Devil's Dream - Madison Smartt Bell [151]
April 15: Forrest writes to Jefferson Davis requesting that he be sent to Middle Tennessee (the Nashville area and supply lines north and south of that city) to disrupt Sherman’s preparation for his campaign against Atlanta and the state of Georgia. Forrest’s plan is discredited by his old adversary Braxton Bragg. Forrest is ordered to return to Mississippi, where he begins to refit his troops after the West Tennessee campaign.
April 18: An article entitled “The Butcher Forrest and His Family: All of Them Slave Drivers and Women Whippers” appears in the Northern press. Describing events at Fort Pillow as “the cowardly butchery … of blacks and whites alike,” the article goes on to claim that Forrest “had two wives—one white, the other colored (Catharine) by each of which he had two children. His ‘patriarchal wife,’ Catharine, and his white wife had frequent quarrels or domestic jars.” A “Remember Fort Pillow” movement begins among black Union troops quartered in Memphis.
April 29: Apprehensive that Forrest may in fact destroy his planning in Middle Tennessee, Sherman replaces the Union commanders at Memphis and writes to them urging that “It is of the utmost importance to keep his forces occupied, and prevent him from forming plans and combinations to cross the Tennessee River and break up the railroad communications in our rear.”
April 30: Samuel Sturgis, the new Memphis cavalry commander, sets out in pursuit of Forrest, who withdraws from Jackson to Tupelo, Mississippi.
May 15: Sherman outflanks the Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston by crossing the Oostanaula River. Using delaying tactics and fighting battles with Sherman at three different locations, Johnston is pushed back toward Atlanta. Concerned that Forrest may still break up his lengthening supply lines in Tennessee, Sherman orders Sturgis to lead another expedition against Forrest.
May 17: Though actually on his way from Mississippi to Middle Tennessee, Forrest is ordered back in the direction of Tupelo to deal with the threat from Sturgis. Forrest’s idea of aborting Sherman’s march through Georgia is thus itself aborted.
June 10: At the battle of Brice’s Crossroads, Forrest resoundingly defeats Sturgis’s superior force—Forrest’s 4,800 men against the Union 8,000. Stubborn rearguard resistance by black Union troops commanded by Colonel Edward Bouton helped part of Sturgis’s command make a safe retreat, although black soldiers, when routed themselves, tear off and throw away the “Remember Fort Pillow” badges they are wearing. In pursuit of the routed Union force, Forrest and his horse both fall asleep, to be awakened only when the horse blunders into a tree.
June 13: Forrest writes a complaint to Union General Cadwallader Washburn at Memphis about useless bloodshed at Brice’s Crossroads, brought about because “Both sides acted as though neither felt safe in surrendering, even when further resistance was useless.” In this letter he denies he ever had a policy of slaughtering surrendering men.
June 15: In the aftermath of Brice’s Crossroads, Sherman writes to U.S. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton terming Forrest the “very devil” and claiming that there “never will be peace in East Tennessee until Forrest is dead.” To President Abraham Lincoln he writes that he is sending out generals from Memphis “to pursue and kill Forrest.”
June 28: Forrest writes to his immediate superior, Stephen D. Lee, complaining of an attack of boils and asking that he be relieved of command.
July 8: Union General A. J. Smith, leading 14,000 men out of Memphis in pursuit of