Devil's Dream - Madison Smartt Bell [146]
April 6: Supported by Forrest, Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston attacks Grant at Shiloh, Tennessee, before Grant can be reinforced by Buell. The Confederates win the day—Willie Forrest is briefly lost in the action, then found herding prisoners. That night Forrest, scouting with a party disguised in captured Union coats, finds Buell crossing the Tennessee at Pittsburgh Landing to reinforce Grant. Though he realizes that Confederates must attack before daylight or be overwhelmed, he can’t find a general to authorize the attack. Johnston has been killed and replaced by General P. G. T. Beauregard.
April 7: The Confederates are forced to retreat from Shiloh toward Corinth.
April 8: Forrest breaks pursuit by the cavalry command of William Tecumseh Sherman with a charge at the Fallen Timbers. Overshooting his 350 troopers he fights his way out—though shot in the back—using “a rather small Federal trooper” as a shield. Forrest rides to Corinth, where his horse dies of its wounds. Furloughed for sixty days to Memphis to recover from his own gunshot wound, he returns to duty after three weeks, advertising for 200 men who want to “have a heap of fun and kill some Yankees.”
June 11: Forrest is detached from his regiment by Beauregard and sent to Chattanooga, Tennessee (with his personal escort of some two dozen men), with the idea he will organize disparate cavalry units in the area to interrupt Buell’s movement toward Chattanooga.
July 13: On his birthday, Forrest, with a consolidated force of 1,500 men attacks Union troops at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, at 4:30 a.m., defeats them and frustrates their attempt to burn down a jail full of Confederate prisoners. Through ruses Forrest induces the surrender of other bodies of Union troops posted outside the town. He destroys the railroad at Murfreesboro and retreats to McMinnville with some 1,200 prisoners. Eight days following he is promoted to brigadier general.
July 18: With 700 troopers, Forrest raids within sight of Nashville. Two weeks later he strikes the railroad at Manchester, Tennessee. In this period Union General William Nelson complains that Forrest’s men are mounted on racehorses, thus fruitless to pursue with infantry.
August 22: General Braxton Bragg, urged by Forrest to attack Nashville, instead orders Forrest to the Sequatchie Valley.
September 3: Forrest joins Bragg on a maneuver into Kentucky, distracting Buell with diversions at Sparta, Lebanon and Murfreesboro.
September 17: Supporting Leonidas Polk, Forrest helps force a surrender of 4,000 Federals at Munfordville, Kentucky.
September 23: Forrest (injured by a horse that rolled on him) is ordered to turn over his regiment to Joseph Wheeler and return to Middle Tennessee to raise new troops and raid.
Forrest establishes a base in Murfreesboro but then (as Bragg retreats from Kentucky, Robert E. Lee from Maryland, and Earl Van Dorn and Sterling Price are defeated at Corinth) retreats to Tullahoma.
November: Bragg places Forrest under Wheeler’s command.
December 3: Forrest writes to Wheeler complaining about John Morton, young son of a Nashville physician, being foisted on him as an artillery commander. Extremely keen to serve under Forrest, Morton makes a 104-mile round-trip from Columbia to Lavergne and back to get updated orders from Wheeler.
December 10: Bragg orders Forrest to West Tennessee.
December 13: Forrest crosses the Tennessee River at Clifton.
December 18: Forrest routs Union troops from Lexington, Tennessee, capturing two cannon for John Morton’s use. Through ruses such as beating kettledrums, lighting extra campfires and marching his men in circles, Forrest persuades Union commanders in West Tennessee to inflate their estimate of his strength from an actual 2,000 to 5,000.