CHAPTER XVI
GEN. “SOOEY” SMITH
HE first to try for the Sherman reward was Gen. “Sooey” Smith, a West Pointer and a brave soldier.
After the return from our raid of 1864, our command was scattered from Okolona to West Point, Miss., for the purpose of recruiting and organizing for a greater campaign; but while we were thus scattered, General Smith pounced upon us with a choice brigade of well-armed and well-equipped soldiers.
Of course General Forrest had out reconnoitering parties at all times to forestall a possible surprise, and it was while out with one of these parties that I had one of the most thrilling experiences of my entire service. We had been informed by a citizen sheriff as to the location of a command of hostile soldiers. Before going with this sheriff to a point from which he said we could see into the Union camp, he invited us to rest and feed our horses in a secluded thicket where he had hidden his own stock. He did not know that his negro caretaker had deserted to the enemy, but such was the case; and while we were enjoying our rest, we were suddenly attacked and almost surrounded. When the sheriff saw the situation, he begged us not to fire on the intruders, in fear of the possible consequence to the community, and so we saved ourselves in flight as best we could. I was so closely pressed by a trooper, firing at me at close range, that I could not mount my horse; and in some way, not clear to me, I escaped into the woods, followed by a shower of bullets which I suppose I outran. My good horse “Hatch” was gone, and, with him, the brace of six-shooters which I had captured from Major Phillips before the evacuation of Corinth.
With a heavy heart, I left my hiding place at sunset, and, with all possible haste, concentrated my thought and energies in an effort to reach some citizen who would furnish me a mount that I might take word of the approaching enemy to my command. With but little delay, I succeeded in securing a beautiful, but blind, little horse. With minute directions from his owner as to my route to Okolona, I set out; and as the enemy had gone into camp for the night, I outstripped him and gave the news first to the detachment at Okolona and then to General Forrest, who, with the main force, was further on toward West Point. Whether or not General Forrest had previously formed his plan in anticipation of an attack, we knew not; but its execution was as swift as if it had been slated in advance, instructing the Okolona force to fight and slowly fall back upon the main column, lying along a creek near West Point. This creek was a low, sluggish stream; and at this time its swollen waters were covering the adjacent bottom lands, forming a wide marsh, spanned by a single road and a narrow bridge, making a new-world Arcola for this new Napoleon of the Confederacy. A fine decoy had been the Okolona retreating troops, as they had brought General Smith’s army to the exact spot where General Forrest had desired to meet it.
On February 20 the enemy lined up for battle and attacked our troops near the Tibbee Creek. The fight was fast and furious at the beginning. The enemy could not understand the sudden resistance after having chased the Okolona column so successfully.
Forrest held his veteran soldiers and his artillery in reserve until the enemy was well within his trap. To us it looked at one time as though our leader had made a mistake, as our advanced line was pressed so vigorously that it fell back in confusion. General Forrest in person rallied the retreating Confederates; and after a fierce rebuke to some of his fleeing soldiers, he lined up his escort and commanded that the troops follow this company. This was the word for a full attack, in which we turned the tide of battle and sent the enemy staggering back on his reserve. Forrest did not give the enemy time to reform, but pressed on into his broken ranks with such vigor that the Union Army was scattered out of all organization and fled from the field, utterly confused.
We kept up the chase until the enemy made a stand at a hill just north of Okolona on the Pontotoc Road. The commander massed his men on a steep and rugged hillside and gave us a hard, game fight. Jeffrey Forrest, a brother of our General, was killed here on February 24, and this sad incident so aroused Forrest that he seemed to lose all sense of personal danger. At the head of McCullough’s regiment, he charged the enemy from his position, and got so far in advance of his own men that we found him in the midst of the Union rear guard, fighting off his enemies from all sides. Colonel McCullough hastened to his assistance and extricated him from his perilous position. After this fight the enemy made no further effort to hold us in check, but gave all his thought and energy to a rapid retreat back to Memphis.
