When I rode into Dandridge in the gray of the morning the ground was thawing and hardly firm enough to bear the weight of a horse. When the cavalry came at sunrise the last crust of ice had melted, letting the animals down to their fetlocks in heavy limestone soil. The mud and want of a bridge to cross the Holston made pursuit by our heavy columns useless. The cavalry was ordered on, and the troops at Morristown, on the Strawberry Plains road, were ordered to try that route, but the latter proved to be too heavy for progress with artillery.
While yet on the streets of Dandridge, giving directions for such pursuit as we could make, a lady came out upon the sidewalk and invited us into her parlors. When the orders for pursuit were given, I dismounted, and with some members of my staff walked in. After the compliments of the season were passed, we were asked to be seated, and she told us something of General Granger during the night before. She had never heard a person swear about another as General Granger did about me. Some of the officers proposed to stop and make a battle, but General Granger swore and said it “was no use to stop and fight Longstreet. You can’t whip him. It don’t make any difference whether he has one man or a hundred thousand.” Presently she brought out a flask that General Granger had forgotten, and thought that I should have it. It had about two refreshing inches left in it. Though not left with compliments, it was accepted. Although the weather had moderated, it was very wet and nasty, and as we had taken our coffee at three o’clock, it was resolved to call it noon and divide the spoils. Colonel Fairfax, who knew how to enjoy good things, thought the occasion called for a sentiment, and offered, “General Granger—may his shadow never grow less.”
The cavalry found the road and its side-ways so cut up that their pursuit was reduced to labored walk. The previous hard service and exposure had so reduced the animals that they were not in trim for real effective cavalry service. They found some crippled battery forges and a little of other plunder, but the enemy passed the Holston and broke his bridges behind him. Our army returned to their huts and winter homes.
Part of our cavalry was ordered to the south side of the French Broad, and General Martin was ordered to press close on the enemy’s rear with the balance of his force. General Armstrong followed the line of retreat, and by the use of flat-boats passed his cavalry over the Holston and rode to the vicinity of Knoxville. He caught up with some stragglers, equipments, ammunition, and remains of some caissons, and at last made a grand haul of a herd of eight hundred beef cattle and thirty-one wagons.
Upon getting his cavalry back to Knoxville, General Foster crossed them over the bridge at the city below the French Broad to foraging grounds about Louisville, and called his Dandridge march a foraging excursion, saying that he was building a bridge to cross to the south side when we bore down against him. But the strategy of his tedious march by our front to find a crossing point at Dandridge and build a bridge in our presence, when he could have crossed to the south side of the French Broad by his bridge at Knoxville and reached those foraging grounds unmolested, was not like Napoleon. He claimed that he recovered two hundred of the lost herd of beef cattle. In that our reports do not agree. It is possible that his officers may have confounded that adventure with another. My explanation of the discrepancy—from memory—is that another of our parties undertook to get in a herd of swine, with which there was a smaller herd of beef cattle; that all of the latter herd were recovered, and the reports of the two adventures were confounded.
On the 14th, General Vance came down from the mountains of North Carolina on a raid towards Sevierville. He captured a number of wagons, but was promptly pursued by the enemy, his prize recovered, and he and a number of his staff were taken prisoners, with the loss of a hundred or more horses and equipments. They were not a part of my command, and failed to give us notice of their ride. The first intimation we had of them was of their unfortunate adventure.
On the 21st orders came from Richmond to send Corse’s brigade back to Petersburg, in Virginia. It was so ordered, and Hodges’s brigade was ordered to us from the department of West Virginia, in place of Corse’s.
To seek some of the fruits of our advantage at Dandridge, the roads being a little firmer, our leading division, under General Jenkins, was ordered on the 21st to prepare to march towards Strawberry Plains, and the Richmond authorities were asked to send us a pontoon bridge, tools of construction, and to hurry forward such shoes as they could send.
On the 24th, as the Official Records show, General Grant sent word to General Halleck of our return towards Knoxville, that he had ordered General Foster to give battle, if necessary, and that he would send General Thomas with additional troops to insure that we would be driven from the State. He also directed General Thomas to go in person and take command, and said, “I want Longstreet routed and pursued beyond the limits of the State of Tennessee.” And he ordered General Foster to put his cavalry on a raid from Cumberland Gap to cut in upon our rear.
On the 26th we were advised of the advance of the enemy’s cavalry up the south side of the French Broad to some of the fords above Dandridge. General Martin was ordered to cross in force below it, get in rear of the enemy, and endeavor to put him to confusion. He crossed with Morgan’s division, and called Armstrong’s to follow, but the enemy, finding opportunity to put his force against the division, advanced and made a severe battle on the 27th, which became desperate as developed until, in their successive gallant charges, our ranks were broken to confusion, when the enemy made a dash and got two of our guns and two hundred prisoners, driving us towards the river.