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 typical federal blockhouse on the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad
dred men that had gone out earlier in the day to drive off Confederates who had been
tearing up the track south of town. Campbell’s little force barely changed the odds in
the fight; by nightfall, the Union garrison had withdrawn inside its earthworks. When
the Confederates occupied the town, where the quartermaster and commissary depots
were, Campbell led thirty white cavalry and twenty black infantry on a raid that
set fire to the warehouses. They also captured two prisoners, one of whom told them
that Forrest’s strength was ten or twelve thousand men with nine cannon. 42
Although the reported Confederate troop strength was a gross exaggeration,
the prisoners were more accurate about the artillery. By dawn the next day, Forrest’s
two batteries had their guns trained on the Union fort. They began firing soon
after 7:00, and about one-third of the Confederates began to advance. Forrest then
halted the attack and demanded the surrender of the fort. When Campbell refused,
Forrest requested a personal meeting and the federal commander rode out to meet
him. “He accompanied me along my lines,” Forrest reported, “and after witnessing
the strength and enthusiasm of my troops he surrendered the fort with its entire
garrison.” 43
The tone of Forrest’s official account of his meeting with Campbell was almost
offhand, but he related a different version of the day’s events to his earliest biographers
a few years after the war. According to his reminiscence, he took Campbell on a tour of
42 OR, ser. 1, vol. 39, pt. 1, pp. 521, 542.
43 Ibid., pp. 521–23, 543–44 (quotation, p. 543).