It is hardly worth while to speculate as to what would have been the result, if Smith had pressed his advantage, when he had driven the Confederates from his front. Undoubtedly it would have resulted disastrously to the Confederates. If he made a tactical error in the whole campaign, it was in this regard. True, he did not reach his objective, but neither did Sooy Smith and Sturgis. He saved his army intact, all of his artillery, and most of his wagons. The comparison is easily drawn. Having experienced the soothing influences of forty-four years, we can be just, liberal and fair. Then, A. J. Smith was a capable commander, and in the Harrisburg campaign did not lessen the prestige acquired on other fields.
As soon as the Federals abandoned their position and it had been occupied by the Confederates, I took advantage of the movement and hastened to the spot occupied by Company E, the previous day. The ground was literally strewn with the bodies of our precious slain, which had been lying where they fell for twenty-four hours. It was impossible to identify them except by their clothing and other articles. Captain J. P. Statler, William Wood, Jehu Field and David McKinney, another schoolboy of mine, must have been killed about the same time, as their bodies lay close together. First Wood, then Statler a few feet in advance and a still shorter space forward Field and McKinney at the foot of a post-oak that did not protect them from the enfilading fire of the enemy. In this group was Colonel Isham Harrison of the Sixth Mississippi with many of his own dead men about him. It was a most sorrowful sight to see Statler and his men wrapped in their blankets and buried where they fell. They appropriately sleep on the field of honor. The earth lay fresh on the grave of Captain Tate when Captain Statler was killed. Besides the four named, Robert D. Durrett of Bolivar, and Sam Gibson were mortally wounded earlier in the action and carried to the rear. Company E could ill afford to lose the men who fell at Harrisburg. Statler had shown himself to be a worthy successor to Tate. He was a faithful friend, a dashing gallant soldier and a fine horseman. I yet hold dear the friendship knitted closely by our association at Brice’s Cross Roads and on other fields.
In riding over the field at the time of which I write I heard of the deaths of others whom I knew. Among these was that of that fine young soldier, Tom Nelson of Company L, of whom I have had occasion to speak in connection with an incident at Ripley. Killed on the 13th at Barrow’s shop.
I found the breastworks of the Federals all that I have heretofore described. That part in front of which Company E fought was built like a Virginia worm fence, but with heavy house logs and other weighty objects. Thus their fire was enfilading upon all points of their front. The few trees standing there afforded little protection to our men. A grape shot and twenty-one minie balls struck the tree at the foot of which Field and McKinney lay dead.
I passed over to where the Kentuckians had fought under Crossland. Oh, the ghastly dead, and so many of them! Lieutenant-Colonel Sherrill of the Seventh Kentucky, killed near the works, was among them. The officer in charge of the burial squad quoted the lines:
Man’s inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn.
I agreed with him. This was near the old Harrisburg church. I rode down the slope with others and stopped by the roadside. Along came General Forrest, wounded and riding in an open buggy. Just from the battle-field and suffering with a wound, he was somewhat excited. I remember well the sentiment he uttered. It was that expressed by the words: “Boys, this is not my fight, and I take no responsibility for it,” or words tantamount to these. I knew what he meant.
Now, I had known General Forrest for thirteen years. Why, the first creosote I ever saw he put into an aching tooth of mine, when on one of his trading expeditions he was camping in front of my father’s house on the road from Grenada to Greensboro. He was a man to impress even a stripling, as I was then. I should have carried his image in my mind to this day even if there had never been a war. A stalwart, who habitually went in his shirt sleeves. A man of commanding, but pleasing personality, with grayish-blue eyes who spoke kindly to children. A broad felt hat, turned up at the sides and surmounting a shock of black hair about completes the picture. I contrast this with this same figure, clothed in the resplendent uniform of a major-general, mounted on King Philip, at the head of his escort and with hat in hand in recognition of the plaudits extended, with hearty good will, by the people of Florence, Ala.
I insert here two extracts from the utterances of Lieutenant-Colonel David C. Kelley, at once the “Fighting Parson” and the Marshal Ney of Forrest’s Cavalry, but in peace the eminent citizen and eloquent divine: “Every individual private was trained to an unbounded belief in Forrest’s power to succeed.”