Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-04-03

| in him; its objects must necessarily be
evident to most men, but the ways and
methods by which those objects could and
should be secured came Of themselves into
the untaught brain of this fearless soldier,
this General by intuition.
His favorite maxim was: "War means
fighting, and fighting means killing"
Hence Il was bis track was usually marked
with blood, and the dead bodies of his
enemies were the records he left of fierce
charges down roads and of Federal camps or
bivouacs taken by surprise. 1t may be
asserted without contradiction that no man
on either side killed SO many adversaries
with his own hand as he did during that
long war.
Forests first real fight did not come of
until the last week of 1851. Up to that
time he had practiced his men in long
marches and accustomed them to life in the
open air during cold and very trying
weather. He thus tempered and hardened
his young volunteers to the hardships and
rough life of soldier in the field, and he
had time to shake down himself into the, to
him, novel position of commanding officer.
On the 2Sth of December, 1851, Forrest had
marched his regiment, then 800 strong,
about 20 miles over execrable roads, either
deep with mud or rendered barely passable
from frost In the neighborhood of Rumsey,
KY, he came upon q fresh trail of the
er envy, who he learned from the inhabitants
were about 45O in number. A gallop of ten
miles brought him into contact with the
Federal rear guard near the village Of
Sacramento.
He Charged With Half His Men.
Not more than half Of his men had been
able to keep pace with him, but with them
he charged down the road and drove in the
rear guard upon the main body. He ordered
his men to fall back, in the hope of drawing
the enemy after him, and In this way Of
bringing them nearer TO the remainder Of
his regiment, the men of which kept drop
ping in by fives and SKIES. In this he sue
he directed them to tall upon the enemy's
flank, while with the remainder on horse
back he bore down along the road upon his
center. The rifle fire in flank from these
dismounted detachments was too much for
the Federal cavalry, who, in spite of their
officers gallant efforts to make them stand,
broke and bolted to the rear. Many were
the hand-to-hand encounters and hair
breadth escapes Of the Southern, leader that
day, but his loss was small, while the Fed
erals suffered very severely.
It was nottso much the defeat of the en-
emy he rejoiced at as the confidence this in
slSnlnc8nG success gave nlS men IN their
own strength and prowess. His second in
command, Colonel Kelly, who before the
war had been clergyman-or, in Southern
language, "a preacher" as gallant a
soldier under fire as ever smelled powder in
any war. In note written soon after this
action, Kelly refers to his leader in the fol-
lowing terms:
sTt was the first time had ever seen the
Colonel in the face of the enemy, and when
he rode up to me in the thick of the action
I could scarcely believe him to be the man
1 had known for several months His face
flushed till it bore striking resemblance to
. painted Indian warriors, and his eyes,
usually mild in their expression, were blaz-
ing with the intense glare of a panther's
springing upon its prey. In fact, he looked
as little like the Forrest of our mess table
as the storm of December resembles the
quiet of June"
Although cannot pretend to follow this
great leader of mounted troops through his
many hard-fought battles, Il have dwelt upon
this, his first engagement, because it fairly
illustrates his mode of fighting upon all
occasions.
GARNET JOSEPH WoLsELEY.