October and November, 1864, covered the most successful and aggressive period of General Forrest’s remarkable exploits. Volumes could be written describing the details of his marvellous marches and his almost indescribable triumphs with the means and men at his command. From August 23rd to October 15th, 1864, his capture of Athens, Alabama, the expedition into middle Tennessee, the destruction of the Tennessee and Alabama railway, the capture of Huntsville, destruction of the Sulphur trestles, the battle at Eastport, had presented an array of experiences and won victories enough to make him and his men heroes for the years to come. Within these fifty-three days the actual and incidental losses inflicted upon the Federals cannot be fully estimated. He had killed and captured thirty-five hundred men and officers of the Federal Army, added nine hundred head of horses to his equipment, captured more than one hundred and twenty head of cattle, one hundred wagons and their supplies, and possessed himself of three thousand stand of small arms and stores for his commissary ordnance and medical supplies, which made glad the hearts of his hungry, ill-clad and debilitated followers.
Six long truss bridges had fallen before his relentless destroyers, one hundred miles of railroad had been completely wrecked, two locomotives, with fifty freight cars, had been demolished, thousands of feet of railway trestles, some of sixty feet in height, had been hewn down and given over to flames, to say naught of hundreds of thousands of other property essential to Federal occupation. He had caught up one thousand men in Middle Tennessee for his own command and enabled six hundred men who had either straggled or been cut off from General Wheeler when he had raided the same territory a short while before to come out to the commands. It had cost Forrest three hundred men and officers, killed or wounded. Some of his bravest and best had died on the expedition. Many of them were men whose places could now never be filled, but according to the economics of war, the price paid was not too great for the results obtained. He had traversed over five hundred miles and left a savagely marked trail of ravage and destruction wherever he had come. Not a day was without some sort of contact with the enemy, and every hour was full of danger and peril, demanding ceaseless vigilance and wariest care. On January 13th, 1864, a new Department styled “Forrest’s Cavalry Department” was organized out of West Tennessee and Northern Mississippi. Hardly had the new year been ushered in when the Federal Government, with ten thousand well-equipped and well-drilled cavalry, undertook to force a way down from Memphis to Meridian, taking in some of the Confederate strongholds like Pontotoc, Okolona, Columbus Junction and Macon, a distance of two hundred and fifty miles, to end at Macon. General Sherman was to move from Vicksburg with an army of twenty thousand troops. Co-operation of the cavalry was deemed of the greatest importance. To lead these horsemen, William Sooy Smith, not only a great engineer, but a successful soldier, was placed in command. Telegraphic communication had been opened between Vicksburg and Memphis, so that it was hoped these forces, thus co-operating, might keep in touch with each other. General Sherman made good his march to Meridian, playing havoc with railroad connections and other property in Mississippi. General Smith however failed to keep his engagement. He had been delayed in starting, until the 11th of February, from his rendezvous, Colliers Station, twenty-five miles southeastward from Memphis. He waited here for Colonel George E. Waring, who had been instructed to come from Columbus, Kentucky, with another brigade, under orders to unite with General Smith. Waring left Columbus with several thousand cavalry, and with the best arms of that period, and what was considered at that time amongst the most thoroughly furnished cavalry forces that had ever gone from the Federal lines. General Smith had informed General Sherman that Forrest would strike him somewhere in Northern Mississippi between Cold and Tallahatchee Rivers. After his invasion of West Tennessee, General Forrest had been enabled to get together four brigades under General Richardson, Colonel McCullough, General Tyree H. Bell and General Forrest’s brother, Jeffrey E. Forrest. The Confederates were not inactive, and they prepared to offer strongest resistance to General Smith. The State Militia, under General Gholson, were brought into line. Smith marched for several days unhindered, and the absence of Confederate forces impressed him that it would not be long before he would come in contact with Forrest. Northwestern Mississippi was a great prairie country, producing the most grain of any section of the Southwest. When the Federals reached West Point, Mississippi, there were unmistakable signs of battle. There General Smith learned that three Forrests were about, General Nathan Bedford, Colonel Jeffrey E., and Captain William, and investigation disclosed that the number of men with Forrest was about two thousand. General Smith had now traveled half way from Memphis to Meridian, and Sherman was waiting and watching for Smith’s coming. General Forrest had studiously circulated reports magnifying the number of men under his command. By the 21st of February, Smith felt that the impending blow was about to fall. He hesitated and was lost. He turned back, and Forrest’s hour of advantage had come. Colonel Waring in his book, “Whip and Spur,” of this moment speaks as follows: “No sooner had we turned tail than Forrest saw his time had come, and he pressed us seriously all day and until nightfall.” The retrograde movement was just commenced when Jeffrey Forrest’s orders were to fall in after Captain Tyler’s battalion and to assail the Federal rear at every chance. Pursuit was vigorous and active, and General Smith’s retreat became almost a stampede. It was in one of these charges that Colonel Jeffrey E. Forrest, commanding a brigade, the younger brother of General Forrest, was killed. For over sixty miles, night and day, a relentless pursuit was kept up. Forrest had four thousand men that were new troops. A majority of them had seen service less than six weeks. They were hardy men but mostly untrained soldiers, but they prided themselves that they were the equals of any veterans.
By the time General Smith reached Memphis he had more of a mob than an army. There was practically no organization left and it was almost a case of everybody for himself and devil take the hindmost. Not two weeks had elapsed since, in the pride of strength and full of ambitious hopes, they had set out to cripple and destroy Forrest, and now, with less than fourteen days to their credit as avengers and destroyers, they came, humiliated by reverses, scattered in fright, and with no signs of victory on their colors. Their leaders could make but little excuse for their ignominious failure, and the only chance to palliate or mitigate defeat was to magnify General Forrest’s army that had at first stood them at bay and then, with pitiless pursuit, had driven them to the place from whence they had started with such dazzling dreams of glory and triumph.
This expedition disposed of, Forrest began at once to cut out new work. There were no furloughs for him. War in his mind was constant, ceaseless activity. The scarcity of horses and ammunition as well as clothing was a constant charge upon Forrest’s energies. He could not get from the Confederate quartermaster or commissary what he most needed, and far out on the front he could not wait for transportation even if the Confederates had the essential things. In the Federal Army and outposts he always found an unfailing supply of those things his men must have to faithfully fight.
Three regiments of Kentuckians, about this period, were sent over to help General Forrest, and they were fully up to his high standard of fighters. They only numbered seven hundred men after the decimation of three years in infantry, but they proved a most valuable asset. None of his men were more dependable. Buford, Lyon, Faulkner, Hale, Thompson, Tyler and Crossland could always be counted on for gallant leadership, and the men under them were never averse to fighting at the closest range. These men needed clothing. The Government had given them poor mounts, some of them had rope bridles, with no saddles. They used blankets as a substitute and now and then rode for a while bareback, until they drew from the Federal commissary, by force, what they needed. Up in Kentucky, if any good horses were left after impressment from both sides, these Kentucky boys would surely find them. As for clothing, that would come in far greater quantities than would be desired, and sight of home faces and home places would make them stronger for the subsequent work at Bryce’s Cross Roads, Harrisburg and Johnsonville, and other conflicts, where only highest courage could avail.
Then, too, the Tennesseans, who had come from the northwestern part of the State, also needed mounts and uniforms, and they longed to see what the sad ravages of war had done for their homes and kindred in that part of the South where the cauldron of pillage and bloodshed seemed ever to be seething.
General Forrest reorganized his command into four brigades, and on the 12th day of April Fort Pillow was taken. A year before this, General Forrest had penetrated a considerable distance into Kentucky and had captured a number of posts and looked askance at Fort Pillow. This was deemed a valuable possession, it was used not only for the defense of the river, but as a recruiting place for fugitive slaves. The story of Fort Pillow has been told so often that it need not be repeated here. The loss of Federals was supposed to be five hundred killed and an equal number captured. Forrest’s loss was twenty killed and sixty wounded. Fort Pillow was considered remarkable among cavalry achievements. Forrest, with a few untrained soldiers, had accomplished and won this great victory and given his foes new reasons for animosity. Much, very much has been written and spoken about Fort Pillow. It became a name with which to conjure the colored troops, and through it abuse was so heaped upon General Forrest as to create the impression that he was a brutal, ferocious and merciless monster. The Federal Congress set afoot an investigation, but Forrest’s defense from the calumnies heaped upon him satisfied his friends, if it did not convince his enemies.
The character and antecedents of the garrison had much to do with the events of the histories connected with its capture. Renegade Tennesseans and fugitive slaves comprised the larger part of its defenders. The white men there had perpetrated many wrongs and outrages upon the defenseless families of the Tennesseans under Forrest. Great numbers of his men had come from the regions where these hideous wrongs had been inflicted. Feeling was high on both sides. Human passions had been thoroughly aroused in Confederate and Federal hearts, and both sides were rejoiced at a chance to “have it out.” Neither side went into the conflict looking for any signs of surrender, and had the Confederates changed places, they would have fared no better than those they defeated and captured. But the fall of the Fort was a great windfall to General Forrest, and while it increased the hate of his foes, it detracted nothing from his renown and fame amongst his own people.
Many Federal generals had tried their hand with Forrest only to meet failure. William Sooy Smith had lost, and General Stephen A. Hurlbut had also failed. General C. C. Washburn had taken his place and then Samuel D. Sturgis came and then Bryce’s Cross Roads. Later followed the Confederate defeat at Harrisburg, which for awhile saddened Forrest’s heart. Wounded shortly after this battle, General Forrest was forced to ride in a buggy with his torn foot lifted up so as to cause him the least pain. It was persistently rumored that he had died of lockjaw, and there would have been no tears among the Federals if this had turned out to be true. By the beginning of August, General Forrest had recovered from his wounds sufficiently to enable him to enter upon one of his greatest exploits. Riding into the heart of Memphis, he caused Generals Washburn, Buchland and Hurlbut to flee from their beds at night and seek safety in the forts around the city. General Washburn’s uniform and effects were captured, but he managed to escape. General Washburn sought to lay the blame for this successful and marvelous feat upon General A. J. Smith. Under all the circumstances, Forrest’s raid into Memphis was admittedly amongst the most brilliant and daring cavalry exploits of the war. That two thousand men should avoid the cities in which the Federal garrisons were quartered, pass them by, travel a hundred miles, and then rush into the city of Memphis, make good their escape with an embarrassing contingent of supplies and prisoners, up to that time had few if any parallels.
The tremendous power and efficacy of the methods of General Forrest had at last been realized, and the Government at Richmond resolved to turn Forrest loose upon Sherman, in connection with General Richard Taylor, who had command of the department of the Mississippi. General Taylor, sympathizing with Forrest in his style of fighting, on the 16th day of September, 1864, set him afloat for twenty-one days’ operations on the rear of the enemy. Forrest’s entry into Memphis had caused A. J. Smith’s army to return to that city and had temporarily withdrawn a large and threatening force from Mississippi. Up to that time General Taylor had never seen Forrest. He described him as a tall, stalwart man with grayish hair, kindly countenance and slow of speech. Nature made General Forrest a great soldier. With opportunities for the development of his marvelous genius, there could have been no limit to his performances.
On the 16th day of September, Forrest started from Verona, Mississippi, with three thousand five hundred and forty-two effective men. He undertook to cross the Tennessee River at Newport, where boats had been provided. The artillery, ordnance and wagons were crossed at Newport, but Forrest waded the river at Colbert Shoals. Chalmers commanded one division and Buford the other. Reinforcements now joined Forrest, which made four thousand five hundred soldiers, four hundred of which, however, were dismounted and were following on foot with the expectation of capturing mounts during the raid. These hardy men were glad, by walking and many times running, to be allowed to join the expedition. A horse was the most desirable of all earthly possessions. They were hesitant at no fatigue and hardship which led them to a mount. Those who went with Forrest well knew they would at some point be sure of a captured beast. They all had some friend who would ride and tie with them. Here and there, on some short stretch of good road, they might when nobody was looking get a lift in an ammunition wagon. Then, too, they could escape the slush and mud in the bespattered road, and trotting alongside the fences or passway, they would find it no great task to keep even with the artillery and heavily loaded horses, unless when the haste of battle or the rush of pursuit quickened the pace of the advancing column. Life was worthless to a cavalryman under the great leaders of the Confederate troopers if he had no horse, and thus these nervy men for days followed the expedition, with unfailing faith that in a reasonable time General Forrest would at least give them a sufficient chance with their enemies to enable them to forage upon the Federal Government for the much needed steed. None who ever witnessed these dismounted battalions marching on foot to the scenes of devastation and battle could fail to be impressed with the power of the human will or the strenuosity of the human body under the impulse of war’s hopes and calls.
At this time there was a railroad which ran from Nashville, Tennessee, to Decatur, Alabama, called the Alabama and Tennessee Railroad. This had been a feeder for Federal commissary and general supplies, and General Forrest undertook to destroy it. The Confederates had not been expected. Athens, Alabama, was the first Federal stronghold to fall. Forrest’s presence had never been suspected until his troops were in sight of the place. It surrendered without contest. Nine hundred prisoners were captured at Athens. This invasion of Forrest stayed for a little while Sherman’s great march to the sea. From Pulaski, Tennessee, General Forrest moved to the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad. He reported that the enemy had concentrated at least ten thousand men on the 27th of September, and on the 28th he began to play havoc with the railroad at Fayetteville and Tullahoma. The Federal forces, under the direction of General Sherman, were concentrated in the hope of capturing Forrest. General Sherman telegraphed that he could take care of the line between Atlanta and Chattanooga, but the line from Nashville to Chattanooga must be protected by others. The rage of Forrest’s enemies was evidence enough to convince the men of the South that he had done his work well. At that time General Sherman telegraphed to General Grant on the 29th of September, in which he said, speaking of Forrest, “His cavalry will travel 100 miles in less time than ours will travel 10.” He also said, “I can whip his infantry, but his cavalry is to be feared.” Again he telegraphed to General Elliott, chief of the cavalry department of the Cumberland, “Our cavalry must do more, for it is strange that Forrest and Wheeler should encircle around us thus. We should at least make 10 miles to his 100.”
On the 1st of October, on this raid, Forrest reached Spring Hill, twenty-six miles from Nashville. So far no reverses. The time had come now for General Forrest to escape. On the 3rd of October, with all possible speed, to avoid the Federal columns, he marched south, reaching Florence, Alabama, where he had forded the river two weeks before, but now it was swollen and could no longer be passed. At this point, in what would be considered almost a crisis, Forrest was compelled to carry a thousand of his men out to an island in the Tennessee River, which was filled with an impenetrable growth of cane and timber of all kinds, and hide his boats behind the island, while the enemy was still watching to prevent his troops from crossing. General Forrest, in speaking of this wonderful expedition, said, “I captured 86 commissioned officers, 67 government employees, 1,274 non-commissioned officers and privates and 933 negroes, and killed and wounded 1,000 more, making an aggregate of 3,360, being an average of one to each man I had in the engagements.” He further says, “I captured 800 horses, 7 pieces of artillery, 2,000 stands of small arms, several hundred saddles, 50 wagons and ambulances with a large amount of medical, commissary and quartermaster’s stores, all of which have been distributed to the different commands.”
Now a still greater victory and a new departure in military work was to mark the closing months of 1864, in which General Forrest acted with an independent command. Towards the end of the war, Memphis became a center of the most important operations. The Mississippi was always open and it gave entrance into the grain fields of the West and through the Ohio, the Missouri, the Wabash and the White Rivers, and put at the service of the Federal Army abundant supplies of food and raiment.
The Tennessee River, the fifth largest stream in the United States, like the New River, is one of the marvels of nature. Rising far up in the mountains, close to the Virginia line, it pushes its way southwardly through Tennessee, swinging around into Alabama, as if by some capricious fancy, it changes its direction and then turns north about four hundred and fifty miles to its mouth, where it mingles its waters with those of the Ohio, sixty miles above its union with the Mississippi. After leaving Alabama, pursuing its course within fifty miles of the Father of Waters, it appears to be reluctant to reinforce that stream with which it runs parallel for hundreds of miles. It would appear according to reason and nature that it should again have veered to the west and effected its connection with the Mississippi, but as if wishing to defy this mighty stream, it still moves onward and northward. It comes then within two miles of the Cumberland, which is fed by the waters from the mountains close to where the Tennessee River has its source, and then, as if running a race with the Cumberland, it flows along parallel with that stream and, at last, wearied by its tortuous journeys for nine hundred miles, at Paducah it mingles its waters with those of the Ohio, and these in turn pass westward and reach the Mississippi at Cairo.
About one hundred and fifty miles from Memphis, on the Tennessee River, was a little town called Johnsonville, and at that time it was at the head of the navigable part of the Tennessee River. To that point the larger boats could most always come and it was a great depot for supplies, and in an emergency these might be carried over to Nashville or Memphis, as either one or the other might require.
Forrest was beginning now fully to recover from the effects of the loss of the troops he trained in the earlier months of the war. Successful beyond all question in cavalry service, he had again gathered about him a corps of almost invincible men. His new recruits and such soldiers as were reimbued with patriotic impulses, after having left the army when it abandoned Tennessee, by Forrest’s coming into West Tennessee, cheerfully returned to the post of duty and under the impulse of Forrest’s success, and the love and courage with which he impressed all who once saw him enter battle. The ranks of depleted skeleton regiments were partially filled, and the commanders of these new organizations had now, under Forrest’s eye and control, learned how he deemed it wisest to fight, and they were ready to do and dare all that his impetuous valor required, or his marvelous skill as a leader pointed out as the true way to carry on war under the conditions that then existed in his department.
He had now a division of more than four thousand men. He felt sure he could trust them in all emergencies, and he was eager and willing to put them to the highest test, and he undertook at this period what will always be considered as a remarkable cavalry foray, the expedition to Johnsonville, Tennessee.
Before undertaking this arduous work, Forrest had pleaded for a furlough. This had been promised, but an emergency arose which neither he nor General Taylor could foresee or control, and it became impossible for him to be absent even for a brief while; and so Chalmers and his division were directed to report to General Forrest at Jackson, Tennessee, on the 16th day of October.
General Forrest and General Dick Taylor were kindred spirits. Their relations were most happy and pleasant. They were men who fought the same way and thought the same way, and Taylor recognized the greatness of Forrest and fully understood that he did best when left to his own devices.
On October 12th, 1864, Forrest telegraphed Chalmers, commander of one division, “Fetch your wagons and the batteries with you. I will supply you with artillery ammunition at Jackson.” Buford was ordered to take up his line of march for Lexington, a short distance from the Tennessee River, where Forrest had crossed in his December, 1862, expedition. Gun boats and transports were being moved along the Tennessee River. These could go a little south of Chattanooga, and the line of communication had been protected and held open from the river to General Sherman and his men. Forrest had resolved to destroy some of these gunboats and capture some of the transports. He needed some new guns, the clothing, shoes, arms and ammunition of his troopers needed replenishment and, too, he had a conviction that he could enact such scenes on the Tennessee as would disquiet Sherman at Atlanta and by imperiling the river transportation, and destroying the railroads north of Chattanooga, he could bring Sherman, by sheer starvation, out of Georgia. It was a splendid conception, and could the Confederacy have sent Forrest on one line and General Wheeler on the other, it would have stopped or delayed the march to the sea, and prolonged the war another year. Optimists said, it might bring final victory to the banners of the Southland.
On this Johnsonville raid, as often before, he marched with such tremendous rapidity and covered his movements so thoroughly that the enemy knew nothing of either his plans or his positions, until far up in Tennessee they felt the touch of his avenging powers. He had parked batteries at Paris Landing and Fort Heiman on the Tennessee River, and his men began to wait for the unsuspecting Federals before his foes had an inkling of what he really intended to do. He struck the river about forty miles above Johnsonville. The two batteries were five miles apart. He knew what all his enemies were doing, but they caught naught of where he had gone, or was going. Like a great beast of prey, he hid along the river banks in the cane and undergrowth, watching and waiting for his victims to cross his path, or to come his way. A vast majority of the people of West Tennessee were intensely loyal to the South, and it was only here and there that Federal persuasion could win from a native any facts about the movements of any Confederate force. News about Federal movements was always accessible to Forrest’s scouts, who knew accurately every road and by-way of this entire region. It was one hundred and fifty miles to Memphis where a large Federal force was stationed, but none passed Forrest’s line to carry tidings of his doings, and when Forrest’s guns opened on the transports and gunboats on the river, north of Johnsonville, it was a most startling revelation to the Federals of the ubiquitous movements of the Confederate chieftain. The Federal generals knew he was loose somewhere, but they had no power of divining where he might break out to terrorize their garrisons and destroy their railroads or depots of supplies. Forrest, Wheeler, Hampton, Stuart and Morgan had the most efficient scouts that ever kept an army informed of an enemy’s movements. Forrest’s territory for operation was larger than that of any of these other leaders, and he never once failed, thanks to the courage, daring and intelligence of his scouts to know just how many they were and just where he would find his foes.
A grateful people will some day build a monument to these daring and successful purveyors of information, who deserve a very large share in the splendid victories and triumphs of the Confederate cavalry. The South may never know their names, but the world will some day fairly and justly measure what they were in the campaigns which will live forever amongst the most brilliant of military exploits.
Forrest was playing a great game. He had taken big risks and was figuring on tremendous stakes. In the night time he made all necessary dispositions. His scouts had told him that boats were coming and Forrest was glad, for he had come for boats. The Confederates had waited both patiently and impatiently all the night long. Patiently, because they felt sure of their prey; impatiently, for they anxiously desired to feed upon the good things the vessels contained, and also because they had made a long and trying march and, tiger-like, they were ready to spring upon the victim. It was chilly and raw. It had been raining heavily off and on during the past week. The river bottoms, or even the hill tops, were not comfortable places in October without fire, and these things, added to the excitement that preceded great actions, made the Confederate troopers long for the coming of the rising sun. There was something in the very surroundings that gave portent of great deeds and glorious triumphs on the morrow, when they should be sent forth on their mission, and it was difficult to repress, even amidst their depressing environments, the enthusiasm which they felt sure must break forth in the inevitable happenings of the next twenty-four hours.
Early in the morning of October 29th, the Mazeppa, a splendid steamboat, laden with freight, and two barges which she was towing to Johnsonville, came around the great bend of the Tennessee River. The sections of artillery had been posted some distance apart on the river. Passing the lower one, the boatmen discovered its presence only to find themselves between the two hostile batteries. Both were turned loose and in a few minutes the boat was crippled and the pilot headed for the shore. She was abandoned, and the crew in wild dismay found refuge in the woods along the banks. The immediate trouble was that the Confederates were on the opposite side from the stranded steamer. In this crisis, a valiant Confederate, Captain T. Gracy of the 3rd Kentucky, came to the rescue, and although the water was chilling and the current swift, he strapped his revolver around his neck, mounted on a piece of driftwood, and with a board for a paddle, propelled himself across the stream. Keeping true to the instincts of the sailor, the pilot refused to desert his care, and he surrendered to the naked captain who had so bravely crossed the stream. This was probably, in some respects, the richest capture that Forrest had ever made, and his soldiers began to unload the cargo and carry it away from the river bank to a place where it might be watched and preserved until it could be taken away.
The Federal gunboats got the range on the Mazeppa and opened such a heavy fire that its new captors were glad to consign the boat to the flames, while they energetically packed and hauled its precious contents to places so far inland that the guns of these sea fighters could not find the places of hiding.
A little while and another large steamer, the J. W. Cheeseman, approached the upper battery. It was allowed to pass in between the two Confederate positions. No sooner had she gone well into the trap than fire was opened upon her, both from the troops upon the shore, and from the artillery, and her officers were glad to hasten the surrender of this splendid steamer. The gunboat, Undine, had also gone in between the batteries, but the Confederate artillery were not afraid of gunboats, and so they pounded her so severely that she was disabled and driven to the shore, and her crew and officers hastily abandoned her and escaped through the woods, while she became a prize to Confederate daring and marksmanship. In a little while, the transport Venus moved up the river. On this boat was a small detachment of Federal infantry. This boat was attacked by Colonel Kelley and his men, and so heavy was the iron hail upon her that she, too, was glad to surrender and with the gunboat was brought safely to the shore. Half the garrison were killed or wounded and all captured.
On this day it seemed to rain gunboats. Another one, the No. 29, had probably heard the firing, and, coming down the river, anchored within half a mile of the Confederate batteries and opened fire. This was too slow a game for the Confederates, so General Chalmers took the guns and his escort and a company of videttes, and going through the cane and brush got nearer to the gunboat and soon drove it away. The steamboat Cheeseman could no longer be serviceable, her stores were removed and flames lapped up what was left of her. The Venus and the Undine were slightly injured. The Undine was one of the largest gunboats that had been sent up the Tennessee river. She carried eight twenty-four pound guns, and when she became a victim to Confederate courage, her entire armament went with her. Her crew attempted to spike the guns, but in this they were unsuccessful. In all these captures the Confederate loss was one man severely wounded. Five or six Federals were killed on the Venus, three killed and four wounded on the Undine and one wounded on the Cheeseman.
General Forrest, ever resourceful, and whose capacity for all phases of war seemed unlimited, determined to begin a career as a naval officer, and from the cavalry a volunteer crew was made up; two twenty-four pounders were placed on the Venus, and Captain Gracy placed in command. Gracy had shown himself to be a great land fighter, but he was yet to make his reputation as a marine. The captured gunboat was also put into commission. The new commodore was directed to steam his boat up the river toward Johnsonville, a few miles away, while the troops marched along the road parallel to the river. The gunboats were put in charge of Colonel Dawson. He evidently did not want to secure Forrest’s ill will, and so he made a covenant with him that if he lost his fleet, Forrest was not to “cuss” him. The boats got separated. The artillery were not skilled so well on water as they were on land, and so when a Federal commodore, with boats No. 32 and 29, got within range of the Venus, they soon damaged her so badly that she was of no service, and was run ashore and abandoned without even setting on fire. The Undine, seeing the disaster to her companion ship, sought safety on the river bank under the protection of the Confederate batteries. The Federal gunboat soon closed in upon the Undine, and it was necessary to abandon her, also, and set her on fire.
So far General Forrest had inflicted a great amount of damage upon the Federals. He had captured the Mazeppa with seven hundred tons of freight, two other steamboats, two other gunboats, the transports Venus and Cheeseman, and another steamer over at Clarksville on the Cumberland was also destroyed. It was not very far, something like twenty-five miles, across to the Cumberland, and Forrest undertook to operate upon both rivers. Johnsonville was on the east side of the river.
On the 3rd day of November, Forrest reached the scene of action with his chief of artillery, John W. Morton. Johnsonville, at this time, appeared as a sort of heavenly resort, or a Commissary Utopia, to the Confederates, and Forrest promptly undertook its destruction and all that was gathered in it. The landing was filled with transports and barges and gunboats. The great problem with the Confederates in the later periods of the war was something to eat, wear, shoot and ride, and the little town beside the Tennessee, with more supplies than these oftentimes hungry and illy clad horsemen had ever dreamed of, appeared to contain all the provisions in the world. On the banks were houses filled to overflowing with valuable supplies, and acres of army stores were piled around the warehouses. A new battery had come up during the following night, under Captain Thrall. This was placed just above the town, while the Morton and Hudson batteries were placed just opposite and below the town. At two o’clock Forrest opened with his artillery. He had kept his movements so well concealed that the Federals at Johnsonville were unaware of his presence until the Confederate guns announced the presence of an enemy. Morton promptly opened fire upon the forts and gunboats. For a little while the Federals had no apprehension that Forrest could effect very much, but Morton, always skillful, soon obtained the range and by cutting the fuses with precision, he put his shells into the midst of the supply station. Flame and smoke soon began to rise from many of the boats that lined the river, and from the goods along the wharf and the warehouses. By nightfall, the boats and the walls of the commissary were fired, and for three-quarters of a mile up and down, the river presented a great forest of flame. Flames illuminated the horizon for miles and huge volumes of smoke rose up towards the heavens in glorious signals of a great consuming fire. Some said that the Federal soldiers fired their own boats. Morton, Thrall, Bugg, Zaring, Brown and Hunter, the men who directed the artillery firing on this expedition, won splendid laurels by the accuracy of their aim. Colonel Rucker had an extended experience in artillery service in the Mississippi in the earlier stages of the war; while General Lyon, who before his resignation from the United States Army had served as an artillery officer, gave their assistance in the important work of destroying the Federal boats and supplies. The artillery were the chief instruments in this crowning act of destruction, and all others in the other corps were glad to give them due praise and plaudits for the splendid way in which they had performed their part in this magnificent victory.
Forrest had now accomplished all he had come to do. He had burned up millions’ worth of property. The Federals said he had thirteen thousand men with twenty-six guns. Sherman, telegraphing General Grant, said, “That devil, Forrest, was down about Johnsonville, making havoc among the gunboats and transports.”
The roads had become well-nigh impassable, and the return march to Corinth was slow and toilsome. On November 10th, however, he arrived at Corinth in reasonably good order. He had been absent a little more than two weeks. He had captured and destroyed four gunboats, fourteen transports, twenty barges, twenty-six pieces of artillery, and six million seven hundred thousand dollars’ worth of property. One thing that particularly pleased the Confederates was the capture of nine thousand pairs of shoes and one thousand blankets, and strange to say, in all these operations and fourteen days’ fighting of the Confederates, two were killed and nine wounded.
Forrest always was able to mystify his enemies. He had left enough troops in the neighborhood of Memphis to keep the commanders there busy and to fear an attack on the place. General Smith reported from Memphis, on the 16th of October, that the houses had been loop-holed for sharpshooters, and an inner line of cotton defenses constructed, and told his commander that Forrest was at Grenada on the Friday night before. Halleck, in Washington, wired Thomas that Forrest was threatening Memphis. General Sherman was so alarmed by this destruction of Johnsonville that he telegraphed to General Grant, saying, “Sherman estimates that Forrest has 26,000 men mounted and menacing his communications.” The 23rd Corps was despatched to Johnsonville, and up at Columbus, Kentucky, Sherman had given orders that guns must be defended to death and the town should be burned rather than that Forrest should get a pound of provisions. The Federals seemed to be doing more telegraphing than fighting and marching. While they were comforting each other or alarming each other, Forrest’s soldiers, well dressed, well mounted, thoroughly equipped, were pulling through the mud, trying to get out of Tennessee. The mud and slush became such a menace that General Forrest was required to use sixteen oxen to pull one gun. The teams were doubled to carry the cannon, sixteen horses were hitched to a single piece. The oxen would haul the guns ten or fifteen miles and then were turned back to their owners, who were allowed to drive them home.
On the 15th day of November, Forrest reached Iuka, and then by rail from Cherokee Station, Forrest and his men were transferred to Florence, Alabama. On this trip, horseshoes and nails became very scarce. Many times Forrest was compelled to take the tires from the farm wagons along the route and have these forged into shoes and nails for the use of the horses.
This marvelous expedition was to close the really great destructive career of General Forrest. The ink was hardly dry upon his letter to General Dick Taylor, detailing a portion of the work under his command, until orders were given for General Forrest to proceed at once to Florence and there take command of the cavalry of the Army of the Tennessee, under General Hood.
It was a sad mistake when the Confederate Government at Richmond had failed, a year before, to invest General Forrest with command of the cavalry of the Army of the Tennessee. He was not braver than General Wheeler; he was not more patriotic than General Wheeler; but without any reflection, it may be confidently said that from the same number of men, General Forrest would get more fighting than any officer of the Confederate Army, General Lee not excepted. When damage to his enemies was to be calculated Forrest had no superior in the world. He captured and destroyed more Federal military property than any other officer of the war.
Forrest, like Wheeler, always went to the front. Both seemed destined by miraculous interposition to be preserved from death. Many times all those about them went down before the enemy’s fire. Both Forrest and Wheeler were several times injured, but never very seriously. No two men were more reckless or courageous on the battlefield, and no two men with the means at their command ever did more for any cause than Forrest and Wheeler. Of these two men many thousands of pages might be written, and yet much would be left unsaid that ought to be said in recounting their wonderful campaigns. With charmed lives, with brave spirits, with courageous souls and intrepid hearts, they seemed immune from death.