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11. Okolona
- Louisiana State University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
1. Starr, Union Cavalry, 3:377, 279; Sherman, Memoirs, 1:394; Wade to Sister Nellie, Dec. 1, 1863, Sgt. Benjamin F. Wade Papers, TSLA; OR, 32(2):326. 2. OR, 32(1):181–82. CHAPTER 11 Okolona I n December 1863 Brig. Gen. William Sooy Smith, chief of cavalry for the Army of the Tennessee, selected Col. Daniel M. Ray’s brigade (2nd, 3rd, and 4th Tennessee) as part of an expedition into the interior of Mississippi to be coordinated with a raid by General Sherman farther south. Smith’s 7,000 cavalrymen, taken from his corps of 12,000, consisted of fourteen regiments in three brigades: one each at Nashville, Memphis, and Union City. At a meeting in Memphis during January 1864, Sherman outlined orally to Smith what he later transcribed: “A chief part of the enterprise was to destroy the rebel cavalry commanded by General Forrest.”1 Once they collected and outfitted their forces, the two generals would leave on February 1. Sherman would lead 20,000 infantrymen from Vicksburg to Meridian, a distance of 150 miles. There he would meet Smith, riding 230 miles from Collierville (near Memphis) on or about February 10. En route, as instructed, Smith was to confiscate or destroy enemy resources: seize horses and mules; burn “mills, barns, sheds, stables and such things”; and dismantle sections of the Mobile & Ohio Railroad.2 On December 27 Ray’s brigade rode out Hillsboro Pike from Nashville, now in the midst of a smallpox epidemic. Unknown to all, they were heading for Collierville. Three days later at Columbia, General Smith met the brigade and replaced Ray temporarily with Col. Jacob M. Thornburgh of the 4th Tennessee. A disgruntled Ray returned to Nashville and resigned. He and Smith had dis- 182 West Tennessee and Beyond 3. PAJ, 5:494n, 6:638n. 4. Andes and McTeer, Loyal Mountain Troopers, 83–84; Goodwin, 4th Regiment, 9, 10. 5. Goodwin, 4th Regiment, 9, 10. Lyman B. Pierce, History of the Second Iowa Cavalry (Burlington , Iowa, 1865), 59; Alderson, “Reminiscences of John Johnston,” THQ 14 (June 1955): 155. 6. Boatner, Civil War Dictionary, 543–44; B&L, 4:417. agreed earlier over the leadership of Col. William R. Cook of the 2nd Tennessee , whom Ray accused of being slow to follow orders and of providing whiskey to his soldiers. Although Cook was dismissed from the army on charges of “gross neglect of duty” and misconduct, Smith—who apparently preferred Cook to Ray—soon restored Cook to his command.3 At Columbia troopers pressed numerous horses and mules from citizens in and near the town. On the last day of 1863, which began as an unseasonably warm and “drizzly day,” the afternoon turned stormy, snowy, and bitterly cold. Finding “anything that would burn,” the Tennesseans built fires to hover near through the night. In the morning they awoke to ghastly scenes of pickets frozen to death at their posts and of mud frozen to the hooves of their horses.4 On January 7, 1864, at Savannah, they crossed the Tennessee River on the small steamboat Blue Bird before riding through the “gloomy appearance” of the battlefield at Shiloh. At Corinth they found a Federal post but with most of the town’s “four or five hundred inhabitants not at home.” On the tenth a train moving west provided transportation; horses occupied the cars and the men clung to the top of the train. At LaGrange, fifty miles from Memphis, the 72nd Indiana, 5th Kentucky Mounted Infantry, and 4th U.S. Cavalry joined them, and all drew five days’ rations.5 At Collierville Smith gave Col. Lafayette McCrillis of the 3rd Illinois command of the Third Brigade less the 4th U.S., which served as the general’s escort . Lt. Col. William P. Hepburn’s Second Brigade of mostly Illinois cavalrymen also stood ready at Collierville. Col. George E. Waring Jr. and his First Brigade had not arrived from Union City because of what he called “the flooded condition of the difficult country . . . with its broad swamps.”6 Sherman left Vicksburg on February 3. Pushing aside small state cavalry forces, he reached Jackson three days later and Meridian by the middle of the month. For five days he remained as his troops “destroy[ed] an arsenal, immense storehouses, and the railroad in every direction.” Having heard nothing from Smith, Sherman pulled back to Canton, where he remained until March 3. [34.237.245.80] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 03:47 GMT) Okolona 183...