Bennett H. Young

“ The Confederate artillery was swinging out to the front. The Confederate cavalry always had good artillerists, Pelham, Chew, Cobb, Rice, Morton, Thrall and Freeman were men whom any commander might covet and in whose services they might glory.
Forrest had two wonderful qualities. He made all his associates recklessly brave. They absorbed the touch of strange and ever-masterful courage that came oozing from his every pore. He was, besides, a wonderful judge of men; all his staff were men not only of intrepid spirit but of quick intelligence and infinite patriotism. ”

“ Six feet, four inches tall, splendidly proportioned, with a magnificent suit of brown hair and whiskers, graceful as any man who ever rode to war, as brave as the bravest, calm, cool, fierce in danger, his presence was always an inspiration to his followers. He was idolized by his men. He had won the confidence and admiration of General Morgan and all who were associated with him in the division. Had he escaped on the Ohio raid, he would have been made a brigadier general. There was universal sorrow that so splendid a life should go out with such darkened surroundings. ”

“ There would come a time when a pitying Providence should provide out of these soldiers for the first and only Confederate President a depleted bodyguard, who would go with him in his reverses and humiliation, and who were to stand guard over him and his cabinet, to beat off pursuing foes at a time when every man’s hand would be against him and them, when fate would hide its face and give him over to a cruel, brutal mocking and an imprisonment which would shock the world’s sense of mercy and justice. ”

“ No cavalry in any great battle of the war played a more distinguished part than Wheeler’s and Wharton’s men at Murfreesboro. Their audacity was only equalled by their success, and it is difficult to comprehend how even the greatest of leaders, with only twenty-nine hundred horsemen, could make such havoc with foes, or move with such ease, celerity and with freedom from disaster, in the rear of an opposing army, when rarely was he at any time more than ten miles from the tents of its commanders. ”

“ Skirmishes and contact with the militia would arouse the men for a brief while, but with the cessation of the excitement, nature would again lift its cry for mercy and plead for sleep for man and beast.
And so on and on and on until the sun was about to hide its face behind the western slopes, and at four o’clock in the afternoon, on the 14th, the column, now struggling and oppressed with both hunger and weariness, reached Williamsburg, Ohio, and camped for the night, and the greatest single cavalry march of the world, composed of as large a force as twenty-five hundred men, was ended. ”

“ Among the officers who proved themselves heroes on that day, none deserved higher honor than Captain H. A. Tyler, of the 12th Kentucky Cavalry. His assault on the flanks and his charge on the rear of the enemy were noble and superb exhibitions of the highest courage. He played havoc with the colored reserves who were protecting the wagon train. His voice was heard above the din of firearms and at the head of his squadron; he descended upon the black soldiers with such furious war-cries as to chill their blood and set in motion the retreat, which soon developed into an uncontrollable rout. ”

“ They looked down the road and wished that some men in gray would come and drive away these rude soldiers who had disturbed the peace of their home, ungallantly destroying their property, and cutting into fragments their saddle which had come as a gift from the dead father whose grave was out in the woods near the garden gate. As they looked down the road, they saw one single blue-uniformed man riding at highest speed, rushing along the highway as if mad, waving his hands and beating his tired mount with his sword. ”

“ With his great physical handicap, the admiration was all the more intense, for the spirit and the grit of the man who was undertaking one of the most dangerous and difficult expeditions of the war. Shelby’s body was subordinated to the beckonings of glory and the splendor of the opportunity which had now come in obedience to his pleadings to serve his State, his cause, his country. Other men, less brave or determined, would have hesitated. Some men, possibly equally chivalrous, would have taken a furlough rather than have sought new dangers and more difficult service. ”

“ Forrest understood that the crisis was upon him, and he always grasped the crucial moment. Riding swiftly in front of his forces through the jungles, he told his men that the time had come to win, that when the bugle sounded every man must leave cover, cross the open space, where it was open, and charge through the thickets where they prevailed, and rush their enemies. He rode like a centaur, giving his orders along the line. The comforting, encouraging word, the hardly pressed soldiers speaking bravely together, was ended now. Action, sharp and decisive, was the watchword. ”

“ Twelve hundred wagons, with their covers whitened as snow, spread like a gleam of silver down through the valley and across the hillsides and over the mountain ridges, were crawling along the highway, laden with supplies of the most tempting kind and weighted down with ammunition, designed to take the lives of the men in gray, brothers of Wheeler’s followers, who across the Tennessee were holding in check the Federal army invading the Southland. ”

“ In fact, without this arm of the service, the Confederacy could not have so long maintained the unequal contest; nor the Federal Army have prevailed as quickly as was done. The story of the campaigns of Stuart, Wheeler, Morgan, the Lees, Forrest, Hampton, Ashby, Mosby, Green, Van Dorn, Shelby and Marmaduke, and their associates, gave war a new glamour, opened to chivalry a wider field for operation, painted to adventurous genius more entrancing visions, and made the service of men who rode to battle a transcendent power of which warriors had hitherto not even dreamed. ”

“ There was food enough in town for Streight’s men to eat and enough fresh animals to assure every man in blue a mount. The pleasures of the picnic were rudely shattered; robbed by hungry Federals of baskets or lunches, they scattered like bird coveys, and from the homes of friends, hidden behind fences, or peering from the bushes with grief, rage and indignation, they witnessed their family steeds unhitched or unsaddled, harnessed with cavalry equipments, forced into the Federal column, and galloped away with the hated soldiers on their back. ”

“ The part of the Confederates who were in the ferryboat and canoe with their clothes on, rushed into line, while those who swam, unwilling to be laggard, not halting to dress, seized their cartridge boxes and guns and rushed upon the enemy. The strange sight of naked men engaging in combat for a moment amazed the enemy. They had never seen soldiers before clad only in nature’s garb; they concluded that warriors, fully grown and armed, just born into the world, were the men they must fight. Amid such scenes as this was begun the thousand mile march which constituted Morgan’s Ohio Raid. ”

“ As he released himself from her tender embrace and felt the touch of her lovely lips upon his own and saw the tear-drops trickle down her cheek, painted by the delicate touch of nature with most exquisite colors, he caught an inspiration that lifted him up to the sublimest heights of human heroism, and imbued him with a valor that stirred every fibre of his soul, and made him feel that with him there must be victory or death. ”

“ Nature could pile up against him no obstacles that could thwart his will, and to them he went and came as he planned, and no human foresight could avail against his strategy or his onslaughts.
It was a humiliating thing for General Smith to do, but he was stirred by this strange happening. If he went on, Forrest might undo all a year’s planning and garrisoning had done and West Tennessee again become Confederate territory. If he went back along the line he had come, he must march on roads, the very sight of which made cavalry wish they had never come to war. ”

“ The men in blue singly and in squads, glad to be relieved from the horrible surroundings, some walking and some riding, turned their faces from the fearful scenes of ruin and disaster that loomed up in ghastly horror before their eyes. They realized that the men in gray had vanquished them, and without a stain on their valor and courage, they marched away to cross the river they had forded at the coming of the dawn, with highest hopes and grandest expectations of victory. ”

“ The thought of capture aroused the hearts of all the men to heroic resolve to do and dare all that was possible to avoid the humiliation and misfortune of a surrender.
From out of the conflict one thing had been brought, and these brave men were desirous of bearing this back to Texas so that the great march should not be without one trophy, and like grim death they hung to the six-gun battery of twelve-pounders that they had captured at Val Verde, a short while before. They were to haul these cannon over the wilds safety had forced them to traverse. ”