On the first approach to our line the enemy seemed to have about 2,000 men, and we held them in check and pushed them back out of range; but on the second charge they came like the locusts of Pharaoh, and that thin line of gray did not tarry for the impact, but went, self-ordered.
Forrest held the escort company until the enemy had swarmed all around us and cut us off from the city by way of the bridge. He then mounted his horse and told us to follow him—that he was going out. It looked like a desperate undertaking, but we had dared Fate so many times and “gotten by” that we believed that our great captain would carry us out again.
Our company was formed into a flying wedge, and began the drive toward the southwest, so as to strike the river at its narrowest point.
We fought like demons, as the majority of us in that company had never surrendered, and we did not now intend to do so.
I had many narrow escapes. My hat was either shot off or carried away by a saber stroke, but I got through without a scratch. When we cleared the cordon that had surrounded us, we plunged our horses into the river and escaped by swimming to the opposite shore.
Here Forrest gathered the few of us that were left, and we made our way out in the direction of Gainesville, Ala. We had lost a number of the escort in the fight—some were killed, some were drowned in the river, and some were wounded and surrendered. Among the captured were my two brothers and a young man who afterwards became my brother-in-law, R. P. Elgin.
After we were safely on the way to Gainesville, I told General Forrest that it seemed to me that the war was over, and that I was going to my father’s house. He and family were then refugeeing in the flat-woods of Pontotoc County. With but few words, the General admitted the gravity of the situation, and told me to go on to my father.
I first stopped at Okolona, Miss., where I was treated with great deference and kindness by the same slave boy who had nursed me when I was wounded.
From Okolona I went to my father and remained until June, 1865.
From Pontotoc County I rode back to Corinth, secured employment, sold my horse for $150 in greenbacks, and started my first savings account, from which I afterwards started a business of my own.