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expedition was speedily fitted out for the purpose of wiping out the disgrace and accomplishing the object sought for. It was estimated that
Forrest had about fourteen thousand troops under him, with his Headquarters in the neighborhood of
Tupelo, and in that direction, from
Salisbury, fifty miles east of
Memphis,
General A. J. Smith marched with about twelve thousand men, early in July.
He met
Forrest's cavalry at the outset, and skirmished with them nearly all the way to
Tupelo, on the Mobile and Ohio railway, where the
Confederate leader had made up his mind to give battle.
The expedition arrived at
Pontotoc, west of
Tupelo, on the 12th,
and when moving forward the next morning,
General Mower's train was attacked by a large body of cavalry.
These were repulsed, and the expedition moved on, and when, the next day, it approached
Tupelo,
Forrest's infantry, in heavy numbers, attacked the line.. They were repulsed, after a sharp battle.
The assault was repeated on the same day,
with a similar result, when the
Confederates were driven, leaving on the field a large number of their dead and badly wounded comrades.
Smith pushed no farther southward at that time, but, after a pretty severe cavalry fight the next day at
Old Town Creek, he retraced his steps, and encamped his troops not far from
Memphis.
There he allowed them to rest about three weeks, when, with ten thousand men, he again moved
for
Mississippi.
He penetrated that State as far as the
Tallahatchie, which he reached on the 17th, but found only a few Confederate cavalry to oppose him.
Forrest's men were not there.
Where could they be?
was a perplexing question.
The bold leader himself answered it, by dashing into
Memphis at dawn on the morning of the 21st of August, and making directly for the
Gayoso House, where, according to information furnished by spies, he might expect to find
Generals Hurlbut,
Washburne, and
Buckland, it being their quarters.
He failed to secure his hoped — for prizes, but seized and carried away several of their staff-officers, and about three hundred soldiers as prisoners.
He hoped to open the doors of the prison there, in which Confederate captives were confined, but pressing necessity made his stay too short to perform that achievement, and within an hour after entering the city he was driven out of it, carrying away his prisoners and some plunder, but losing there, and in a sharp skirmish a short distance from the town, about two hundred men. His exploit was a bold and brilliant one.
Informed that
Smith was in
Mississippi looking for him, and believing that
Memphis was nearly bare of troops, he flanked the
National force with three thousand of his best horsemen, performed the feat here recorded, and then retreated to his starting-place, notwithstanding there were about six thousand troops in and around
Memphis.
And so it was that
Forrest performed his prescribed duty in keeping re-enforcements from the
National army in
Northern Georgia, in the
spring and
summer of 1864.
As we have from time to time, in these pages, noticed the employment of negro troops, and in this chapter have observed how the
Confederates were disposed to treat them, it seems to be an appropriate place here to give, in a few sentences, a history of the measure.
During the white-heat of patriotic zeal that immediately succeeded the attack on
Fort Sumter, and the massacre of troops in
Baltimore, a few colored men in New York City, catching inspiration from the military movements
