Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

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Freedom by the Sword: The U.S. Colored Troops, 1862–1867
“a heavy skirmish line” in its old position. Not more than two hours passed before
Forrest led a brigade of mounted Confederates “meandering through the woods”
and quietly approached the Union pickets. Lieutenant Buswell was in the camp
below. “The enemy not knowing our true position . . . failed to lower the muzzles
of their guns sufficiently to do us any special harm,” he recorded in his diary,
Though we were . . . near enough to distinctly hear the commands of their officers.
. . . It was a very dark night and the fire from cannon and their lines of
musketry . . . was a sight terrible to behold. . . . Up to this time very little damage
was done [to] our line, quiet was maintained, not a shot on our side, except from
distant batteries while the rebs were advancing down the slope. When they got
sufficiently near, so that they could be distinguished . . . , orders were sent along
our lines to commence firing rapidly and at the same time to advance. Our lines
were quite close and the contest for a time was hot. When the rebs fell back, we
following . . . until they went down the hill the other side, into the timber, and
ceased firing. 77
In the darkness, Union soldiers could only conjecture the enemy’s loss, but
Buswell thought that it must have been “considerable. . . . Our own loss was not
very severe.” Despite what Forrest himself called “one of the heaviest fires I have
heard during the war,” Confederate casualties were small. Forrest reported no
deaths in his command that evening, “as the enemy overshot us, but he is reported
as having suffered much from the fire of my own men, and still more from their
own men, who fired into each other in the darkness of the night.” Wild overestimates
of enemy strength and casualties characterized reports of officers on both
sides throughout the war. 78
On the morning of 15 July, General Smith learned that half of his expedition’s
hardtack had spoiled before it was loaded on the wagons at Memphis and that only
one day’s supply remained. Moreover, the artillery had exhausted its reserve ammunition
the day before, and the only rounds left were those in each gun’s caisson.
Smith therefore decided to withdraw without doing Forrest further harm. Seeing
the federal retreat, the Confederates followed closely and by midmorning caught
up with Bouton’s brigade, which was guarding the supply wagons. Along with
several regiments from one of the white divisions, men of the brigade repelled
this attack in a two-hour skirmish. Late that afternoon, they charged the height
from which they had watched the previous day’s fight and drove off a Confederate
battery that threatened the retreat. From there, the road was clear to La Grange,
Tennessee, the expedition’s starting point. Foraging desperately along the way, the
troops reached there on 21 July and were back in their old camps at Memphis a
day or two later. 79
Despite the need to cut the campaign short for want of rations and ammunition,
Union officers were satisfied with its result and with their troops’ performance.
“Forrest, though he likes a good fight, had got more than he bargained for this
77 Ibid., pp. 303 (“heavy skirmish line”), 323(“meandering”); Buswell Jnls, 14 Jul 1864.
78 OR, ser. 1, vol. 39, pt. 1, p. 323 (Forrest); Buswell Jnls, 14 Jul 1864.
79 OR, ser. 1, vol. 39, pt. 1, pp. 252, 303, 323; Buswell Jnls, 15–23 Jul 1864.