Born to Battle

by Jack Hurst

  Probably only hours following his narrowly averted duel with Van Dorn, Forrest got new orders. On April 23, Bragg directed him to rush his brigade south from Spring Hill to the Tennessee River in northern Alabama. There he should take command of the cavalry of Alabama colonel Philip Roddey, who was retreating before a combined force of nearly 10,000 Federal infantry, cavalry, and artillery heading east from Corinth under Brigadier General Grenville Dodge.18

  Dodge was attempting an elaborate ruse: 8,000 of his men were to push Roddey, but the other 2,000 had a different agenda. Dodge’s pursuit of Roddey was designed to mask the main threat: the launching of a drive by Colonel Abel Streight and 2,000 mounted infantry to cut Bragg’s rail supply line in northern Georgia. Having fitted out his force in Nashville, Streight made his way to northern Alabama to embed, and thus hide, it in Dodge’s column. Grant and Rosecrans were taking a leaf from Bragg’s Forrest and Morgan playbook, authorizing quick thrusts deep into enemy territory to disrupt supply routes, divert attention, and weaken Confederates at Vicksburg and in Middle Tennessee. While Streight headed across northern Alabama to threaten Rome and military-industrial facilities in central and southern Georgia, Colonel Benjamin Grierson was riding south from Memphis through interior Mississippi to frighten the unprotected populace and slash Vicksburg’s rail lines. Dodge, once he had launched Streight, would turn back toward his own base in northern Mississippi.19

  COLONEL ABEL STREIGHT

  The Streight mission was daring but ill conceived. Streight’s idea, approved by Rosecrans, was to cross northern Alabama to Gadsden and there, some forty miles from the Georgia line, split into two wings. One would strike Confederate installations at Rome, Georgia; the other would veer slightly south and, thirty-some miles east of Rome, destroy a critical trestle of the Atlantic & Western Railroad tracks to Atlanta. The plan was madness. Grierson, an adept horse soldier, could traverse Mississippi with scant resistance and continue south into Union territory at Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Streight, on the other hand, was an infantry rather than cavalry officer, and his mission called for penetrating northeastern Georgia, where major Confederate forces would be much closer; then he was expected to turn and fight his way out.20

  The most problematic aspect of Streight’s mission was its personnel. Instead of cavalry, which was in short supply, it drafted infantrymen for more than two hundred miles of hard riding. Union brigadier general David Stanley, a veteran cavalry leader, was appalled. He later termed it “the most senseless thing I saw done during the war to waste men and material.” Stanley blamed the plan’s approval on Brigadier General James Garfield, Rosecrans’s chief of staff. Garfield, Stanley wrote, “had no military ability, nor could he learn.” He added that Garfield and Streight had sold Rosecrans the scheme.21

  Rosecrans knew the odds. He disingenuously told Streight to return via Alabama or Georgia. But if surrounded—as was all but certain—he should cost the enemy as much time and manpower as possible.22

  Military snarls developed. Rosecrans supplied Streight’s hazardous undertaking just as cavalierly as Streight himself had planned the operation. Rosecrans mounted the colonel’s force on an insufficient number of horses and mules, some wild and unbroken, others sick and dying. Streight’s superiors also expected him to take time to get the balance of the mounts he needed from the countryside through which he was to travel. And even some of those Streight had received were soon missing; a lax officer at Nashville allowed nearly four hundred to escape a corral, and only half were recovered. The junction with Dodge was delayed by a week by the corral stampede and the process of coordinating Streight’s all-too-detectable river-borne move from Nashville to Eastport, Mississippi. To fade from certain Confederate notice, Streight had to join Dodge and blend into that general’s ranks.

  By the time Streight did join Dodge in late April, the latter’s move from Corinth to Tuscumbia, Alabama, had naturally encountered Confederate opposition. Dodge’s overwhelming numbers had pushed Roddey’s 1,200 cavalrymen across Town Creek near Courtland, Alabama.23

  There Dodge learned he had more than Roddey to contend with. A new commander faced him across Town Creek: Forrest, with artillery. In the thirty-six hours since he had received his orders from Bragg on April 23, Forrest had ridden ninety miles from Spring Hill to the Tennessee River’s north bank at Browns Ferry, Alabama. When he arrived, he posted there George Dibrell’s Eighth Tennessee Cavalry and a section of guns under Lieutenant John Morton. Morton had just become acting chief of artillery, following a numbing loss to Forrest.

  Artillery captain S. L. Freeman had just died shockingly in a battlefield assassination. A Van Dorn advance against Franklin on April 19 had drawn a surprise attack from Federal cavalry, who had isolated and captured Freeman’s battery. Confederate cavalry countercharged, and the fleeing Federals forced Freeman’s thirty-some captured battery members to run in front of them in their retreat. Freeman, a prewar attorney, was unable to keep up and was shot point-blank in the face by a Federal cavalryman. On news of the artillerist’s death, Forrest broke down and wept.24

  Thus, at Browns Ferry Forrest assigned replacement artillery chief Lieutenant Morton to help Dibrell prevent Dodge’s Federals from crossing the Tennessee, if that was what they were up to, or to harass their rear if they were headed farther east. Dibrell’s men were to augment this harassment by spreading word in the community that Van Dorn’s entire cavalry corps was on its way from Middle Tennessee.

  Forrest meanwhile had taken the rest of his men to Town Creek to join Roddey in Dodge’s front. There, leading 3,500 troops opposing Dodge’s 9,000, he dueled Dodge’s eighteen guns with some of his own eight for five hours. Then, with little alternative, he fell back, fighting, to Courtland, Alabama. Around nightfall on April 27, a Roddey scout rode in. The man said Dodge’s column had separated. An estimated 2,000 Federals had peeled off southward and were now to the south and rear of Forrest’s left flank. Forrest took no notice at first. He fell back farther toward Decatur, terminus of a rail line to Nashville, and awaited further developments.25

  That night Dodge contacted Streight. The latter was at Mount Hope, Alabama, where he had arrived after splitting off from Dodge’s troops earlier in the evening. He informed Dodge that he remained “all right” and was making for the Alabama hill country. If he got there, he would succeed in reaching Georgia, he and Dodge thought, because the rougher terrain, with its residents more in sympathy with the Union, would slow pursuers. But the two Union officers did not consider that the feared Forrest, facing Dodge’s large force, would peel away to lead the pursuit of Streight.26

  Forrest first ensured that his prey was cut off. He ordered Roddey and 2,000 men into the area between Dodge and Streight and directed Dibrell to harass Dodge’s rear with cavalry and artillery.

  Meanwhile, he kept his own troops between Dodge and Decatur and began preparing to pursue Streight’s force as soon as Dodge had been stabilized. Since being ordered south from Spring Hill, Forrest’s troopers had already ridden or fought for five days; now they spent the night of April 28 preparing to do both at once. Overseeing everything, Forrest had horses reshod, men and ammunition inspected, rations cooked, ten ears of corn issued per mount, and each trooper’s gear checked. He took Morton’s lightest guns along with a similiar battery from Roddey, hitching them to double teams of his best horses.27

  On April 28, Dodge’s ruse became more apparent. The Federal general, unable to get his artillery across rain-swollen Town Creek, had sent only his infantry and cavalry across, and on that day they turned around and recrossed; doubtless influenced by Dibrell’s harassment and the phantom threat of Van Dorn, Dodge headed back toward the Mississippi border.28

  For Forrest, psychology—inspiring fear and then capitalizing on it—was the essence of warfare. From his own raids at Murfreesboro and in West Tennessee, he knew the paranoia his foe would contend with far behind enemy lines. He therefore would follow his primary precept of combat—“Get’em skeered, then keep the ske
er on ’em”—and try to ratchet up the fear, making Streight and his men feel Fury itself on their heels and gaining ground.29

  At daybreak on April 29, Forrest left Town Creek for Moulton, Alabama, twenty-five miles off. Streight had departed Moulton six hours earlier and was fifty miles ahead of Forrest. With him were the Fifty-first and Seventy-third Indiana,Third Ohio, Eightieth Illinois, and two companies of the so-called First Middle Tennessee Cavalry, comprising North Alabamans from the mountains who risked hanging for treason if captured.

  Streight was hopeful about his prospects. Dodge had told him Forrest was at Town Creek, far to Streight’s rear. Dodge’s message on the night of April 27 said that he had “driven the enemy” and that Streight should proceed. Two days of road-miring rains had ceased, and Streight’s men were welcomed by families of his “Middle Tennessee” cavalry and other predominantly unionist hill people. But when Streight bivouacked on April 29 at Day’s Gap, thirty-five miles southeast of Moulton, his converted infantrymen already were saddle-sore and tiring.30

  Next morning, the Federal commander received a shock. Only bands of Confederate guerrillas had opposed him so far, but early on April 30 he realized that had changed. He had gone no more than two miles from the previous night’s campsite when enemies attacked his hindmost unit. As he learned about this, he later reported, “I heard the boom of artillery in the rear of the column.” His blood must have frozen. Guerrillas did not carry artillery.31

  Forrest had covered the distance between them in a day and a half. From the road Streight had taken out of Moulton—southeast toward Blountsville and Gadsden, rather than northeast toward Decatur—Forrest could surmise that all along the Federal goal had been more ambitious and sinister than Decatur: they were heading for Georgia, site of many of the South’s military-industrial facilities as well as the vital Western & Atlantic Railroad that connected them to the battlefronts. Forrest pushed on with, if anything, more urgency. He had camped at midnight just four miles from Streight’s bivouac and sent his brother Bill’s scouts to reconnoiter the Federal position during the night. Soon after dawn, they were harassing the tail of the Union force.32

  Streight had already planned a defense. He had learned that the road through Day’s Gap crossed less-traveled routes winding north and south through smaller, flanking gaps. In his last message to superiors, he had said he hoped to have two or three days’ head start, but if Confederates pursued him too hotly, “I will turn . . . and give them battle in the mountains.” He did that now.33

  The Union advance had reached the top of Sand Mountain, a rugged plateau extending northeast almost to Chattanooga. There, past the last of the flanking gap roads, Streight found thinly wooded sand ridges offering good defensive positions. While his rear held the attackers in check, he posted his two twelve-pounder howitzers to command the road and placed the balance of his force on each side of it. He put these infantrymen into prone positions behind the crest of the mountain while his rear fell back to draw the Confederates into his ambush.34

  The Federal hind elements needed no urging to come running. Back there, surprised by Forrest’s attack, a few of Streight’s soldiers joined a stampede by hundreds of fugitive slaves who had attached themselves to the column. This disorganized horde scattered into surrounding hollows, leaving breakfasts on fires and abandoning fifty wagons. Despite these desertions, though, the ambush on the crest of the mountain worked. The organized remainder of the Union rear guard ran backward toward the crest, and the Confederates were in hot pursuit when Streight’s hidden Federals rose and delivered a volley at short range. The heavy fire repulsed Forrest’s vanguard. More Confederate troopers galloped up, dismounted, and counterattacked with small arms and artillery. Streight’s men drove them off and countercharged, going for two cannons Forrest had pushed up close to the Union line. The Confederate gunners resisted stubbornly but briefly, then fled, leaving their guns. The Federals took forty prisoners. Captain Bill Forrest, his thigh shattered, was one of them.35

  Bill’s older brother was livid about the guns. Exponentially more powerful than small arms, the bigger pieces could spare the lives of troopers and magnify Forrest’s ability to intimidate the foe. Morton being back at the Tennessee River with Dibrell, the artillery commander on Sand Mountain, Lieutenant A. Wills Gould, was a Morton friend and onetime schoolmate. Forrest cursed Gould for losing the precious cannons.

  Forrest again showed his readiness to risk everything on psychology. He prepared for a dismounted charge to repel the Federals and reclaim the captured pieces. Barely 1,000 Confederates had reached the field, and Forrest would need every man—so this time, he left none to hold the horses. All his troopers were to tie their mounts to trees and bushes and join the assault. If they failed here, he grimly noted, they would need no horses. The implication was simple: they had to stop the drive into Georgia at all costs, and they needed the guns to do it.

  But Forrest’s raging counterpunch struck nothing. About 11 a.m., after five hours of fighting, Streight had withdrawn again. He took the stolen guns with him.

  Forrest’s all-out, artillery-aided attack at Day’s Gap did have an effect, though. Likely buttressed by creative tales from the captured Confederates, it had magnified Forrest’s strength in Streight’s mind. The latter reported learning at Sand Mountain that the Confederates were “fully three times our number, with twelve pieces of artillery under General Forrest in person.” Worrying about his flanks and rear, he had opted to move on rather than risk a prolonged fight.36

  Six miles from the Day’s Gap battlefield, the Federals passed another crossroads. Up the route to his left, Streight discovered Confederates moving parallel to his path. Forrest had sent part of his troops north to cut off any attempt by Streight to give up his mission and turn back.

  Four miles past the crossroads, Forrest again caught Streight’s rear, this time at a stream called Crooked Creek. Streight arrayed for battle, now on Hog Mountain. Dusk gathered as Forrest assaulted the Federal right, then the left.The orders he issued were “Shoot at everything blue and keep up the skeer.” The fighting kept up in bright moonlight until 10 p.m. It must have stung Forrest that the cannons captured from him a few hours earlier now aided the Federals in driving off his men.37

  In the moonlit night, Streight moved off again. Short of horses and out of shells for the captured Confederate guns, he spiked and left them, burning the caissons. He had barely got moving, though, when he learned Forrest was again advancing behind him. Streight put men of the Seventy-third Indiana in a thicket twenty yards from the road, ordering them to fire into Forrest’s flank as it passed. The ambush worked, stampeding the Confederates. The attacks tailed off.

  Now amid forty miles of remote and barren country, Streight learned Forrest’s men might be wearier than his own. Likely from captives, he heard that the Confederates had been on a forced march for two nights and a day before they attacked at Day’s Gap. He thought that by exhausting the desolate area’s meager supplies, he could force Forrest to halt for rest for at least a day. Just when he began to believe he had been right, however, Forrest assailed him again. Streight had to lay another ambush to drive him off.38

  The bedraggled Federals reached Blountsville, Alabama, at 10 a.m. on May 1. Many mules in sorry condition at the start were ridden nearly to death and their riders now afoot. Streight found corn for his remaining usable mounts and issued rations and ammunition. The roads ahead were reported too rough for wagons, so he put his supplies on mules and burned his vehicles. After two hours of rest, he pushed on for Gadsden, thirty-five miles from Blountsville and nearly ninety from his target at Rome, Georgia.39

  Forrest allowed Streight his two hours of Blountsville leisure because victory was now in sight. He gave his Confederates two hours’ rest too. But before Streight’s column left Blountsville, the Confederates were on the move again, driving in his pickets. Voracious, they had saved and gobbled food from the burning Federal wagons.

  Streight kept laying ambushes w
ith his rear guard, taking a Confederate toll. All of May 1 and into the following morning, Forrest slashed at Streight’s rear. At 5 p.m. on May 1, the Federals had to form for battle again to gain time to cross the east branch of the Black Warrior River. From there Forrest allowed them to proceed toward Gadsden with only “small parties . . . harassing the rear of the column,” Streight reported. Forrest was now sending his men to the chase in shifts, resting some by turns. The “skeer” was now so operative that lesser numbers could hound the Federals with impunity.40

  It was a question of whose force would dissolve first. Forrest’s, too, was straggling. Even men who didn’t lag behind dozed in their saddles. The mood was tense, which showed when one of Bill Forrest’s scouts came racing in. With Bill captured, the man had ranged off-route to reshoe his horse at a country blacksmith shop. There he heard that a large force of Union cavalry was four miles north moving parallel to the Confederates. “Did you see the Yankees?” Forrest countered. No, the man said; a citizen had galloped up to the blacksmith shop shouting that he had seen them. Forrest grabbed the scout, yanked him off his horse, and started knocking his head against a tree.

  “Damn you,” he said. “If you ever come to me again with a pack of lies you won’t get off so easy.”

  Forrest had a detachment of his own to the north, so he knew there could be no enemy cavalry there. But such hearsay as the scout’s might unnerve some of the sleep-deprived, famished troopers.41

  At a rocky ford of Black Warrior River, the Confederates found two Federal pack mules that had drowned in another harried crossing. Some of the weary pursuers cut soaked crates of once-hard bread from the backs of the dead animals and wolfed the contents.42

  A round 10 a.m. on May 2, a few miles from Gadsden, Forrest’s vanguard chased a Federal horseman toward a burning bridge. On the last rise overlooking wide Black Creek, the Federal saw the bridge in flames. He reined in and gave up, surrendering to Forrest himself.