Notes of a Private. John Milton Hubbard
the rear and waked the echoes with the rebel yell. The firing was promiscuous, but there were few casualties. Pinson was the only Confederate wounded. He manifested the spirit and courage of the hero, as we bore him to the Davis residence on a cot secured for the purpose. He had very good reason to think that the ball had penetrated the intestines, but he, nevertheless, spoke cheerfully to anxious enquirers as “boys,” and said that it was only “a small matter” and that he “was all right.” Happily he was.
The spoils were great, considering the few minutes the battle lasted, consisting of one hundred and eighty fine Illinois horses with their accoutrements and arms. We captured only fifty or sixty prisoners, as it was just at nightfall, and most of the enemy took refuge in the timber. I always thought that those fine horses and accoutrements should have been distributed among the boys where most needed and their inferior articles taken up. This might have been done under a board of survey in such a way as not only to increase the efficiency of the command, but also to stimulate it for future enterprises. But we didn’t get a halter. All went to supply the demands of other commands. There was one particularly fine horse in the captured lot which had been thoroughly trained and was evidently something of a pet, as we say, of his former owner. Jim Weatherly of Somerville, was not long in discovering his fine points and “smart tricks,” and soon had him “going his way.” The beautiful brown with two white feet had to be turned in, and Weatherly was disconsolate. Thereafter, when any legitimate capture fell in the way of the boys, mum was the word. It was now September, 1862, and Price and Van Dorn were ready to move on Corinth. This movement was made from Ripley, Miss., in two divisions commanded by Price and Lovell, with Van Dorn as chief. The army was well equipped, well fed and in fine spirits. It had not rained for many weeks, and the dusty roads and scarcity of water made the marches, which were necessary to effect the concentration of the two armies, severe ones for all branches of the service. But the prospect of making a successful assault on the works at Corinth and capturing Rosecrans and his army buoyed up the spirits of the soldiers. Ten miles out on the Chiwalla hills the cavalry encountered a small Federal force which was easily swept back. Company A of the Seventh Tennessee, was active in this affair as Jackson’s escort and lost the first man killed on the expedition. I was with a detachment of Company E that had been ordered forward and deployed as skirmishers. I came upon the corpse of the soldier, which had, for the moment, been left where he had fallen. It was the body of John Young of Memphis. This was the first day of October, 1862. The next day was spent in getting the proper dispositions made for the assault. On the 3rd, the earth seemed to tremble with the thunder of artillery and the roar of small arms. It was a struggle to the death in which both sides lost heavily. The position had been rendered strong by heavy earthworks and much of the front had been covered by fallen timber, which made the approach to the main works difficult. All that day it went well with the Confederates, though the killed and wounded were numerous. As the cavalry took no part in the main battle, we could see pretty well what was going on in the rear. There it was a bloody spectacle as the killed and wounded were borne back for treatment and burial. That was the first time for me to see our poor fellows wrapped in their blankets and buried in shallow trenches. The horror of it! Even on the morning of the fourth, those of us in the rear thought that all was well in front, for we had heard that Price, who was fighting on the north of the railroad, had gone over the heavy works and into the town. And so he had, but the brave men under Lovell on the right under the terrible fire of the Federals had failed to make a successful assault. Suddenly there was a calm, which we could not understand. But it soon flashed upon us that we were beaten, and our army was in full retreat. During the previous night McPherson’s division from Jackson had re-enforced Rosecrans and was ready to press the retreating Confederates. Hurlburt’s division, too, was marching from Bolivar to intercept the retreating column. There was now likely to be some lively work for the cavalry. When we reached Davis’ bridge, the scene of the affair heretofore related, Hurlburt was there to dispute our passage. With McPherson in our rear we were apparently “in a box.” Shrewd generalship on the part of the Federals would have captured our whole army. Van Dorn boldly attacked Hurlburt at the bridge, while his trains were ordered to take the only road of escape—that up Hatchie river. The cavalry preceded the trains, and, crossing the river, attacked Hurlburt in his rear. For several hours there were two Federal and two Confederate forces engaged and one of each fronting two ways. Van Dorn drew off at the proper time and followed his trains. The Federals were not disposed to follow, as good generalship would have dictated, for our troops, worn out and hungry, could have made but a feeble resistance. The streams had no water in them and our soldiers drank the wells dry. When a beef was killed the hungry men were cutting the flesh from the carcass before the hide was off. In the midst of this distress, I had my only sight of Sterling Price. He was riding at the head of a small escort and apparently in deepest thought. He had left many of the brave men whom he loved dead on the field of Corinth. He was the idol of his men, a great Missourian and a good man. But the result at Corinth had made him sad. The disaster brought other troubles in its train.
The morale of the army was not good, the citizens were discouraged and many a soldier gave up the fight and went to his home within the Federal lines. We retired to the vicinity of Holly Springs.
CHAPTER IV.
VAN DORN AT HOLLY SPRINGS.
After the battle of Corinth the Confederate army under Van Dorn was entirely on the defensive. Grant and Sherman advanced from Memphis into Mississippi with the evident purpose of taking Vicksburg in the rear. The cavalry had frequent skirmishes with the Federal advance and no little excitement. There was an encounter with Sherman’s troops near Old Lamar in Marshall County, Miss. In relating this incident, I feel the need of a faculty that would enable me to tell three or four things at the same time and make my readers have a clear conception of a number of particulars which run through the mind so rapidly that it is difficult to arrange them in a well connected narrative. As in a dream, we travel over a vast extent of country and talk with many people in the short space of a few seconds, so when armed forces unexpectedly clash, we can see very many things at the same moment, but can speak of only one incident at a time. In the last days of a very dry October the Seventh Tennessee Cavalry was marching by fours in a dusty lane with ditches intervening between the road and the fences. The enemy must have seen that a fine opportunity was at hand, and advanced rapidly on our flank. The clouds of dust so obscured the vision that it was impossible to see just where the enemy were. Having the advantage of an open field they made good use of it. The Confederates were compelled to fall back or be enveloped. The command to right about by fours was given. This order threw about one-half the regiment into a position fronting the other half, which had, in the confusion, never heard it. The red dirt rose in clouds as those who were trying to get to the rear struggled to pass by those who had not heard the command. Horses and riders went into the ditches in a confused mass.
The time for obeying orders had passed. Amid the shouts of the enemy’s flanking lines, the neighing of horses and the curses of desperate men, there seemed to be one thought uppermost, and that was to get out of this trouble alive, if possible. No doubt there were instances of individual bravery and unselfish acts of gallantry, quite common occurrences in the Seventh Regiment, but nobody had anything of this incident to relate on that score around future campfires. Many had thrilling stories of how they escaped. Captain W. J. Tate of Company E, and Captain C. C. Clay went into the ditch together. Tate lost his saddle, but got hold of Clay’s, which he placed on his own horse, mounted and rode out of danger. Captain Clay with many others was captured. This all happened in much less time than it takes to tell it, but it was a remarkable stampede, the second and last the regiment ever was in. The fighting was so constant from that time till Christmas, 1862, that the men learned to stand firm on the firing line and to fall back in good order.
It were a long story to tell of the sullen retreat of the army even now not fully recovered from the effects of the disastrous Corinth campaign. Mansfield Lovell’s division and Price’s Trans-Mississippi veterans, however, were always ready for a fight. The cold, rainy days of winter were upon us, and nothing seemed quite so sure as a great battle on the line of the Tallahatchie. That line was abandoned and the enemy made a fierce attack