long, and we were too much occupied to study the locality minutely, but it is my impression that the most important incident in its history was connected with our visit.

We were a force of about nine thousand infantry, cavalry, and artillery,—some black and some white, some good and some bad,—sent out by Sherman as a tub to the Forrest whale; a diversion to keep this commander from joining Hood in Northern Georgia; though I doubt if even General Sherman in his moments of wildest enthusiasm anticipated just the issue that followed. Our march out was not rapid, and it was well ordered. We were allowed to take our train, and old John Ellard’s four stupendous mules drew our headquarters’ wagon, well laden with the comforts we had accumulated during a long service, including a brand-new, well-furnished, and abundantly stored camp-chest that had just arrived from St. Louis. So far as the comforts of a home for five youngsters can be stored in one mule-wagon, we were well supplied for a campaign of any length; and judging from the mess-tables to which we were invited, others of the command were no less well provided. In due time we reached the town of Ripley, a rather pretty New-England-looking village, but, like all Southern towns at that time, entirely devoid of men and overflowing with women of the most venomous and spiteful sort, who did all in their power to add to the interest of the Sunday evening we passed in their company.

We had some light skirmishing on our arrival, but whoever it was that attacked us withdrew and left us in undisturbed possession of the comfortable rooms and fireplaces of the town. Our next day’s march brought us to a large open plantation on a commanding hill, whence our evening scouting-parties soon found the enemy posted in some force and apparently disposed for an engagement.

It seemed always Forrest’s plan to select his own fighting-ground, and the plan of our commanders to gratify him. Sturgis committed the usual folly of trying to hold every inch he had gained, and of forming his line of battle on the head of the column and under fire.

We breakfasted at three in the morning, and marched at half past four. My command had the advance. The enemy allowed himself to be easily driven until half past eight, when he made some show of resistance. At this time the last of our regiments could hardly have left the camping-ground, and probably a judicious retreat would have drawn Forrest’s whole force back to the open country we had left. But “retreat” was not yet written on our banners (of that day), and orders came from our general to support the advance-guard, form line of battle, and hold our position. So far as the cavalry brigade was concerned this was easily done, and we got into good line near the edge of a wood without difficulty. Here, for four mortal hours, or until half past twelve, we carried on a tolerably equal warfare, both sides blazing away at each other with little effect across the six hundred yards of cleared valley that lay between two skirts of wood. So far as the endurance of our troops was concerned, this engagement could have been kept up until nightfall, though our ranks were slowly thinning. Several desperate charges were made on our position, and were repulsed with considerable loss to both sides. Pending the arrival of the infantry it would have been folly for us to attempt a further advance, but had we been properly supported, or, better, had we at once fallen back upon our support, we might have given, as the post bellum reports of Forrest’s officers show, a better ending to the day’s work. It was only at half past twelve, when our ammunition was reduced to five rounds per man, and when our battery had fired its last shot, that the infantry began to arrive, and then they came a regiment at a time, or only so fast as the Forrest mill could grind them up in detail.

They had taken our place, and we had withdrawn to their rear, where we were joined by one after another of the defeated or exhausted infantry regiments. Little by little the enemy pressed upon us, gaining rod after rod of our position, until finally our last arriving troops, a splendid colored regiment, reached the field of battle at double-quick, breathless and beaten by their own speed, barely in time to check the assault until we could cross the creek and move toward the rear. The retreat was but fairly begun when we came upon our train of two hundred wagons piled pell-mell in a small field and blocked in beyond the possibility of removal. With sad eyes we saw John Ellard cut his traces and leave all that was dear to us—tents, camp-chest, poker-table, and all that we cherished—to inevitable capture. The train was our tub to the whale; and while Forrest’s men were sacking our treasures, and refilling the caissons of all our batteries, which they had captured, we had time to form for the retreat, more or less orderly according as we had come early or late off the field. The demoralizing roar of our own guns, and the howling over our heads of our own shells, together with the sharp rattle of musketry in our rear, hastened and saddened the ignominious flight of the head of our column, though, for some reason, the enemy’s advance upon us was slow.

All that long night we marched on, without food and without rest. At early dawn we reached Ripley, where we paused for breath. Max had been ridden almost uninterruptedly for twenty-four hours, and for four hours had done the constant hard work that the supervision of a long line in active engagement had made necessary; and he was glad to be unsaddled and turned for fifteen minutes into a scantily grown paddock, where he rolled and nibbled and refreshed himself as much as ordinary horses do with a whole night’s rest. The ambulances with our groaning wounded men came pouring into the village, and to our surprise, those women, who had so recently given only evidence of a horrified hatred, pressed round to offer every aid that lay in their power, and to comfort our suffering men as only kind-hearted women can.

With the increasing daylight the pursuit was reopened with vigor, and on we went, and ever on, marching all that day, our rear-guard being constantly engaged, and hundreds of our men being captured, thousands more scattering into the woods. My lieutenant-colonel, Von Helmrich, who had been for twenty-eight years a cavalry officer in Germany, and who, after thirteen months in Libby Prison, had overtaken us as we were leaving Memphis, was recaptured and carried back to Richmond,—to die of a good dinner on his second release, ten months later. At nightfall, the pursuit growing weak, we halted to collect together our stragglers, but not to rest, and after a short half-hour pushed on again; and all that interminable night, and until half past ten the next morning, when we reached Colliersville and the railroad, reinforcements, and supplies, we marched, marched, marched, without rest, without sleep, and without food. The cavalrymen were mainly dismounted and driving their tired jades before them, only Max and a few others carrying their riders to the very end, and coming in with a whinny of content to the familiar stables and back-yards of the little town.

Most other officers whose service had been as constant as mine had had extra horses to ride for relief; but I had never yet found march too long for Max’s wiry sinews, and trusted to him alone. He had now been ridden almost absolutely without intermission, and much of the time at a gallop or a rapid trot, for fifty-four hours. I had had for my own support the excitement and then the anxious despair of responsible service, and Ike had filled his haversack with hard-bread from John Ellard’s abandoned wagon; an occasional nibble at this, and unlimited pipes of tobacco, had fortified me in my endurance of the work; but Max had had in the whole time not the half of what he would have made light of for a single meal. I have known and have written about brilliant feats of other horses, but as I look over the whole range of all the best animals I have seen, I bow with respect to the wonderful courage, endurance, and fidelity of this superbly useful brute.

There is an elasticity in youth and health, trained and hardened by years of active field-service, which asserts itself under the most depressing circumstances. Even this shameful and horrible defeat and flight had their ludicrous incidents, which we were permitted to appreciate. Thus, for instance, during a lull in the engagement at Guntown, I had seated myself in a rush-bottomed chair under the lee of a broad tree-trunk; a prudent pig, suspecting danger, had taken shelter between the legs of the chair, leaving, however, his rear unprotected. Random bullets have an odd way of finding weak places, and it was due to one of these that I was unseated, with an accompaniment of squeal, by the rapid and articulate flight of my companion.