I inclose herewith my instructions to General Smith, with a copy of his report, and must say it is unsatisfactory. The delay in his starting to the 11th of February, when his orders contemplated his being at Meridian on the 10th, and when he knew I was marching from Vicksburg is unpardonable, and the mode and manner of his return to Memphis was not what I expected from an intended bold cavalry movement. * * * * I returned (to Canton) from Vicksburg, on the 6th inst., found all my army in, and learned that General Smith had not started from Memphis at all till the 11th of February, had only reached West Point, and turned back on the 22d, the march back to Memphis being too rapid for a good effect. ‘Nevertheless, on the whole, we accomplished all I undertook.’General Smith, at the time of this expedition, was Grant's chief of cavalry, and when he was temporarily placed under the orders of Sherman for the Meridian campaign, he was engaged, in conjunction with other troops, in watching and operating against Forrest's command. He made full report to
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instances it was necessary to build boats to ferry the command, and where at times the men were compelled to dismount and harness the horses to the artillery and the ammunition wagons in order to draw them through.
Three days would seem scarcely enough to refit a brigade after such a march, but in that time it again started under General Smith.
A vigorous campaign was then made against Forrest, and pushed as far as was prudent or possible.
The delay in starting had made it impracticable to reach General Sherman at Meridian, by the time he had set for returning, and so General Smith withdrew to Memphis.
As a result of his expedition, he reported between one and two million bushels of corn destroyed, two thousand bales of cotton burned, thirty miles of railroad destroyed, three thousand horses and mules, and fifteen hundred negroes brought out of the enemy's country, besides the forage and subsistence taken for his mounted force of seven thousand.
General Sherman in his report of the Meridian expedition, made a few days after his return to Vicksburg, maintained that he had accomplished all he undertook, notwithstanding the delay in General Smith's movements.
This portion of his report is as follows:
Cincinnati: Wilstach, Baldwin & Co. 1875.
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