James D. Porter, Confederate Military History, a library of Confederate States Military History: Volume 7.1, Tennessee
Clement Anselm Evans, Ed.

[242] and 300 horses and mules. Major-General Washburn, the Federal department commander, escaped in his night clothes. To make this daring raid, Forrest left the immediate front of Maj.-Gen. A. J. Smith at Oxford, Miss., who had with him a force of 4,800 cavalry and a large body of infantry and artillery. The troops accompanying Forrest were the company commanded by Capt. W. H. Forrest; Col. J. J. Neely's Tennessee regiment; the Second Missouri; the Fourteenth Tennessee, Colonel White; the Eighteenth Mississippi; the Twelfth and Fifteenth Tennessee, Lieutenant-Colonel Logwood and Lieut.-Col. Jesse Forrest; Bell's Tennessee brigade, with a section of Morton's battery, Lieutenant Sale in reserve, and not engaged in the city proper. This considerable force was withdrawn from the front of Smith without arousing a suspicion on the part of the Federal commander, for the purpose of diverting Smith's column from an advance south of Oxford, the Confederate commander being sensible of the inability of his small command to give battle successfully.

General Washburn, in his official report, remarks that the fact ‘that Forrest should have left our immediate front at Oxford and made this move on Memphis without its being discovered by our large cavalry force in his immediate vicinity, is somewhat strange.’ After this censure of his subordinate, he was careful to report that ‘the impression generally prevailing that Memphis is a fortified city is far from correct;’ but he now ordered the immediate construction of earthworks for defense against future attacks. All parts of the city were taken and occupied by the Confederates to the confusion and dismay especially of Major-General Washburn. Lieut.-Col. W. H. Thurston, inspector-general, Sixteenth corps, reported that General Forrest entered Memphis with 400 men under Lieutenant-Colonel Logwood and Lieut.-Col. Jesse Forrest. When Washburn was notified of the taking of the city, ‘he left his residence as early as possible and made his way to Fort Pickering, without having ’