Following this event, Battery E returned to Jackson (which had been reoccupied by Confederate forces). Though harassed during their march by Southern units, Private Rice reported that they "kept out of range of our brass band. For when we play 'Dixie' on it, it makes them more than dance." Upon arriving at Jackson they assisted in a nine-day siege, after which Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston evacuated the city. Jackson was described as a "doomed city" in the battle's aftermath, with Rice affirming that he and his comrades tore up and burned tracks and ties from five different railroads extending twenty miles out from the city in all directions.