[
119]
Ten days after the affair at
Franklin,
General J. J. Reynolds, with his division,
Colonel Wilder's mounted brigade, and seventeen hundred cavalry under
Colonel Minty, moved from Murfreesboroa
upon
McMinnville, then occupied by about seven hundred of
Morgan's men. The guerrilla's troopers were driven out and dispersed, and a Confederate wagon-train, which had just left for
Chattanooga, was pursued, and some of the wagons were destroyed.
The
Nationals burned a Confederate cotton factory and other public property at
McMinnville, destroyed the railway, its buildings, trestle-work, and bridges, and returned to Murfreesboroa
without accident, their triumph graced by one hundred and thirty captives.
Other smaller expeditions were sent out at about this time, and the
Confederate raiders were taught to be very circumspect.
Toward the middle of April, a more ambitious expedition than any yet sent out by
Rosecrans, started from
Nashville, upon the important service of sweeping around to the rear of
Bragg's army, cutting all the railways in
Northern Georgia, destroying depots of supplies, manufactories of arms and clothing, and in every possible way to cripple the Confederate army, upon which
Rosecrans was exceedingly anxious to move.
The expedition consisted of the Fifty-first Indiana, Eightieth Illinois, and a part of two
Ohio regiments, numbering in all about eighteen hundred men, commanded by
Colonel A. D. Streight, of the first-named regiment.
His force was called, by
General Garfield,
Rosecrans's chief of staff, who gave the leader his instructions, “an independent provisional brigade,” created for “temporary purposes.”
In accordance with his instructions, he left
Nashville with his command on the 11th of April, in steamers, and, landing at
Dover, marched across the country to
Fort Henry, on the
Tennessee River,
1 where he remained until the boats went around to the
Ohio and, came up to that point.
Then he went up the
Tennessee to
Eastport, where he debarked, and, marching southward, joined the forces of
General Dodge, then moving on
Tuscumbia, on the Memphis and Charleston railway, in
Northern Alabama.
This was to mask the real intention of the expedition,
Streight being instructed to march long enough with
Dodge to give the impression that his was a part of that leader's force, and then to strike off from
Tuscumbia southward to
Russellville or
Moulton.
Streight's troops were not mounted when they left
Nashville.
They were directed to gather up horses and mules on the way; so they scouted for them over the region they passed through, yet when they joined
Dodge one half of the command was on foot.
They marched with him to the capture of
Tuscumbia, and then, after receiving a supply of horses and mules, they started
for
Russellville, with only about three hundred men on foot.
There they turned eastward, their chief objective being the important cities of
Rome and
Atlanta, in
Northern Georgia.
The former was the seat of extensive Confederate iron-works, and the latter the focus of several railway lines.
At the same time
Dodge also struck off southward in
Alabama, and sweeping around into
Mississippi, striking Confederate detachments
