AFTER my return from this fight, it was my lot to undergo the saddest experience of my war life.
My brother, one year my junior, had just joined the command, when we went with a scouting party toward the railroad and met a small party of Union soldiers. It was the first time my brother had been on the firing line. He and I were on the extreme left of the line on the edge of a road, in touch with each other, and we received the first fire from the enemy. He was killed instantly and never spoke, but looked straight at me, with a silent understanding reflected in his eyes, and I caught him as he fell. The ball that killed him struck near his heart and passed through his body. I wrapped his body in a blanket and carried it sixty miles until I reached the main column. Then Gen. S. D. Lee furnished me an ambulance,and I carried the body to Pontotoc, Miss., for burial. After the war I placed a monument over the grave of this beloved brother and youthful soldier.
We had always been as twins, being so nearly the same age, and his tragic and pathetic passing from life left in my heart a burning scar which the long years, with their submerging floods of joy and sorrow, have never wiped out.
This tragedy also left within me a question which time has never answered: Was it by unguided chance or the immutable decree of an unknown Fate that I was permitted to live through fifty-two battles—to survive every kind of danger to which a soldier may be subjected—while this boy by my side, found swift death in his first battle line? Only the Great Commander of all life knows the deep secret of this sad disparity. Speaking from the earthly standpoint from which we judge the tragedies of this world, I was the favored one, as I stood unscathed beside the crumpling body of my beloved brother on that far-distant day, now nearly sixty years gone; but when the light eternalshall unveil the secrets of this fleeting existence, perchance I shall learn that it was a stern Fate that, on that eventful morning, left me the long, long road to travel, while the gentle soul of that boy was borne from the spot of his patriotic sacrifice, to the rewards that are promised, on wings far swifter than the bullet which dissolved the functions of his bodily life.
IN the beginning of the spring of 1864 it became very necessary that the granaries of South Mississippi and Alabama should be carefully guarded against a raid from the Union forces, these sections being absolutely essential to the sustenance of the Confederate armies. The task of protecting this land of plenty was assigned to General Forrest.
When General Sherman was pressing back the Confederate Army under General Joseph E. Johnston, he told his people at Washington that they must keep General Forrest from following his rear; also that the crops of South Mississippi and Alabama should be destroyed.
Accordingly, the Union commander at Memphis, Tenn., was ordered to assemble the largest possible force and place it underan able commander, so that Forrest could be permanently disposed of.
The force, when assembled on June 1, 1864, consisted of 3,500 cavalry, under two veteran commanders, Grierson and Warring, and 4,500 infantry, under McMillen, Hogue, and Bouton, the latter commanding a regiment of negroes. This army carried 250 wagons and twenty pieces of artillery.
The supreme command was given to Gen. Samuel D. Sturgis, an experienced warrior and brave fighter.
To meet this force, General Forrest had about 5,000 mounted troops, with two batteries of artillery—Morton’s and Rice’s.
The Federal Army left Memphis on June 1 for Ripley, Miss. Upon reaching that point, they halted and sent a cavalry force east to Hatchie River, and circulated the report that they intended to strike the Mobile and Ohio Railroad at Corinth, Rienzi, or Booneville, and then advance south or go east and cover General Sherman’s rear while he was pressing Johnston back through Georgia.
Of course this was done to mislead Forrest,hoping that he would throw his force as far north as Corinth, leaving the enemy time to march his force to Brice’s Cross-Roads, in which position he would block the Confederates and force them out through North Alabama, leaving open to Sturgis the rich country of South Mississippi and Alabama, which he so earnestly desired to reach. But Forrest never reached conclusions upon appearances, especially when he had reasons for believing that appearances were being made to deceive. On the 8th of June his command was strung out between Baldwyn, Booneville, Rienzi, and Corinth, Miss., as he was not yet certain as to what his foe contemplated in the invasion of this territory. It was naturally expected that some new tactics would be put forth by the new Union commander.
General Forrest came to our command at Baldwyn, and called for a reliable squad of four or five scouts who knew the country through the Hatchie Hills. I was one of the number furnished, and the General called us before him and told us that the Union commander was circulating the reportthat he was crossing the Hatchie River at Kellum’s Mill, and that they were going to Corinth, Miss., as soon as their infantry and artillery came up. Forrest told us that he wanted positive and exact information on this point, and that we must go until we could secure it; that we must not come back with a report that some one had told us so and so, but that we must go until we could see the enemy and know as a fact that they were there in force as represented.
Under these exacting instructions, we set forth, and reached the vicinity of the mill about dark. We went through the woods after we had passed the picket post, and carefully approached the miller’s house that stood on the hill overlooking the river.
It was late at night when we reached the house; but our pilot was well acquainted with the family, and they readily told us that the enemy had a pontoon bridge across the river, and that at sundown of that evening there was a brigade of cavalry on each side of the stream; but as General Forrest had told us to go until we could see for ourselves, we mounted and rode down to thebridge. We felt sure that we could ride in among the enemy and secure our information without betraying our presence if we had no mishap. In case we were discovered, we could fire on any one attacking us, and in the confusion and the darkness we could escape. But when we reached the bridge, there were neither soldiers nor horses to be found, though there were visible evidences of the very recent presence of a large body of horsemen on the ground.
The Union troopers had evidently left at nightfall, and had gone to Ripley to join their main column for the march toward Brice’s Cross-Roads. As soon as our captain made this discovery, he sent me back to Booneville to tell General Forrest what was transpiring, and that the captain and the other scouts would follow and endeavor to overtake the enemy and report later the number of the different organizations.
I left Kellum Mill about midnight of June 8, had a hard and lonely ride, and reached Booneville about noon of the 9th, almost exhausted, as was my horse. I found General Forrest occupying an old warehouse asheadquarters, and reported to him. He asked me several pointed questions, and, as soon as my message was delivered, he dismissed me and told me to take nourishment and rest—an order which I obeyed very punctually.
Before I got out of the building I heard the General issuing orders for immediate preparation for marching.
At this date our forces were located as follows:
Bell’s Brigade was at Rienzi, twenty-five miles from Brice’s Cross-Roads.
Rucker’s Brigade, with Morton’s and Rice’s Batteries, was at Booneville, eighteen miles from Brice’s Cross-Roads.
The brigade of Lyon and Johnston was at Baldwyn, six miles from Brice’s Cross-Roads.
General Forrest had instructed all commanders to be in readiness to march on Brice’s Cross-Roads at daylight on the morning of June 10. He knew that the enemy heavily outnumbered him, and that General Sturgis was bending every effort to outmarch him to that point in order that hemight force the Confederates to attack at a great disadvantage.
It had been raining for some time, and on the night of June 9 there was almost a deluge.
Late in the afternoon of the 9th I was unable to locate my company, as I had left it at Baldwyn; so I rode out toward Blackland and secured lodging in a farmhouse that belonged to a former comrade, and had a good supper and a comfortable night of rest. I found that General Lyon, of the Kentucky Brigade, was spending the night under the same kindly roof.
At daylight of the 10th everything in Forrest’s command was on the move. The clouds lifted and the day grew intensely hot.
The Union commander, evidently feeling that he had the situation well in hand, was not so zealous in getting all of his command to the Cross-Roads.
The enemy camped on the night of the 9th of June at Stub’s farm, nine miles from the battle field, while the bulk of our force was twenty miles away. Sturgis sent forward his two brigades of cavalry and took possessionof the Cross-Roads, throwing forward a strong force on the Baldwyn and Guntown Road. I marched with General Lyon’s force until we met General Forrest with his escort, and then I fell in with the escort. We marched rapidly until we struck the Union pickets about three miles out on the Baldwyn Road. These we pressed back until we came up on Warring’s Brigade, posted behind a rail fence around a small field of corn. One organization of this command was armed with Colts’ repeating rifles, the most dangerous weapon the war had developed up to that time. Forrest, with only about 800 of his men at hand and facing 3,500 men, knew the danger of bringing on a fight. The units of his army were scattered far back on the muddy roads, moving with all possible swiftness to the field. Never did the infinite boldness of Forrest stand out more startlingly than at that moment of danger. He dismounted every trooper and ordered their horses tied to the trees in our rear. Then he strung out our thin line as far as possible, so that the enemy’s line would not overlap us, and wemarched boldly up to the opening and began a rapid fire with our rifles. By this front we completely deceived the enemy and held him to his first line until we were reinforced with a part of our army. With this our force was increased to about half the number facing us, and General Forrest now felt that he must force the fighting in order to defeat the cavalry before the Union infantry could come up. Meantime, General Sturgis was urging his infantry through the intense heat. As the foot troops arrived almost exhausted, the Union cavalry was being pressed back, and Forrest’s artillery and Bell’s Brigade were swinging into view to reinforce the Confederates.
Forrest then resolved to stake the day on a charge against the enemy’s infantry before it could gain time to rest and while their cavalry was falling back.
We were then instructed to take advantage of the thick undergrowth and conceal our advance as much as possible until very close to the enemy and then rush the line with our six-shooters.
Forrest announced that he would take oneend of our line and Rucker the other, and that we could not fail. We believed it, because he had never failed. Dismounting and drawing their pistols, Forrest and Rucker placed themselves in the line of battle and went forward with us. As we moved, there was not a word spoken in the throng—only a tense and anxious hurrying, as much as was possible in such a thicket. As we advanced, we were searching with anxious eyes every turn and undulation of the landscape to discover the enemy’s line, when suddenly the long, massed column, only a few feet in front of us, rose from a prostrate position to their knees and delivered in our faces one of the most withering rifle fires that our men had ever encountered. We were almost close enough to be powder-burned by the blaze from their long Springfield rifles, and the fire staggered us into a momentary confusion; but Forrest was there, and a single blast of his clarion voice was worth five thousand men in that vortex of danger and doubt. We were fighting an enemy that had two to our one, and nothing but our confidence that, in someway, Forrest would lead us to victory, could have sustained us. His escort moved as one man with him, and, with revolvers drawn, we charged the line of infantry before they could reload. Every man in our line had from five to ten shots, and we made them count. They broke in confusion and got away pellmell, but not before we had riddled them unmercifully. I never saw in any battle of the war as many arms and legs amputated as were lost at the field hospital at Brice’s Cross-Roads. It seemed that every pistol ball found its human mark. If it did not kill, it pierced an arm or a leg.
When the Union commander brought up his brigade of negro troops which had been held in reserve, he told the blacks to form in line and allow the defeated white troops to pass to their rear, and that they would reform and support them; but about the time this arrangement was made, Barteau’s regiment, which had been sent around to fall upon the rear of the Union column, made its appearance, and our artillery began to rake the retreating white troops with grapeand canister. The brigade of blacks took to their heels without firing a shot and scattered through the woods like wild deer.
After the war, I knew an old negro in Corinth who was in the battle of Brice’s Cross-Roads, and I asked him one day if he ran away from the battle field. He replied: “No, boss, I didn’t run; I flew.”
A cold appraisement of this fight shows it to have been one of the most remarkable of all military history. With a force but little more than half as large as his enemy, this strangely gifted fighter of the Confederacy shattered a trained army of 8,000 men, and chased the remnant back to its base, forcing it to a speed seldom equaled in the wildest panics of war. The panoplied and militant host of Sturgis consumed nine days in the march from Memphis to Brice’s Cross-Roads, but, with Forrest on its trail, what was left of that host covered the same distance on the return in two nights and one day.
We captured 250 wagons and ambulances, eighteen pieces of artillery, 5,000 stands of small arms, 500,000 rounds of small-armsammunition, and all the enemy’s baggage and military stores.
But, notwithstanding the great victory, this battle took heavy toll from our ranks.
“Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green,That host with its banners at sunset was seen.Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,That host on the morrow lay scattered and strewn.”
“Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green,That host with its banners at sunset was seen.Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,That host on the morrow lay scattered and strewn.”
“Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green,That host with its banners at sunset was seen.Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,That host on the morrow lay scattered and strewn.”
THE next raid into our territory was commanded by Gen. A. J. Smith, a West Point soldier.
The department commander at Memphis had collected another special army to overthrow Forrest and his troopers and to gain control of the only territory then entirely open to the armies of the Confederacy.
In view of the many disastrous attempts to crush Forrest, the Union officials collected a large force of all arms, and gave the command to a general who was expected to take no chances of defeat. About the first of July, 1864, this army moved out from the vicinity of Memphis, proceeding with great caution over the main highway so recently traveled by the army of Sturgis.
Forrest was acquainted with the man with whom he had to deal, and advised with his superiors as to the safest plan of defense.
My understanding at the time was that Gen. Stephen D. Lee had been sent by the authorities at Richmond to support Forrest, with all available troops that could be spared from the other theaters of the war.
As General Lee was the senior and ranking officer, of course he was in command of the Confederate forces; and while he evidently desired General Forrest to act with all possible freedom, yet, however generous the superior commander, the question of military ethics necessarily made for both commanders a delicate and sensitive situation, which could not but hamper the judgment and the action of General Forrest, for, thus subordinated, his was not the supreme responsibility.
Of course, I, a mere boy, had no touch with the source of official information as to these grave matters, except through chance expressions of those higher up, as to what had been discussed in the councils of war.
At any rate, while the Union column was approaching New Albany on the Tallahatchie River, it was freely discussed that General Forrest desired to distribute hisforce among the hills just south of the Tallahatchie at New Albany and strike the Union Army on its flank while marching. The theory was that, thus surprised, the enemy could be beaten in detail, as it would be impossible to mass his attack.
It was by such tactics that Forrest had thus far defeated every force he had met, and I personally believe that if he could have had his way we would have routed this force as we had all others.
On the other hand, it seems that Gen. S. D. Lee thought it best to bring up all possible infantry and artillery which could be secured from Mobile and Vicksburg and mass it for a decisive battle in the vicinity of Pontotoc, Miss., forcing the Union Army to fight us on ground of our own choosing or to make a retreating fight and abandon the expedition.
No doubt this plan would have worked admirably but for the fact that General Smith discovered the trap and refused to walk into it. After threatening Pontotoc, he suddenly turned to the left and moved toward Tupelo, being well on the way tothat place before we were aware of his intentions.
On the morning of the 13th of July, Forrest began the chase, and we soon came up with the rear and captured some wagons and a cannon before the enemy could turn back and fight. Having only two regiments of our command, we could only annoy the enemy, as he was trying to reach the railroad by nightfall. Upon reaching the hamlet of Harrisburg, some two miles west of Tupelo, the Union Army threw up some temporary breastworks in the edge of an old field or clearing and prepared for a defense. In my opinion, this was the most unfortunate fight in which the command of General Forrest ever engaged. We lost more men and were more severely repulsed than in any other fight.
After a terrible battle, lasting all day, both sides were willing to quit. The Union Army was satisfied that they could go no further south, and on the morning of the 15th commenced a retreat toward Memphis, Forrest nagging their rear at every step.
They turned on us at Ellistown, Miss.,and we had a sharp fight. Here General Forrest was wounded in the foot, and had to give up the chase personally. The Union Army returned to Memphis, defeated in its plan to destroy Forrest and his command and to invade the all-important grain fields of the Confederacy.
DEEPLY disappointed over the many futile and disastrous attempts to vanquish Forrest and his troopers, the Union Army headquarters again, about the month of August, 1864, assembled a formidable army and marched it into Mississippi, fully determined to crush this bold Cavalier of the South. General Forrest was fully informed as to the numerical strength of his enemy, and he knew that he was so outnumbered that his only chance was to win by his wits. Indeed, this necessity was not new to him, but it had never been so great as at that time. With a handful of men and a legion of original and brilliant ideas, this untaught genius had piled up a list of victories which will never cease to be the wonder of the military student.
In that latest crisis and danger to our little army and to our cause we, who had solong followed Forrest, knew not what strategic plan was being worked out in his brain; but we were one in the thought that he would find some way to save the situation. How unique and almost unbelievable was his plan!
When the advance of the blue army had been pushed to Oxford, Miss., Forrest instructed General Chalmers, one of his division commanders, to gather all of the force that was left and put it in battle array before the enemy, and to parry the advance as much as possible without bringing on a decisive engagement. By these tactics the Union commander was deceived into looking for and preparing for a pitched battle each day.
While the situation rested thus in the balance of expectancy, Forrest selected from each unit of our army a squad of picked men, well mounted and equipped. Placing himself at the head of this special troop, without a word of explanation, he bade us follow him; and, with hearty obedience and blind confidence, we obeyed, grimly ready for whatever desperate enterprise awaitedus at our unknown destination. We headed toward the west, crossing the Tallahatchie River, and then turned northward in the direction of Senatobia, Miss., and the Cold Water River. All bridges and crossings of these rivers and their tributaries had been rendered impassable, and we were forced to all manner of inventions to get over the streams. At one place we made a pontoon bridge, with grapevines as the main support, and carried the floor planks from a barn a half mile distant.
At daylight on the morning of August 21 we rode into the suburbs of the city of Memphis, Tenn. It was as if we had come down out of the sky on winged horses, so great was the surprise to Generals Washburn and Hurlbut; and these commanders, by a margin of two minutes, escaped from their headquarters in night attire, leaving uniforms and paraphernalia of every kind. The boldness of the stroke saved us. There were enough Union troops in Memphis to have surrounded and captured us, but they fled to shelter, and we had possession of the town for three or four hours. We capturedseveral cannon and a number of prisoners, but the swiftness of our mission made it necessary that we leave all of these behind.
In leaving the city we fought everything that made the slightest show of resistance, but there was no organized effort to interfere with us.
When we reached the city limits, General Forrest returned General Washburn’s uniform and other clothing taken from his headquarters in the early dawn, and some time afterwards General Washburn had a new Confederate uniform made and sent to General Forrest.
This expedition had the desired effect. The headquarters knew not what designs lay behind the strange and startling raid into the very heart of the military government of that department, and the army of invasion was hurriedly recalled to protect Memphis.
Thus again had the untutored Forrest, with the strategy of a Hannibal or a Frederick, substituted his wits for guns and soldiers and chased an army with his genius.
We wended our way back to Mississippi
Thomas D. Duncan At the age of fourteen, two years before he rode with Forrest’s famous troopThomas D. DuncanAt the age of fourteen, two years before he rode with Forrest’s famous troop
and to our command, men and horses weary, worn, sleepy, hungry, and tired, but with the happy consciousness that we had vanquished the foe from the gates of Oxford without the loss of a man.
“Up the broad valley, fast and far,The troubled enemy had sped.Up rose the glorious morning star,And the mighty host had fled.”
“Up the broad valley, fast and far,The troubled enemy had sped.Up rose the glorious morning star,And the mighty host had fled.”
“Up the broad valley, fast and far,The troubled enemy had sped.Up rose the glorious morning star,And the mighty host had fled.”
IN a short while after the Memphis raid our commander decided to go east and break the line that was furnishing Sherman’s supplies while on his advance into Georgia and the Carolinas.
About the first of September, 1864, we marched east to the Tennessee River, crossing at Florence and Bainbridge, Ala.; and after several small fights and skirmishes, we appeared before Athens, Ala., on September 16, 1864. At this place the Union Army had a strong garrison, defended by a fort and blockhouses. The latter defense was impregnable to the assaults of infantry and cavalry, but an easy mark for artillery.
When we approached this stronghold, rain was falling, and I was put forward on the skirmish line just before daylight. We marched only a short distance before wedrew the fire of the enemy. Nothing was visible except the quick flashes of flame from the guns on either side. We were instructed to lie down and hold our position until daylight. After a few rounds, both sides decided to cease firing.
As the light began to dawn, our line advanced and drove the enemy inside his fortifications.
After a quick survey of the situation, General Forrest decided that it would be best to try to “bluff” the Union commander. Accordingly, he was notified that Forrest’s full command was at his gates, able and ready to overwhelm him, and that he could avert a useless sacrifice of life by an immediate surrender. The plan worked, and the fort proper was surrendered, and the men walked out and became prisoners.
In the west side of the town was a large blockhouse, with a full regiment as a garrison. The commanding officer refused to surrender, and in response to the demand he sent a defiant message, challenging the Confederates to come and take the place. This officer thought the attackers were onlycavalry raiders, without artillery; but his enlightenment was not long delayed. General Forrest ordered Captain Morton to bring two guns into action. We placed the guns in a street overlooking the fortification. The first shot barely touched the top of the fort, and the second shot tore straight through the center. Before the gunners could reload, a white flag was run up. We had possession of the town and all its defenders.
While the details of the surrender were being arranged, we heard a train coming in from the direction of Decatur. General Forrest hurriedly sent Lyon’s regiment to fall in behind the train on its arrival and block its return. It had brought a regiment of Union soldiers to reinforce the garrison. They jumped from the flat cars and lined up behind a row of cordwood along the railroad. The train hurriedly backed out and made its escape. We were lined up on our horses, and the enemy began a very harassing fire, which had a telling effect on men and horses. Colonel Kelly, our commander, ordered us to dismount and charge the foefrom his position behind the cordwood. Meanwhile, General Lyon was advancing upon the enemy’s rear, with his skirmishers well in front. The retreat of the Union column from our attack was so rapid that it ran over Lyon’s skirmish line and captured it. This skirmish line was in command of my boyhood friend, Capt. Henry C. Klyce. Further on in these memoirs I shall refer to him again. We had this new regiment at the mercy of a simultaneous front and rear attack, and its position was hopeless. Captain Klyce, their prisoner, told the commander that we had them surrounded; that we had captured all the troops in the town, and further resistance was useless. Captain Klyce protested against the injustice of thus uselessly subjecting the Confederate prisoners to the fire of their own men; but the Union commander stated that he would not surrender while his men were being fired upon, and that he was unwilling to require one of his men to go forward to announce the desire to surrender. Then Captain Klyce volunteered to go forward and make the announcement in the face of abrisk musketry fire. He carried a white shirt on the point of a bayonet; and, of course, our firing ceased as soon as he was seen, but not until he had faced the gravest danger for the sake of friends and foes. In the midst of the brutalities of war it is such unselfish and heroic acts as this that sublimate the spirit of battle.
THE capture of the Union Army at Athens, Ala., was indeed the fulfillment of a great necessity with us. We took over a large supply of provisions and camp equipment, twenty carloads of clothing, a number of horses, several cannon, and about 4,000 small arms, with a quantity of ammunition for same.
On the day following the fall of Athens we moved against Sulphur Trestle, in Alabama. At this place the railroad had spanned a small stream with a high, covered bridge, which was of such consequence to the Union Army that a strong fort and garrison were maintained here, guarded with mounted cannon. When General Forrest examined the structure, he was satisfied that we would have to fight for it. The commander promptly refused to comply with our demand for a surrender.
There were good positions for our batteries, but the gunners would be dangerously exposed to the fire of the sharpshooters of the fort, and the only way to protect them was to march an attacking force across an open field to a point within range of the fort, so that we could direct a continuous fire against their loopholes.
The crossing of that field and the bloody results made an impression upon me that time cannot efface. In all the fights I had engaged in up to that time I had never had an uncomfortable foreboding of danger, but in that strangely charged hour I had a presentiment that I would not get through; and as we rode toward the place where we were to dismount for the charge, I confided my feeling to my companion and asked him if he would be willing to exchange places with me in case it should fall to his lot instead of mine to hold horses. (It was the plan of our commander that every fourth man in the line should hold horses in the rear, while the others were charging as infantry.) He promised; but when the show-down came, he flickered; and I went forward as usual, forI had never acted as a horse holder. The enemy’s artillery was firing at us incessantly; and as we turned the top of a slight ridge, Colonel Kelly’s horse was killed and fell just a few feet behind my position. As we cleared the hill and came into full view of the fort, we were met with a veritable hail of lead and iron. We were charging in a run, but men were falling at every step. We moved close up and lay down, and kept up a continuous fire until our batteries reduced the fort and caused it to surrender.
Just as we reached the stopping point I was in the act of firing, when a ball struck my left hand between the first and second knuckles. It passed entirely through my hand and struck the trigger guard, knocking the gun violently against my head, and I thought for the moment that I had been struck by a cannon ball. I was practically unconscious for a few moments; and when my senses returned, I was lying on the ground, very sick, my head roaring like a freight train, and the wound in my hand bleeding profusely. Our battle line was flattened out on the ground within fifty yards of the fort.Quite a number in my immediate location had been wounded, and one poor fellow within a few feet of me was moaning pitifully, when a bullet struck him in the center of the forehead and killed him instantly. When I saw this, I told the boys that as I could not fight I was going out of the danger zone. They thought the risk of making the run in full view would be greater than to remain in the line; but I did not like the idea of lying there helpless in a veritable slaughter pen, so I took the chance, and evidently outran the bullets, as I got back through that awful open field without being hit. Just as I thought I was out of danger, I heard a shell coming, as it seemed, on a bee line for me. To dodge it I flattened myself on the ground; and as I looked up, I saw that the shell was fully a hundred feet above the ground. It exploded about a half mile from where I lay. I think that was the last shot from the fort, as it was surrendered in a few minutes. I chanced to meet Col. D. C. Kelly, our commander, and he gave me a drink of water and bandaged my wound with a napkin.
I then went to the field hospital, where the surgeon dressed my wound and gave me something to quiet my nerves. When night came, I slept; and in the morning that followed I learned that a number of my comrades had gone away on the long and silent march beyond the gates of eternity.
After being wounded, I was sent south with other disabled soldiers. We had also about 5,000 prisoners captured at Athens and Sulphur Trestle. I rode my own horse to Cherokee, Ala., where the wounded were separated from the prisoners and guards.
At Cherokee we were given a temporary train of cars, in which the wounded were transported to Okolona, Miss.
On this trip, by the merest chance, I met a former slave of my father acting as porter on our train. He was a practical barber and a general handy man. His interest in me was intensified when he saw my condition, and he took the tenderest care of me until I was able to leave.
After the war was over and this former slave and I were both citizens of Corinth again, with earnings of my own I boughthim a good barber’s outfit and set him up in business.
It is a regrettable fact that the world, with its garbled histories and its false legends of violence, will never understand the true relation between the master and the slave of the old South.
That there were many individual cases of brutality, there can be no doubt, and that slavery as an institution of human government is wrong, no right-thinking man can deny; but in all the records of mankind there is nothing that parallels the conditions and practices which governed that slavery, now forever banished from the industries of our beloved country and expunged from its Constitution.
The gentleness and sympathy of the masters of Dixie and the faithfulness and loyalty of the black slaves should be jealously written into an impartial history of that South that was, but is no more. They are the incontrovertible evidences of the greatness of our people who inherited the dark burden of human bondage from another age and who were innocent heirs to the sunnylands of cotton and cane, on which alone, of all our wide country, this shackled, tropical race could labor with profit to their owners.
During those awful years when every Southern home was the probable stage of a tragedy it was not uncommon to see only the mistress of a plantation left with her children in the care of her slaves, who stood by her and respected and protected her through every danger.
After the army left Sulphur Trestle, General Forrest gave his attention to the destruction of forts and blockhouses up and down the Memphis and Charleston and the Louisville and Nashville Railroads. While thus engaged, we threatened Pulaski, Tenn., sufficiently to hold a large Union force there behind breastworks, so that they did not attempt to interfere with our raids.
To hold the Union garrison at Huntsville, Ala., on the Memphis and Charleston, within its works, we threatened it with the division of General Buford.
The one unfortunate feature of our continued successes was that we could not save and put to use the vast amount of stores capturedon these raids, in view of the sore need of them among all the armies of the Confederacy.
Our mission was to hit as the lightning strikes—to wreck and terrify and then disappear.
Our enemy had no cavalry force in this theater of the war that could cope with us, and his slow-moving infantry and artillery found us a moving target, too swift and restless for their sluggish aim.
SOON after the close of the Middle Tennessee raids we began our fourth invasion of West Tennessee, which section had already yielded to us so bountifully of the sinews of war in men and equipment.
The Union commanders were yet unable to solve the mystery of Forrest’s ability to descend unseen upon their strongholds and escape unhurt with all the spoils of war and leaving destruction in his tracks. Their shrewdest tacticians had failed to trap him, and their overwhelming armies could not crush him.
About the 12th of October, 1864, our command pushed out toward the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers; and on October 29, near Johnsonville, Tenn., we captured the transport Mazeppa, loaded to the guard with all kinds of military supplies. The boat was one of the richest prizes that hadever fallen into our hands. We towed her to the bank and unloaded everything our commander would permit us to take out, and then set fire to the boat and destroyed her, with the bulk of her valuable freight.
General Forrest told us to each take a new outfit of clothing and blankets and enough food for three or four days, and not to add another ounce, as we would have to fight like the devil to get out of there.
Among other things, I took a pair of fine cavalry boots. Securing the tops together, I swung them across my saddle and filled them with parched coffee, then a very rare luxury in the paralyzed markets of our stricken people.
On October 30, 1864, we captured four more transports with cargoes similar to that of the Mazeppa; and although the armies of the Confederacy and the civilians of the South were in the straits of poverty, we could do nothing but destroy these rich stores.
On November 4 we appeared before Johnsonville, Tenn., where there was a fort and a large depot of supplies. In an effort to cutoff the enemy’s fleet of gunboats on the river just above Johnsonville we captured two of the dreaded monsters and destroyed them.
After getting our field guns into position opposite Johnsonville, we opened fire at daylight on the boats and the large warehouse. The boats hustled away as rapidly as possible, but not until we had sunk some of them and crippled others.
The fort opened on us with two big guns, making a mighty noise, but doing no damage.
Our batteries soon set fire to the warehouse and the wharf, and destroyed all supplies within reach of our guns.
General Sherman, commenting on this raid, said that it was a feat of arms that won his highest admiration. With a cavalry force and a few field pieces of artillery, General Forrest had captured and sunk several gunboats and transports on a navigable river and under the protection of a fort.
The grand result of this expedition, covering about two weeks, was the capture and destruction of more than $7,000,000 worthof property, with a loss of only six men killed and perhaps a dozen wounded.
After the lapse of nearly sixty years, in contemplating the career of this untaught Hannibal of the Southern Confederacy, we find that the three tallest peaks of his fame are the pursuit and capture of A. D. Streight and his raiders, the battle of Brice’s Cross-Roads, and the Johnsonville raid.
These three exploits will forever hold aloft the name of Nathan Bedford Forrest.
RETURNING from the Johnsonville raid, we met the army of General Hood. We were ordered to take the advance, and on November 19, 1864, our command was assembled at Florence, Ala., on the north bank of the Tennessee River, at the foot of the great “Mussel Shoals.” General Forrest was placed in command of all the cavalry, and we began the advance on Nashville. During this march I suffered some of the severest hardships of my life.
Gen. George H. Thomas, one of the ablest of the Union commanders, had collected a large force of all arms, and was confronting Hood at every turn of the route. We, in advance, came in contact with his cavalry a number of times, and I had many thrilling and narrow escapes. General Wilson, of the Union Army, had a well-equipped cavalry force of 10,000 men, and Forrest had to contendwith this force with about half its number.
We kept the Union column moving backward day by day until we reached Spring Hill, Tenn. Here we came in contact with Slocum’s Corps; and after a severe fight, we pushed them back into the town, and had that column of the enemy separated from their main force, which had retreated on Franklin, Tenn., a short distance beyond.
Here a great mistake was made by some one other than General Forrest. It is not my purpose to criticize, but I shall state facts and let the reader judge for himself.
At Spring Hill night came on soon after or about the time the battle closed, and Forrest moved his command around parallel to the pike that connected Spring Hill and Franklin.
Hood’s main army came up after nightfall.
Thomas had pushed on to Franklin, leaving Slocum and Wilson to hold the Confederates in check at Spring Hill until night, when they were to withdraw under cover of darkness.
I have no personal knowledge of what took place on that night between our commanders, but it was current talk, and has been published many times since the war, that General Forrest sent a message to General Hood urging that either our command or an infantry division be ordered to take position across the Franklin and Spring Hill Pike to prevent the uniting of the two Union columns. That this was not done was a blunder that laid the foundation for disaster to Hood’s army.
While I do not know what passed on that fateful night in the high councils of our leaders, I do know that, as Forrest’s command lay through the long, uneasy night along that pike, we plainly heard the artillery and wagons of the enemy’s army marching out of Spring Hill and away from sure defeat and capture, which would have been their fate had they kept their position until daylight of another day.
The next day General Hood arrayed his army in battle order under the expectancy that the enemy would make a stand at Franklin.
After the lucky escape from Spring Hill, our foe utilized to the fullest possible extent every natural advantage in preparing for a defense at Franklin. Earthworks were hurriedly thrown up, and every house and fence was intelligently utilized to retard the momentum of an open attack.
The soldier who undertakes to tell what he actually sees of a battle as extensive and terrible and bloody as was the battle of Franklin has but little to tell, and so I shall attempt no description; but that dreadful conflict of November 30, 1864, is known to every student of history as one of the great disasters of the Confederacy. There were a greater number of Confederate officers killed at Franklin than at Shiloh, Chickamauga, or Gettysburg, to say nothing of the bloody and one-sided slaughter of our men.
I never shall forget the gloom that settled over the ranks of our beaten troops. The blunder at Spring Hill seemed to smite the hearts of our men as they contemplated its deadly cost; and yet that great mass of men, with embittered souls, prepared to press onward.
The night following the battle the Union Army withdrew to Nashville and entrenched for the expected assault.
Though vastly outnumbered, Hood moved at once and invested the city of Nashville.
From the 2d to the 15th of December we held the enemy within his fortifications. On the 15th he moved out and tried in vain to break our line. On the 16th he renewed the sortie with increased masses of troops, and our left wing collapsed and forced Hood to retreat. And what a retreat! No one who participated in it can ever forget the suffering and hopeless anguish of that weary, running march.
The cause for which this grand army had so nobly fought, tottering toward its every battle field, was now living only by the gameness of its defenders.
Defeated and shattered amid the desolation of winter, hungry, half-naked, and foot-sore, this suffering host turned sadly from the capital city of one of its own loyal States, and followed its haggard gaze toward the deeper South, with the benumbed feeling that somewhere, somehow it would makeanother stand, if only to give the last impulse of its fast-ebbing energies to the spirit of its dying cause and perish with its hopes.
General Forrest was ordered to cover the retreat, and the brigade of General Walthall’s Mississippians was assigned as his infantry support.
Knowing our sad plight, flushed with victory, and eager for the finish, the Union Army started in pursuit with 10,000 well-mounted and well-equipped cavalry under General Wilson.
Forrest had about 5,000 cavalry, and Walthall’s men numbered about 2,800; but as they were almost destitute of shoes and clothing of every kind, we had to carry many of the men in the wagon train, using them only when we were forced to stop and fight.
Hood had planned to get to the Tennessee River, where we had a pontoon bridge, at Mussel Shoals.
With what consummate genius General Forrest kept the ravenous foe from the heels of that almost helpless host as it marched and stumbled and fell forward toward itsgoal of temporary safety, is a matter of record and need not be here set forth.
After many days of rear-guard fighting, in which the skill and daring of General Forrest parried and blocked and retarded the swiftness of our pursuers, we succeeded in holding the enemy in check until the gray remnant of Hood’s once magnificent army crossed the Tennessee at Bainbridge, Ala. The pontoon bridge was quickly destroyed, and the Union Army, foiled in further pursuit, turned down the river to Eastport, to which place boats brought supplies and troops.
Here General Wilson prepared to march against Selma, Ala., then the “heart of the Confederacy.”
JANUARY, 1865, found General Forrest bending every energy to the maintenance and recruiting of his force for whatever further defense might have to be made, and the Union commander at Eastport making careful and extensive preparation for an extended and determined campaign as soon as the weather conditions should be favorable.
It was with great difficulty that we managed to feed ourselves and our horses through those trying months of bleak winter.
In the ranks, where men had never shirked a duty or a danger, the sad story of our lost cause was already forewritten in our suffering hearts; and the hopelessness of our situation became so fixed in the soldiers’ minds that desertions became frequent;and in order to check this and enforce discipline, our commander resorted to stern measures, to the extent that some of the deserters were executed and their bodies conspicuously displayed as a warning.
While crossing the bridge at Tuscaloosa, Ala., I witnessed one of these tragic and morbid spectacles, which made a lasting impression upon my youthful mind and embittered my heart against all wars.
Late in March the Union Army began to move southward from Eastport, and General Forrest’s first interest was to ascertain the enemy’s plans as far as possible.
I was with a scouting troop when we luckily intercepted and captured a Union courier carrying the plan of the Union commander’s line of march. This message was sent to each of the division commanders.
They were ordered to move into South Alabama in three columns, marching parallel to each other, twenty miles apart, and to consolidate at a point north of Selma, Ala.
We speedily sent this information to General Forrest, then in the vicinity of Tuscaloosa, Ala.
General Wilson had 10,000 or 12,000 veteran troops of all arms, while Forrest had about 5,000, and only half of that number were of his veterans; but we had the advantage of being on our native heath, and our leader had never been beaten in a single case when he was in supreme command of all dispositions and details of the battle.
With their plans in hand, he sent General Chalmers to meet the extreme eastern division and General Jackson to take the middle division, while he would personally direct the movement against the western column, nearest Tuscaloosa, in the hope of defeating it and then falling upon the rear of the main column.
But this was not to be. When Forrest was ready for the move, he sent a courier to the Selma garrison and to Roddy’s cavalry, with full information of the whole plan; but the enemy captured the courier, and General Wilson changed his plan, and Forrest never knew why until after the war.
While our forces, ignorant of the change of plan, were separately waiting for the three columns, we ran into Wilson’s cavalry,8,000 strong, at Bogless Creek, a few miles north of Selma, and we had only about 200 men, mainly the escort.
Forrest, thinking that we had run into a small force, threw us hurriedly into line and charged the advance, and the enemy thought they had struck the main Confederate column. We soon got into a mix-up, and they began to overlap us in every direction. The bulk of our little band was fighting and falling back in an effort to clear a passage, when we discovered that the enemy was making a move to cut General Forrest off from his troops. About ten of us went to his assistance. They had him surrounded, and he was fighting like a lion at bay. He killed several men—no one ever knew how many; and when he came out of the circle, he jumped his horse straight through a cordon of mounted men and escaped without a mark on his person.
We fled the field and fell back to Selma, Ala.
Here the Confederacy had been operating a small manufacturing plant for making arms, and the commander had only enoughmen to make a thin picket line for the protection of the plant.
When Forrest arrived, he gathered every available man and put them in the trenches for the best possible defense.
Forrest’s plan having failed, he was in ignorance as to where his troops were, and this gave the enemy a very dangerous advantage.
Forrest felt that if the enemy had slipped by his commanders they would follow him up and strike him in the rear when the attack on Selma should begin.
At any rate, it was certain that when the Union Army should reach Selma there would be a fight of some kind, regardless of odds.
The escort took position in the trenches on the extreme left, the weakest point, and Roddy’s troops were placed on our right. Then the home guards and mixed multitude were strung out in a thin line along the remainder of the works, and instructed to hold the trenches at all hazards and never leave until they should receive orders to retire.
Of course Forrest told us that if we could hold the enemy in check for a while, our missing troops would strike him in the rear soon, and that we could capture or destroy the cavalry force; but, unfortunately, Forrest was not on the outside with his troops, and the capture of our messenger had so shifted the situation that the commanders of Forrest’s two columns lost touch, and never knew anything about the battle until it was all over.
On the first approach to our line the enemy seemed to have about 2,000 men, and we held them in check and pushed them back out of range; but on the second charge they came like the locusts of Pharaoh, and that thin line of gray did not tarry for the impact, but went, self-ordered.
Forrest held the escort company until the enemy had swarmed all around us and cut us off from the city by way of the bridge. He then mounted his horse and told us to follow him—that he was going out. It looked like a desperate undertaking, but we had dared Fate so many times and “gottenby” that we believed that our great captain would carry us out again.
Our company was formed into a flying wedge, and began the drive toward the southwest, so as to strike the river at its narrowest point.
We fought like demons, as the majority of us in that company had never surrendered, and we did not now intend to do so.
I had many narrow escapes. My hat was either shot off or carried away by a saber stroke, but I got through without a scratch. When we cleared the cordon that had surrounded us, we plunged our horses into the river and escaped by swimming to the opposite shore.
Here Forrest gathered the few of us that were left, and we made our way out in the direction of Gainesville, Ala. We had lost a number of the escort in the fight—some were killed, some were drowned in the river, and some were wounded and surrendered. Among the captured were my two brothers and a young man who afterwards became my brother-in-law, R. P. Elgin.
After we were safely on the way toGainesville, I told General Forrest that it seemed to me that the war was over, and that I was going to my father’s house. He and family were then refugeeing in the flat-woods of Pontotoc County. With but few words, the General admitted the gravity of the situation, and told me to go on to my father.
I first stopped at Okolona, Miss., where I was treated with great deference and kindness by the same slave boy who had nursed me when I was wounded.
From Okolona I went to my father and remained until June, 1865.
From Pontotoc County I rode back to Corinth, secured employment, sold my horse for $150 in greenbacks, and started my first savings account, from which I afterwards started a business of my own.
On my return to Corinth, I had found the town garrisoned by a troop of negro soldiers.
The whole prospect was a picture of desolation, as this town and vicinity had been under the very heel of war for four long, weary years; but nature had not forsaken the landscape entirely, for it was carpetedwith grass and clover and wild flowers—a beautiful winding sheet for the dead hopes and prospects of the buoyant boys who had marched away from this place under the Southern battle flag.
There were practically no domestic animals to trespass on the fields and meadows; but while the husbandman had forsaken his gardens and vineyards to kill his own kind, the unmolested birds and wild animals native to this clime had restored God’s original paradise and were living in happy groups and families upon the lands which ungrateful man had deserted.
Three years after my return from the war I was married to Miss Juliette Elgin, of Huntsville, Ala., a beautiful and petite young lady of 118 pounds. She is with me yet; and whatever changes time may have wrought upon her appearance to other eyes, with the eyes of memory I behold her still, and the mental and spiritual graces of her youth have only ripened with the years.
To this union were born two daughters, Luella and Lucille, to increase our responsibilities and brighten our home. To trainand educate them became the prime purpose of our lives, and in their welfare and happiness we submerged our personal ambitions.
Now that they have homes and family responsibilities of their own, our fireside has lost them; but in their happiness we find our recompense, and this humble record of sacred memories is affectionately dedicated to their sons.
In drawing to a close this record of memories, I trust that I may be pardoned for a brief indulgence of recollections which cannot be of interest to any save my own people and, perchance, my comrades of the sixties.
I was born at Jacinto, in the pine-embowered hills of Tishomingo County, Miss., and a good portion of my war service was happily given to guarding that sacred land which had nourished my joyous childhood.
With the tear-dimmed vision of retrospection, I ever behold that happy spot—its orchards, its meadows, its wild flowers and sparkling waters. Especially do I stand again with expectant thirst at the cold spoutspring that gushed from the hill—eternal wonder of nature that sings on to the centuries to mock the fleeting vanity of our short lives. The trees and vines that shadowed my rest or my play or refreshed me with their luscious fruits can never fade. The fragrance of the wild grape’s high-hanging bloom comes to me across the vanished years, and, with it, the flavor of the muscadine wrapped within its leathery skin. And as I dwell upon these fragments of youth’s vanished paradise, I hear again the sad, sweet song of Tishomingo’s pines—the same that sang to the Chickasaw Indians before the white man came.
That county, which was the world of my young and impressionable life, seemed to me to hold all that was necessary to human happiness. Its territory was equal to the State of Rhode Island, and three rivers were born within its borders—the Tombigbee, the Hatchie, and the Tuscumbia. Even to my unsophisticated mind there was something in the grandeur and the freedom of the place that spoke of things beyond the senses of the body. Like all the Indian countries,it had its mysterious landmarks and its sad and beautiful legends of the wars and loves and tragedies of the wild, savage, brave people whose crude road to God was through the “happy hunting ground.”
My boyish imagination deeply colored with the glory and the romance of those vague traditions, I have stood, in the shadow of moonlit nights, and watched the dark heads of the pines nodding to the sky, and thought that, perchance, their whispered song was the echoed sigh of the vanquished red man brooding, in spirit, above the land he had so loved.
Another scene that flutters through my memory like a fantastic dream is the darkening forest of the evening twilight hour, alive with uncounted thousands of wild pigeons, turning the silent woods into a Babel of musical chatter as they gathered to rest in their sylvan lodge.
These all have flown away on the wings of time, as utterly as the great herds of the buffalo have vanished from the plains of the West, and, so far as I know, not a single bird of this species is left in our country.
For some strange reason the God of nature has permitted spoiled man to waste the myriad wonders of the virgin woods, until only the rivers, the springs, and the eternal sky are left of the glory that was.
In melancholy recollection of all the people and all the things beloved that are gone from that small, though great, green country of my early life, I salute thee, O Tishomingo of sacred memories!
This reverie may be meaningless to the majority of my readers; but if this, my heart’s humble tribute to the remembered beauty of my native land shall meet the eye of a single companion of those blissful days and enchanting scenes,hewill understand and the others will forgive.
MUCH has been said and written of that unhappy period immediately following the Civil War—unhappy for both the North and the South, because its memories delayed the reunion of our sections through many years. The humiliation and griefs of that frightful era left far deeper scars than did all the sabers and swords and bullets from Bull Run to Appomattox. The flame of war had burned out the lives of thousands of our brave sons and consumed our homes and wasted our lands, but the embers of reconstruction seared their mark upon the very souls of our people.
We who know do not charge that horror to the great nation to which we are as loyal and true as any beneath the flag to-day, but to individuals who abused authority and misrepresented the spirit of the North toward the South.
I, for one, thank God that our people themselves settled the problem of reconstruction by the application of a righteous courage to a desperate situation, but there was one influence in that settlement which was never generally appreciated. Across the closed chasm, above the graves of all the soldier dead, the great men of the North and the great men of the South looked at each other in silence and understood when the oppressors were driven from the South.
As soon as the insidious tongues of a few intermeddling, ignorant, vicious men and women, seeking to be the ministering angels of the former slaves, were hushed by the stern policy of the representative Southern people, the happy and natural relations of the two races were restored; and to-day, after nearly sixty years of freedom, the black man of the South knows that the Southern white man is his truest friend, because he alone understands him and sympathizes with his natural and legitimate needs.
As one who in a very humble way helped to make that sad history, as the representative of a family who owned slaves, I desireto here record my opinion that in the trying period following the war it was the Christian fortitude of our people that saved the day for us. Out of the ashes of material wealth, out of anguish and humiliation, we came with honor; and the unbroken spirit of the old South, serene amid its earthly poverty, is the unquestioned and priceless heritage of our sons.
Whenever and wherever I meet a soldier of the sixties, no matter whether he wore the blue or the gray, I think of his life as the figure and symbol of a sad, eventful day. His youth represents the morning, and it was filled with golden dreams. Achievement and success smiled before him, and his heart leaped with love, just as young hearts leap to-day. But, before he could realize his dreams, a great storm—that awful war—came and swept away his fairest prospects. The noontide of his life found him busy with the wreckage of the morning, and then it was that there rose in his soul a far greater courage than that which had sustained him on the bloodiest battle field—the courage to meet and conquer adversity,the divine grace to cast away his bitterness and to love his former foes.
My comrades, out of the ruined morning and the rebuilding toil of the noontide we have come at last to the evening and the twilight. Time has placed upon our heads his crown of silver and of snow. For us the long day of life is near spent, and the world can never chide us if, in the spirit of fraternity and forgiveness, we find ourselves dreaming backward toward the blood-billowed years of Shiloh and Chickamauga and all our other fields of mutual and glorious memories.
All of us who are now living in the true spirit of liberty and union know that out of our great war of sixty years ago has come a greater peace than our nation could have ever known had we not cut away, with the sword, the great mistake of the fathers of our country.
Let us pray that our sacrifices, now far back in the years, may be truly recorded, to be the living evidences of American courage—that tried and true courage which is our greatest asset, an asset of nationalwealth outweighing the value even of our vast material wealth.
Embodied in our sons and grandsons, only a little while ago, the whole world glimpsed that same spirit of courage and patriotism on the battle fields of Europe, when the “Blue and the Gray” turned to “Olive Drab” and our boys, millions strong, crossed the ocean to defend the ideals of our country—ideals of national life which are rapidly becoming the ideals of all truly civilized peoples of the earth.
I rejoice that I have lived to see the greatness of America dawn upon the world. I rejoice that when the hour struck for the flag of universal liberty to “go over the top,” it was carried there by the substance of our fields, by the power that came from our mountains of coal and iron, by the whirring wings of our liberty motors, and by the unbeaten and unbeatable soldiers of the United States.
For one hundred and forty-seven years the individuality of the American soldier has defied the analysis of military criticsand upset the theories of every nation that has met him on the battle field.
Since his first far-off shot of Lexington, the makers of war maps have been unable to chart his power from his visible numbers, for in his unconquerable spirit there is the might of unseen legions and the unmeasured force of just and democratic purpose, as an armed host, is bivouacked in his soul.
You may follow his history from his advent into the world of political contention, through his almost unbelievable and unbroken line of successes, and you will find him, always and everywhere, the one unbeatable force which cannot be weighed in the scales that determine the military values of all other peoples. If other evidences were lacking to establish these facts, certain incidents of the World War alone would prove them. In no case did he fail to meet the test of fire; and the anxious world stood aghast when the German staff reduced the question of fighting ability to an absolute test in the hope of proving the weakness of our “raw recruits” when pitted against soldiers not only trained, but bred and born,in the iron atmosphere of the “Great Empire.” The Germans, confident of their superiority, man for man, felt that such a test would weaken the morale of the American soldier and boost the waning German hope at Berlin.
On April 20, 1918, at Seicheprey, in the Toul Sector, a picked German column, the product of a century of militarism, assaulted an American force of approximately equal numbers.
Not only was it a clash of men; it was the deadly embrace of principles—the death grapple of human systems.
The world knows the result. The individuality of the American soldier was asserted before the astonished eyes of all nations, and the Stars and Stripes floated triumphantly over that field of death.
Unafraid of all the military camps of the earth, this strange civil soldier, while fostering and guarding the greatest of all republics, has eschewed the damning principles of militarism, ever preferring to keep his sword sheathed in the peaceful scabbardof industry, drawing it only when Liberty is endangered.
Of that deadly war, which, directly or indirectly, involved every square inch of the earth’s surface and the fate of every human being, living and yet to live, Hendrick Van Loon has beautifully said: