Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

Middle Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia, 1863–1865 285
stacked outside it to cover an acre of ground. During the night, the Confederates
placed ten cannon to cover both the port across the river and the main channel,
which ran close to their own position on the west bank. The next day, 4 November,
they opened fire and managed to disable the Union gunboats in half an hour.
Colonel Thompson, fearing a cross-river assault by an enemy whose strength he
imagined as numbering five thousand, ordered the depot quartermaster to burn the
craft tied up at the wharf. Flames quickly spread to the supplies piled outside the
warehouse and then to the warehouse itself. Troops and civilian workers alike refused
to expose themselves to Confederate snipers in order to fight the blaze. “By
night the wharf for nearly one mile up and down the river presented one solid sheet
of flame,” Forrest exulted. The next morning, he and his men began a slow and
tedious march by muddy roads back to Mississippi. 68
By the time the first reinforcements arrived the next afternoon, $1.5 million
worth of boats, buildings, and supplies lay in ashes. The attack on Johnsonville
had been a reversal for the Union, but Colonel Mussey was pleased with the black
soldiers’ behavior. Mussey was titular head of the 100th USCI, although his duties
as commissioner of Colored Troops kept him in Nashville. There, favorable reports
reached him about black artillerymen’s coolness under fire and about the deadly
aim of 13th USCI sharpshooters. “The affair was slight,” he concluded (Union
casualties amounted to eight killed and wounded), “but it has gained great credit
for the colored troops.” 69
While black soldiers at the western end of the railroad battled organized bodies
of Confederates, those farther east contended with guerrilla bands of the kind that
operated everywhere in the occupied South. Ten days after Forrest’s men withdrew
from Johnsonville, a company commander in the 12th USCI reported an encounter
with irregulars thirty miles outside Nashville. “We caught three bushwhackers . . .
who were shot in attempting to escape in the brush. Beard’s distillery being a regular
rendezvous for guerrillas we burnt it with several other buildings used for secreting
plunder.” Both incidents were typical of the war at this stage, as conducted outside
the lines of the main contending armies. “There is a new company of guerrillas in
process of organization,” the captain went on. “Many young men who have hitherto
held themselves aloof from the bushwhackers have been emboldened to unite themselves
with this company, owing no doubt to the proximity of Hood’s Army. There
are numerous squads of Confederate soldiers in the Duck river country recruiting and
conscripting for the rebel army.” 70
The captain’s report anticipated Hood’s move by nearly a week. The Confederate
Army of Tennessee did not leave Florence, Alabama, until 20 November. Three
days after that, General Thomas told Colonel Thompson to prepare for the evacuation
of Johnsonville if the enemy should appear in overwhelming force, even
though reports of Hood’s movements indicated that his path lay more to the east,
68 OR, ser. 1, vol. 39, pt. 1, pp. 862, 871 (“By night”), 875, and pt. 3, p. 608; ORN, ser. 1, 26:
622–23 and map opposite 26: 630.
69 An inspector estimated the total value of property destroyed at several places along the river
during Forrest’s raid as $2.2 million. OR, ser. 1, vol. 39, pt. 1, pp. 862, 868 (“The affair”). Seven
months later, the chief quartermaster of the Department of the Cumberland reported the loss at
Johnsonville as $1.5 million (vol. 52, pt. 1, p. 683).
70 Capt G. M. Everett to Lt Col W. R. Sellon, 15 Nov 1864, 12th USCI, Entry 57C, RG 94, NA.