Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 7.djvu/697

206 from West Point to Aberdeen. Cheer up and be prepared for a movement in the direction of Memphis."

The movement made by Forrest began from Verona, September 16th, and was directed against Sherman's communications in middle Tennessee and north Alabama and in co-operation with the flank operations of General Hood after the fall of Atlanta. In this expedition Forrest took Buford's division and Kelly's brigade, leaving Chalmers and his Mississippians on guard in the State. It was one of Forrest's most brilliant raids, but an account of it belongs more properly to another branch of this work. It is sufficient to say here that, returning to Cherokee, Ala., October 6th, and thence to Corinth, he was able to report a loss to the enemy of 3,360 men, a number equal to his own command, 800 horses, a great amount of arms and artillery, and the destruction of the railroad from Decatur to Spring Hill. In this expedition, the Pettus Flying artillery, under Lieut. E. S. Walton, did valuable service.

During the same period there was some Federal activity in southwest Mississippi, in the district commanded by Hodge, and Scott's brigade had an opportunity for some effective skirmishing in the vicinity of Woodville and the Homochitto.

Forrest prepared in October for another sojourn in western Tennessee, on the 16th ordering Colonel Bell to move from Corinth to Lavinia, and on the 18th sending Buford with the Kentucky brigade to Lexington to watch General Hatch. With his escort and Rucker's brigade Forrest moved from Corinth on the 19th and was joined by Chalmers at Jackson, Tenn., with about 250 men of McCulloch's brigade and 300 of Mabry's. After remaining in peaceable possession of the region he had entered for about two weeks, Chalmers was ordered to proceed to the Tennessee river and co-operate with Buford, who was blockading the river at Fort Heiman and Paris Landing. Here the Confederate forces were brilliantly successful