In this manner we were enabled to learn pretty definitely the character of any movement of the enemy anywhere in Western Tennessee, and so far as we had opportunity to investigate the reports they generally proved to be essentially true. These two scouts were worth more as a source of information, than would have been two regiments of cavalry in active service. Sometimes our Methodist friend acted under definite orders, but more often only according to his own judgment of what was necessary.
A few days before Christmas we received word that Forrest in person was in Jackson, with a large force, and we moved against him with nearly the whole body of our troops, under the command of old A. J. himself. We reached Jackson at night, after three days’ hard marching, only to find that Forrest’s army had left that morning, destroying the bridges over the swollen rivers and making organized pursuit impossible. We took up quarters for some days in the town, where we enjoyed the peculiarly lovely climate of the “sunny South” with the thermometer seven degrees below zero, six inches of snow on the ground, and a howling wind blowing. Our own mess was very snugly entertained at the house of a magnate, where we had an opportunity to study the fitness of even the best Southern architecture for an Arctic winter climate.
On New Year’s day, as we were sitting at a sumptuous dinner, and mitigating so far as we could the annoyance to our hosts of being invaded by a rollicking party of Northern officers, Voisin, who had been called out, returned to the table to tell me that a man and a woman would like to see me in my room. I was not prompt to respond, and asked who they were. He replied, “O, who can tell? I suppose somebody with a complaint that our men have ’taken some hams of meat’ [“meat” being the Tennessee vulgate for hog flesh only], or something of that sort; the man seemed to have something the matter with his eyes.” And he gave me a large and expressive wink.
Ensconced, with such comfort as large and rattling windows permitted, before our blazing fire, sat our serene Methodist friend and his sullen wife. Taking me aside, he told me that he had passed the previous evening at a private house between Jackson and Bolivar in religious exercises, which were attended by Forrest and officers of his command. After the devotions there was much cheerful and unrestrained talk as to the plans and prospects of the future campaign, disclosing the fact that as there seemed no chance of doing efficient service in Tennessee, the whole body would move at once to Central Mississippi and operate in connection with the army in Georgia. This report, which we had no reason to disbelieve, decided A. J. to abandon a difficult and unpromising pursuit, and to return to Union City and Columbus. We found, on our return, a communication from the headquarters at Memphis to the effect that Forrest had crossed the railroad and gone far south into Mississippi.
We had no further service of importance or interest in this region. “Jackson’s Purchase” was thenceforward quite free from any considerable body of the enemy; and when our clergyman found, a few weeks later, that we were all ordered to the south, he came for a settlement of his accounts, saying that he had been able to deceive his wife only up to the time of our interview at Jackson, and as his life was no longer safe in the country, he must depart for the more secure region of his former home in Canada,—where let us hope that he has been allowed to answer the behests of his sacred vocation with a mind single to his pious duties, and that domestic suspicion no longer clouds his happy hearthstone.
Happily, neither A. J. nor Forrest himself had further occasion for his peaceful intervention, the fortunate absence of which may have had to do with the notable encounter between these two generals at Tupelo.
