ETURNING from the Johnsonville raid, we met the army of General Hood. We were ordered to take the advance, and on November 19, 1864, our command was assembled at Florence, Ala., on the north bank of the Tennessee River, at the foot of the great “Mussel Shoals.” General Forrest was placed in command of all the cavalry, and we began the advance on Nashville. During this march I suffered some of the severest hardships of my life.
Gen. George H. Thomas, one of the ablest of the Union commanders, had collected a large force of all arms, and was confronting Hood at every turn of the route. We, in advance, came in contact with his cavalry a number of times, and I had many thrilling and narrow escapes. General Wilson, of the Union Army, had a well-equipped cavalry force of 10,000 men, and Forrest had to contend with this force with about half its number.
We kept the Union column moving backward day by day until we reached Spring Hill, Tenn. Here we came in contact with Slocum’s Corps; and after a severe fight, we pushed them back into the town, and had that column of the enemy separated from their main force, which had retreated on Franklin, Tenn., a short distance beyond.
Here a great mistake was made by some one other than General Forrest. It is not my purpose to criticize, but I shall state facts and let the reader judge for himself.
At Spring Hill night came on soon after or about the time the battle closed, and Forrest moved his command around parallel to the pike that connected Spring Hill and Franklin.
Hood’s main army came up after nightfall.
Thomas had pushed on to Franklin, leaving Slocum and Wilson to hold the Confederates in check at Spring Hill until night, when they were to withdraw under cover of darkness.
I have no personal knowledge of what took place on that night between our commanders, but it was current talk, and has been published many times since the war, that General Forrest sent a message to General Hood urging that either our command or an infantry division be ordered to take position across the Franklin and Spring Hill Pike to prevent the uniting of the two Union columns. That this was not done was a blunder that laid the foundation for disaster to Hood’s army.
While I do not know what passed on that fateful night in the high councils of our leaders, I do know that, as Forrest’s command lay through the long, uneasy night along that pike, we plainly heard the artillery and wagons of the enemy’s army marching out of Spring Hill and away from sure defeat and capture, which would have been their fate had they kept their position until daylight of another day.
The next day General Hood arrayed his army in battle order under the expectancy that the enemy would make a stand at Franklin.