Colonel Chadick was well known to me, he having been pastor of the Cumberland Presbyterian church in Huntsville for several years while I lived there. He first entered the army as chaplain of the Fourth Alabama Infantry, and was with that famous regiment in the first battle of Manassas. He was afterwards made major of an Alabama battalion, of which Nick Davis was lieutenant-colonel, later consolidated with Coltart’s battalion, to become the Fiftieth Alabama Infantry, when John G. Coltart became colonel and William D. Chadick lieutenant-colonel. At this time he had an idea of raising a new regiment of cavalry, and wished me to return and raise a company for the regiment or else take a position on his staff, but we were now too near the end.
McClatchie and myself started out next morning and went up the Huntsville road a short distance, when we came in sight of a small party of Federal cavalry in the act of turning back. We took a road that led us into the Athens road at John N. Drake’s place, where we learned that another party had come out there, and turned back. We then made our way directly to Pulaski, Tenn., on towards Columbia, and found the division on the Columbia pike hotly engaged with the enemy, who was pushing General Hood’s retreat. Our rear-guard was commanded by General Forrest, and consisted of his own cavalry, Jackson’s cavalry division, and about fifteen hundred infantry, under Major-General Walthal. The infantry were trans-Mississippi troops, including Ector’s and Granberry’s brigades. General Hood’s main army was retreating by different roads towards Bainbridge, where we were to cross the Tennessee River. Jackson’s division of cavalry and the infantry of the rear-guard were on the main road, while General Forrest’s cavalry was protecting other roads. We were uncomfortably crowded on the turnpike, but we left it at Pulaski, crossed Richland Creek on a bridge, and fired the bridge. The Federals soon came up and extinguished the fire, however, and then came pouring across the bridge, but as it was now late in the afternoon they did not attack any more for the day.
The next morning General Forrest selected a favorable position in the hills a few miles below Pulaski, masked his batteries, and formed his infantry in ambush, and, when the enemy came on us, attacked them with artillery, infantry, and cavalry, and after a sharp little battle drove them back handsomely, with some loss, capturing one piece of artillery and taught them that in the hills it was imprudent to rush upon an enemy recklessly. For the remainder of that day we were permitted to move quietly down the road unmolested.
That night one of General Frank Armstrong’s Mississippi cavalry regiments was left on picket, and we moved on a mile or two and camped by the roadside. Just after daylight the next morning our Mississippi regiments came clattering in, closely pursued by the enemy’s cavalry. We hastily formed a line across the road and checked the enemy, and then moved on to Sugar Creek and formed another ambush. There was a dense fog along the creek, such as I never saw in the interior. Our infantry were formed along the creek bank just above the crossing, and the cavalry in column of fours in the road forty or fifty yards back from the ford of the creek, and thus, in the fog, we were as completely concealed as if midnight darkness had prevailed. The infantry remained perfectly quiet until the head of the enemy’s column was in the act of crossing the creek, when suddenly, with a yell they plunged through the creek and charged them. This threw the head of their column into confusion, when our cavalry charged them in column at a gallop, and pressed them back two or three miles. And this was the last fight I was ever in!
CHAPTER XVIII
ROSS’ REPORT OF BRIGADE’S LAST CAMPAIGN
Ross’ Report—Repulse a Reconnoitering Party—Effective Fighting Strength—Advance Guard—The Battle at Campbellsville—Results—Thompson’s Station—Harpeth River—Murfreesboro—Lynville—Pulaski—Sugar Creek—Losses During Campaign—Captures—Acknowledgments.
Headquarters Ross’ Brigade, J. C. D.