Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 08.djvu/542

530 day, I very soon had information that the enemy with a force variously estimated from five to fifteen hundred men, with artillery, had advanced to New Albany, nineteen miles distant, and burned all the business houses, church, and some private dwellings, late in the evening of the same day. At midnight I left for New Albany, reaching the place about nine o'clock the next morning, with the force brought from near Okalona except Owens' artillery, which had not come up.

Ascertaining that the enemy numbered only some five hundred men with two guns, I sent Colonel Boyle with four hundred men, and Colonel Faulkner, of General Chalmers' command, who had for sometime been near, and who joined me at New Albany, with some two hundred men in pursuit, accompanied by Colonel John M. Sandige, one of my staff officers, with instructions to press the enemy and attack him wherever found. The enemy having retreated in the direction of Ripley, the troops of Colonels Boyle and Faulkner pursued by different routes to that place, as instructed, with the hope of overtaking him there. Arriving at two o'clock P. M. the 14th, Colonel Boyle found the enemy had left at nine A. M., going in the direction of Pocahontas. Colonel Boyle immediately continued the pursuit, leaving a message for Colonel Faulkner (who had not arrived) to join him at a feeding place twelve miles out, intending, if he could not overtake the enemy during the night, to attack him at Pocahontas at daylight the next morning. At eleven o'clock in the night, being informed that Colonel Faulkner could not, for some reason proceed beyond Ripley, and that the enemy was already at Pocahontas, Colonel Boyle reluctantly, and with the concurrence of my staff officer, abandoned the pursuit and the purpose of attacking Pocahontas, returning to New Albany the next day. It is believed that, with the co-operation of Colonel Faulkner, the expedition would have resulted most successfully. Remaining at and near New Albany until the 17th, Captain Thomas Puryear, of Colonel Bartean's Second Tennessee regiment, with a detachment of twelve selected men, accompanied by the staff officer, already mentioned, was instructed to penetrate the enemy's lines, if practicable, near Chewalla, and, passing north of the Mississippi and Chattanooga railroad, break up the enemy's communications and the railroads in that section.

As the success of this expedition depended greatly, if not entirely, upon its passing some distance beyond the enemy's lines without being observed, during the night of the 17th, it was found that after a march of forty-two miles during the day, there was still twenty miles to be passed over before reaching Chewalla. Heavy rains late in the evening and at night, with total darkness, made it impossible to accomplish