What weight and doubt was now removed from my mind! He was a friend! I had feared that I was approaching a rebel camp, but now my misgivings had vanished into air! I now told him that I had dispatches for General Sherman, and wanted to pass into camp, and he called the corporal, who sent me in without delay.
I found Tuscumbia in possession of General Blair's troops; and the General furnished me a good breakfast and an ambulance to Cherokee station; and from here, by order of General Wright I was conveyed on a special train to Iuka, where Sherman then was; and I at once delivered my dispatches, which were not yet three days old. No sooner had I delivered the documents, than my strength utterly failed me, and I sunk down exhausted, before I could reach the place assigned me to rest.
The service I had performed was most arduous and dangerous; but let General Sherman himself describe it, and its importance, which he does in the following document:
Headquarters Military Division of the Mississippi,
Nashville, Tenn., April 16, 1864.Corporal James Pike, Co. A 4th Ohio Cavalry, in October, 1863, carried a message from General Grant to me at Iuka. He got a canoe at Whitesburg, opposite Huntsville, and came down the Tennessee, over the Muscle Shoals, all alone, for over one hundred miles of river, every mile of which was picketed by the enemy, and reached me safely, as stated, at Iuka. It was that message that hastened my movement to Chattanooga. The whole affair is highly creditable to the skill, courage and zeal of Corporal Pike.
(Signed,) W. T. SHERMAN,
Major General.
The same dispatch reached him in two other ways. Corporal Brant and private John Wakefield, of the 4th Ohio, went down the north bank of the river with it, and Lieutenant Fitzgerald, with a hundred 4th Regulars, got through with it; but I do not believe either of these parties could have been successful if I had not first made it by the river.
In about two hours after I delivered the dispatch, General Sherman put his army in motion for Chattanooga; and as soon as the first division began to cross over, the rebels who occupied the north bank, crossed over on the shoals, and joined Wheeler on the south side, thus opening the way for the other two parties to reach the General, which they could not otherwise have done.
As soon as I rested a day, I started back up the country, with Brant, and Wakefield, to report the advance of Sherman's army to General Crook. I told General Sherman that I needed a horse, and he replied that I should take the best animal there was in Tishamingo or Lauderdale counties; but after careful search and patient inquiry, I found that his own men had not left a single one in the country that was able to go; and when I reported the result of my investigation to the General, he kindly borrowed one for me, with saddle, bridle and blankets; and I need hardly state that I forgot to return them.
In an incredibly short time the army reached Chattanooga, and in two days participated in the battles of Lookout mountain and Mission Ridge; and in the glorious victories won on those stoutly contested fields, I felt myself amply repaid for the dangers I had encountered in my journey over the Muscle Shoals by night.