Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 2.djvu/223

 the release of a number of our men belonging to the train escort, and the recapture of about 1000 mules.

General Crook, after collecting his command, followed rapidly in the rebel track. He was too late to prevent the capture of McMinnville (garrisoned by only one small regiment) and the appropriation and destruction of large stores of every kind; but he caught up with Wharton's rear and had a severe brush with it between McMinnville and Murfreesboro', and compelled the rebels to abandon their intended attack on the latter town. But they succeeded in destroying the railroad bridges and track southward to the Duck River. Near Murfreesboro' General R. B. Mitchell came to Crook's aid with McCook's division, which had made forced marches from the Sequatchie, and, as chief of cavalry, assumed command of all the mounted pursuers.

General Hooker had sent his chief of staff with an infantry force northward by rail from Bridgeport, to assist in the capture of the raiders. General Mitchell brought Wheeler to a stand near the village of Farmington, between Shelbyville and Columbia, a short distance south of the Duck River, and put him completely to flight after severe fighting. After this, it became a steady stern chase of the rebels to the Tennessee River, which they managed to ford between Huntsville and Florence, with about half of the force they had started with, but “loaded down to the guards,” as General Stanley expressed it, “with their plunder of dry goods, watches, jewelry, and greenbacks, and hundreds of them dressed in our uniforms.” Another rebel cavalry force, under the notorious General Roddey, was to have started simultaneously with Wheeler from Northern Alabama to join him on the Duck River, but for some reason it crossed the Tennessee at Guntersville, Alabama, a whole week later than appointed — that is, on October 7 and 8 — and so failed to prevent, as expected, the concentration of the Union troops against Wheeler. Roddey reached Salem, Tennessee, on the 10th,