Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 7.djvu/717

226 the other remnants of Maury's command, retreated to Meridian after the evacuation of Mobile.

Gen. Greorge H. Thomas, with headquarters at Eastport, in the extreme northeast comer of Mississippi, late in March sent Gen. James H. Wilson with 10,000 cavalry on a raid through Alabama. Forrest led his whole command to meet him, and on the 2d of April, the day of the evacuation of Richmond, fought the battle of Selma. His men fought with the desperation of hopelessness, but they were swept from their intrenchments by superior numbers and 2,700 were captured. After this disaster, Forrest, with the remnant of his command, made up of those who were determined to struggle to the bitter end, moved to Meridian and was part of the little army of 8,000 men under Gen. Richard Taylor which awaited the issue of events in the east

In Virginia, the long siege of Petersburg was hurried to a close by Sheridan's victory over Fitzhugh Lee and Pickett at Five Forks, April 1, 1865. At one o'clock of the following morning Gen. N. H. Harris, commanding his Mississippi brigade on Mahone's line, between Swift-run and James river, was ordered to march without delay to Petersburg, cross the Appomattox and report to General Lee. This he did, finding General Lee about sunrise, and was ordered with his men to the Boydton plank road, where Wilcox's division had been shattered and driven in during the night. Harris occupied Battery Gregg, a detached earthwork on the Boydton road, and Battery Whitworth, about six hundred yards to the north, works that had been constructed for use in just such an emergency as was now presented. There was a section of the New Orleans Washington artillery in Battery Gregg, and there Harris placed the Twelfth and Sixteenth regiments, under Lieut.-Col. James H. Duncan (of the Nineteenth), and in Battery Whitworth he stationed the Nineteenth and Forty-eighth regiments, under his own immediate command. "The enemy first assaulted