Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 3.

[416]

Let us now see what was occurring in Tennessee and on its southern borders, from the time when Sherman captured Atlanta until his arrival at Savannah.

We have observed that Hood, late in September, crossed the Chattahoochee, and began operations against Sherman's communications.¹ Meanwhile, and in co-operation with Hood (whose chief objective was evidently Nashville), Forrest, the bold and active cavalry leader, who had been in Northern Alabama for several weeks keeping re-enforcements from joining Sherman from the Mississippi, proceeded to prepare the way for an invasion of Tennessee. He crossed the Tennessee River near Waterloo, and on the 25th,

Sept. 1864.

appeared before Athens, in Northern Alabama, with a force of light cavalry, about seven thousand strong, and invested it. He opened a 12-pounder battery on the town, and twice demanded its surrender. It was refused, but finally, at a personal interview between Forrest and Colonel Campbell, the commander of the little garrison of six hundred negro troops, the latter was persuaded to surrender the post. Re-enforcements sufficient to hold the place (the Eighth Michigan and One Hundred and Second Ohio), came up half an hour afterward, and, with the garrison, became prisoners of war, after a sharp contest.

Flushed with his victory, Forrest pushed on northward to Pulaski, in Tennessee, destroying the railway as he moved, and capturing a fortified post, at Sulphur Branch Trestle, on the way. He found Pulaski too strong for him. General Rousseau was there, and made the assailants cautious. After sharp skirmishing the greater part of a day,

Sept. 29.

Forrest withdrew, and marched eastward, toward the Chattanooga railway, with his whole force. He struck it between Tullahoma and Decherd, but had scarcely begun its destruction, when he was confronted by Rousseau, who had hastened by railway, around by .Nashville, and reached Tullahoma, while General Steedman, who had crossed the Tennessee from Northern Georgia, was coming up rapidly from the southwest with five thousand troops. At the same time, General Morgan's division of the Fourteenth, Corps was hastening into Tennessee for the same purpose. These combined forces drove Forrest from the railway before he had damaged it much, when he retraced his steps to Fayetteville, the termination of a railroad from Decherd. There he divided his forces, giving Buford, his second in command, four thousand of them, and reserving three thousand for himself. Buford went directly south, threatened Huntsville, and again attacked Athens, which General Granger, in command at Franklin, had re-garrisoned with the Seventy-third Indiana, Lieutenant-Colonel Slade. For a part of two days,

Oct. 2-8.

Buford tried to carry the place, when he was effectually repulsed, and sought safety by flight across the Tennessee, at Brown's Ferry.

Forrest, in the mean time, had pushed on to Columbia, on the Duck River, with his three thousand horsemen, but did not attack that place, for Rousseau was coming down from Nashville with four thousand mounted men. At the same time, General C. C. Washburne, with four thousand five hundred men (three thousand of them cavalry), was moving up the Tennessee