Chapter XIII: Pursuit of the Streight Raiders

Late in April came news that the Union Army around Corinth was making a demonstration into North Alabama.

Forrest’s genius had already become known, and he was sent with 800 men to uncover the design of the enemy.

When we arrived in the vicinity of Tuscumbia, Ala., we found a part of General Roddy’s Confederate command fighting and retreating before the advancing enemy from near Cherokee.

On reaching Tuscumbia, Forrest sent out scouts in all directions to ascertain the purpose of the enemy. Upon the reports of these scouts, Forrest understood the general plan of the foe.

Col. A. D. Streight, in command of an Indiana regiment of infantry, was to raid

Wife of Thomas D. Duncan]

through Alabama and on to Rome, Ga., cutting the railway and destroying factories.

But--alas for the plan!--General Forrest did not remain in Middle Tennessee, where they had placed him.

Learning from a citizen that Streight’s column had passed the little town of Mount Hope, only a few miles from Tuscumbia, on the evening of April 29, Forrest ordered every available man with a good horse to prepare for the pursuit. With 500 of his own men and 800 from Roddy’s command, he began the chase with 1,300 men and with Streight twelve hours ahead.

Forrest’s calculation was that Streight would camp at the base of Sand Mountain and begin the ascent early the next day, and so it was. Just at sunrise our advance guard came on the enemy’s pickets. The army was breaking camp as we came into view, and a chorus of 2,000 braying mule voices greeted us, as Streight’s men were mounted on mules for mountain climbing.

We were a little too late to strike the enemy in camp according to plan, but a hasty and too eager company of our advance rushed in and fired on the rear of the column; whereupon the enemy turned and fought back, holding us off until he got his force on top of the mountain. Then he placed his men back in ambush and drew us into a deadly trap. In a rushing movement we were surprised and knocked out of all formation. It was the only time in my entire service of four years with Forrest that I ever saw him purturbed. He tried with all possible boldness to stem the tide; but our men had ridden hard all night, and they simply could not meet the advantage and the odds of fresh troops.

After losing a number of men, we “stood not upon the order of our going,” but recoiled from the front of flame; and on our retreat the enemy pursued us so closely that we lost two of our field pieces. Our retreat so enraged General Forrest that he was as ferocious and wild as a lion. He was so harsh in his treatment of the young captain of artillery on account of the loss of his guns that he afterwards, at Spring Hill, Tenn., attacked and shot General Forrest.

After this repulse, we brought up the remainder of our troops and turned the pursuit and kept it up so vigorously that they soon began to try to get away from us, and we pressed the running fight until we put these 2,000 raiders out of business.

After this fight of Day’s Gap, on Sand Mountain, followed that long and relentless pursuit of Streight and his men, which must forever stand as one of the most daring and spectacular exploits of military history. Forrest had picked 500 men for this great running fight with a foe 2,000 strong.

Our fight was, of course, with the rear guard, for our leader never permitted us to be drawn into a general engagement.

When the enemy would set traps for us, Forrest would invariably discover them and shell the ambush out and keep up his nagging, sleep-destroying pursuit day and night.

It was in the course of this pursuit that we came to the deep, high-banked waters of Black Warrior Creek and found the enemy on the opposite bank and the bridge in flames.

Near the burning bridge lived the Widow Sanson, whose fifteen-year-old daughter, Emma Sanson, made her name immortal in the records of the Southern Confederacy and in the sacred, tear-stained archives of Alabama. She it was who rode on Forrest’s horse behind him through the zone of danger to point out a little-known and isolated ford where she had seen her mother’s cows cross when the summer waters were low. By her timely help Forrest was enabled to pursue the enemy’s column in its last stretch of the long march to Rome.

For this intelligent, fearless, and patriotic service, her State, after the war, granted to Emma Sanson a section of land and in 1907 erected a monument to her memory at Gadsden.

Before Streight’s column reached Rome, Ga., Forrest sent a courier around the flying foe and called upon the city officials to raise a force and seize the bridge and either hold or burn it. The response was prompt, and the Union commander found a hostile reception awaiting him and the bridge barricaded and guarded with cannon.

Our advance arrived within striking distance of the enemy’s rear just as he received the word that the city had refused to surrender, and so the really courageous Union commander, after reaching the edge of his goal, surrendered his nearly 2,000 soldiers to Forrest’s little band of less than 500.

With chagrin and humiliation, Colonel Streight learned too late the strength of the column that had harassed his troops over so many hills, and then compelled them to stack arms.

While I was but a unit of that swift band, my experience brought to my understanding the awful tragedy of war and taught me the strange truth that the will and the genius of the commander are the preponderant power of every bannered host, the fineness of a brain cell, the courage of a heart, the coolness of a nerve, outweighing the mass of legions.

Soon after this we marched back to Bragg’s army in Tennessee. We were sent out on scout service toward Nashville, and fought a number of minor engagements, including those of Tullahoma and Shelbyville, Tenn. After a little while, we joined Wheeler’s command; and our activities were then directed against the forces of Generals Wilder and Stanley, who were making strenuous efforts to cut the Western and Atlantic Railroad line, Bragg’s line of communication.