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Estanaula, Somerville, Lafayette and Collierville, eluded his pursuers and took out this large force of unarmed men, well mounted, with a wagon train loaded with supplies, and a good stock of beef cattle and hogs.
Brig.-Gen. W. Sooy Smith, commanding the Federal cavalry forces of the department of Tennessee, numbering 7,000, which General Sherman stated was ‘superior and better in all respects than the combined cavalry which the enemy has in all the State of Mississippi,’ was ordered to move on Pontotoc and Okolona, Miss., thence down the Mobile & Ohio railroad, destroying it and all resources of the Confederates, and join Sherman at Meridian on February 10, 1864. General Smith reported to General Grant that he reached West Point on the 21st, but could not force his way through to Sherman.
He stated that he fought the Confederates ‘at four points severely and skirmished with them, as we retired, for sixty miles. We had the best of them at all points except Okolona, where our loss was very severe, including a battery of small howitzers.’
The Confederates, he stated, ‘pitched into us (at Okolona) and gave us a pretty rough handling, inflicting upon us a loss of perhaps 300 or 400 men killed, wounded and missing.’
General Forrest reported that his brigade, commanded by Col. Jeffrey Forrest, successfully disputed Smith's crossing of the Sakatonchee creek, forced him to retire toward West Point, and drove him from that place to within ten miles of Pontotoc, in two days. Forrest pursued the retiring enemy with his escort, a section of Morton's battery, a detachment of Faulkner's regiment, and a regiment from McCulloch's brigade, and never gave them rest until the Federal forces reached Okolona, where Forrest charged the enemy with Bell's brigade under Colonel Barteau, and forced him from the field in great confusion and with heavy loss.
It was here that General Smith confessed to a ‘rough handling.’
Five miles out from Okolona, General Smith reformed
Atlanta, Ga. 1899.
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