[492] Mobile on the Gulf, and to establish his army firmly in the triangle formed by the Alabama and Tombigbee Rivers, and the railroad leading from Selma to Demopolis and Meridian. The immediate objects of the movement were to cut off Mobile from Johnston, who lay in front of Grant on the lines in North Georgia, to break up Polk's army, and then to turn down on Mobile, and co-operate with Farragut's fleet, which was at that time thundering at the gates of this city. On the 3d February, Sherman left Vicksburg with about thirty thousand infantry, pushed east, and crossed the entire State of Mississippi to Meridian. A few days later the column, eight thousand strong, under command of Gens. Smith and Grierson, started from Corinth and Holly Springs, and passed, with the usual incidents of pillage and destruction, through one of the richest districts of the Confederacy. The junction of this cavalry force with Sherman at Meridian was the critical point of his plan, and it was thought would enable him to advance upon Demopolis and Selma. Gen. Polk's little army having been reinforced by two or three brigades from the Mobile garrison for the purpose of checking the enemy far enough to save his accumulated stores and supplies, was yet in no condition to give battle, being but half of Sherman's numbers; and, therefore, evacuated Meridian, and retired to Demopolis. Meanwhile Gen. Forrest, with not more than twenty-five hundred cavalry, had been detached to watch the movements of Smith's and Grierson's commands, and was left to confront eight thousand of the best-equipped cavalry that the enemy had ever put in the field. But the great cavalry chief of the West showed no hesitation. He struck the enemy on the broad prairies near West Point; and at Okalona, on the 21st February, he had a more important action, and put the enemy in shameful retreat back to Memphis. This action of Forrest was decisive of the campaign; it broke down Sherman's means of subsisting his infantry; and it illustrated on what slight conditions depend the defeat or success of an enterprise which leaves a well-defined base to penetrate the interiour of a country. Sherman in his first experiment of “the movable column” obtained only the cheap triumphs of the ruffian and plunderer. He was compelled to make a hasty retreat over one hundred and fifty miles of a country he had ravaged and exhausted; he accomplished not a single military result; he demoralized a fine army; and of the cavalry which was to co-operate with him, this master of billingsgate in the army declared “half went to h-11, and half to Memphis.”
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[492] Mobile on the Gulf, and to establish his army firmly in the triangle formed by the Alabama and Tombigbee Rivers, and the railroad leading from Selma to Demopolis and Meridian. The immediate objects of the movement were to cut off Mobile from Johnston, who lay in front of Grant on the lines in North Georgia, to break up Polk's army, and then to turn down on Mobile, and co-operate with Farragut's fleet, which was at that time thundering at the gates of this city. On the 3d February, Sherman left Vicksburg with about thirty thousand infantry, pushed east, and crossed the entire State of Mississippi to Meridian. A few days later the column, eight thousand strong, under command of Gens. Smith and Grierson, started from Corinth and Holly Springs, and passed, with the usual incidents of pillage and destruction, through one of the richest districts of the Confederacy. The junction of this cavalry force with Sherman at Meridian was the critical point of his plan, and it was thought would enable him to advance upon Demopolis and Selma. Gen. Polk's little army having been reinforced by two or three brigades from the Mobile garrison for the purpose of checking the enemy far enough to save his accumulated stores and supplies, was yet in no condition to give battle, being but half of Sherman's numbers; and, therefore, evacuated Meridian, and retired to Demopolis. Meanwhile Gen. Forrest, with not more than twenty-five hundred cavalry, had been detached to watch the movements of Smith's and Grierson's commands, and was left to confront eight thousand of the best-equipped cavalry that the enemy had ever put in the field. But the great cavalry chief of the West showed no hesitation. He struck the enemy on the broad prairies near West Point; and at Okalona, on the 21st February, he had a more important action, and put the enemy in shameful retreat back to Memphis. This action of Forrest was decisive of the campaign; it broke down Sherman's means of subsisting his infantry; and it illustrated on what slight conditions depend the defeat or success of an enterprise which leaves a well-defined base to penetrate the interiour of a country. Sherman in his first experiment of “the movable column” obtained only the cheap triumphs of the ruffian and plunderer. He was compelled to make a hasty retreat over one hundred and fifty miles of a country he had ravaged and exhausted; he accomplished not a single military result; he demoralized a fine army; and of the cavalry which was to co-operate with him, this master of billingsgate in the army declared “half went to h-11, and half to Memphis.”
1866.
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