Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1879-08-30

addition to his own proper force
r ten thousand strong, he has thre
thousand colored troops from Mem
phis, three Minnesota regiment
: sent me from st. Louis, and fou
, thousand cavalry"
On the 4th of August Gen. Sher
} man telegraphed Gen. Grant: "Gen
: Washburn is moving from Holly
Springs on Columbus, Miss. HI
thinks that Forrest is dead, from
the wound he received in his battle
, with Gen. Smith"
If this movement of Gen Wash
burn was not myth, as he was
never heard of in the field, he must
have suddenly returned, when he
learned that Forrest was not dead
The only time he was ever known
to be in the neighborhood of Forrest
was when he ran out of his bedroom
in Memphis, in light marching or
der, leaving his uniform behind,
which Forrest captured and after
ward restored to him. Washburn,
in return, sent to Forrest some gray
cloth, gold lace and trimmings to
make him a Confederate uniform.
Gen. Smith moved slowly, repair
ing the railroad from Grand june
tiOn to Abbeville as he came.
On the 8th of August Forrest
again took the field in a buggy,
though still suffering severely from
his wound.
On the 18th the enemy had COM
pleted the railroad to Abbeville,
thrown a pontoon bridge across the
/ HnII Inh H., ,fol, pix Of ~
commenced his movement on Ok
ford. Feeling unable to contend
with A. J. Smith, with his largely
superior command, he determined
to make a counter movement on
Memphis with one-half of his COM
mand, leaving the other half under
his first division communicative
whole force not then exceeding four
thousand effective. He conceived
this idea on the morning of the 18th
of August, 1864, and sending out
men to cut the telegraph wires in
rear of Smith, promptly at P. NJ.
Of the same day he started, saying
to his second in command, eff you
can hold them back two days, /
will be in Memphis" Believing it
the best method of delaying the
enemy, the officer left in command
determined to threaten an attack.
Early on the morning of the 18th,
taking his escort and Col. Burrows
regiment, two hundred and fifty
strong, having placed his command
in a strong position behind Hurri-
cane creek to receive any return
attack that might follow, he moved
on AbbeVille, captured forty pick
cts on the Oxford road, and charged
into town. As the Confederates
came in, a large force of Federal
cavalry went rushing out. Col. Bur
rows, a dashing preacher, who
fought as well as he prayed, wanted
to charge after them; but the officer
in command ordered halt until he
galloped to the top of the hill and
saw a heavy force drawn up behind
it, evidently to receive a pursuing
charge, and withdrew. The return
attack came, and was severely re-
pulsed, and the enemy were held
back more than two days without
discovering the absence of Forrest.
This affair at AbbeVille and the
affair at Town creek, where For
rests command was so quickly cut
to pieces and himself severely
wounded in similar trap, led me
to believe that A. j. Smith had |
studied Forrest more closely than |
any other Federal general who met |
him. The movement on Memphis |
had the desired effect TO draw Smith |
back. A similar movement by |
Van Dorm on Holly Springs drew |
Grant from Oxford; and it is be-
lievett that a similar movement, |
made when our army lay at Canton,
Miss, twenty thousand strong,
while Memphis was lightly garri-
sOned, would have drawn Grant |
from before Vicksburg. The rail
road could have putthem in Pamela
in two days-three days. marching
would have put them in Memphis
and, with the Mississippi river in
our possession at Memphis and Port |
Hudson, Grant would have starved |
sooner than PembertOn.
IN sHERMAN's REAR IN AnnDLn
TENN EssBE.
This campaign ended on the 23d
of August, and Forrest, without any
time to rest, was ordered to the de-
fence of Mobile. On his way to
Mobile, he was met by his new De-
partment commander, Gen. Dick
and | give their interview
and its results in the graphic Ian
guage of the latter.
"Gen. Maury was informed by
telegraph of my presence, that l
command of the Depart
ment, and would assist Forests
An hour later, train
from the north, bringing Forrest in
advance of his troops, reached Me-
ridian, and was stopped, and the
General, whom ( had never seen,
came to report. He was tall, stall
Wart man, with greyish hair, mild
slow and homely of
speech. In a few words he was in
formed that / considered Mobile
safe for the present, and that all our
must be directed to the
relief of Hoods army, then west of
Atlanta. The only way to accomp-
iish this was to worry Sherman's
communication nqrth of the Ten
nessee river, and he must move his
in that direction at the
moment. To my surprise,
Forrest suggested many difficulties
and asked numerous questions
how he was to get over the Tennes-
see? how he was to get back if
pressed by the enemy? how he was
to be supplied. what should be his
line of retreat in certain contingent
cies what he was to do with his
if any were taken, etc. /
began to think he had no stomach
for the work, but at last, having
isolated the chances of success from
cause of failure, with the care of a
chemist experimenting in his labO-
ratOry, he rose and asked for B'lem-
ing, the superintendent of the rail-
way, who was on the train by which
he had come. Fleming appeared
q little man on crutehes Che had
recently broken a Lego, but with the
energy of a giant-and atonce stated
what he could do in the way of
supplies on his line, which
had been repaired up to the Tennes-
see boundary. Forests whole
manner WAS now changed, In a
dozen sharp sentences he told his
wants; said he would leave a staff
officer to bring up his supplies
asked for an engine to take him
back twenty miles north to meet
his troops; informed me he would J