Forrest's Old Regiment, Continued

Confederate Veteran
Volume 3, Number 3, Page 77
March, 1895

By Capt., now Rev. J. C. Blanton, Nettleton, Miss., who was Acting Major at close of the war:

During our retreat to Chattanooga, the old battalion was reformed, Captain McDonald being the senior officer. The battalion was composed of four companies A, B, C, and D. A was a Memphis company, transferred from infantry called the Bluff City Grays, and commanded by Captain Philip T. Allen. These men were veterans when they came to us, and we found them as brave as the bravest. Company B, McDonald's old company, commanded by Capt. J. G. Barbor; Company C, May's old company, commanded by Capt. J. C. Blanton; and Company D, commanded by Capt. Bill Forrest. This company was a detail from the old regiment as an escort for General Forrest.

We now took the name of McDonald's Battalion. We did a great deal of scout duty and much hard fighting around Chattanooga. We participated in the great battles of Chickamauga, fought the Yankee cavalry at and above Charleston in East Tennessee, and went with Gen. Joe Wheeler around the Yankee army north of the Tennessee river. On this campaign we lost our beloved commander, Ma jor McDonald, who was killed, as was Captain May, in a foolish charge at Farmington, Tenn. McDon ald was a Scotchman, and as brave a man as ever bore that honored name. He was a fine officer, having excellent military ability, and was fast gain ing the confidence and admiration of his superiors. But alas, alas, at one of those places where superiors failed to have proper information, McDonald, with his battalion, was ordered to make the charge, which was gallantly done, into the very jaws of death, without the remotest chance of success. Col. Jas. T. Wheeler, of Tennessee' who commanded the brigade at the time, told me afterwards that when he transmitted the order to McDonald he turned away weeping, and refused to witness the terrible charge made by McDonald and his brave men.

Philip T. Allen was our next commander. After the Wheeler campaign Forrest was ordered to the Mississippi Department, Bragg giving him the old battalion, Morton's battery and his escort, commanded then by Captain Jackson. This little command was placed under Lieut. Col. Crews, and ordered from Rome, Ga. to Okolona, Miss., at which place we met Forrest, and marched directly to Jack son, Tenn., entering the enemy's lines at Saulsbury, Tenn. Our object was to get recruits and rations, which we did, and more, too. The enemy made sure they would bag Forrest. They swarmed thick and fast around us, and fighting was almost incessant. The old battalion and escort had to protect the long wagon train and unarmed men that we had gathered. Of course Morton's Battery assisted us ably when they could get there, but our movements - were so rapid, and sometimes through byways, that it was impossible to have Morton every time we I were attacked.

Allen fell seriously wounded at Lagrange, in a hand-to-hand fight with a full regiment, outnumbering us more than two to one; but, instead of their getting our wagons, we got theirs. By the way, I note a little incident that happened at this fight. After the Yankees had retired from the field, Forrest ordered me to pursue them with the battalion, which I did at a gallop. Coming to a short bend in the road on a hill, I saw the enemy formed in line of battle, evidently preparing to charge us. I caught Forrest by the shoulder, saying: "General, they have got us; they are going to charge!"

He checked his horse and asked: "How many men have you?"

My reply was, Not more than thirty; that the most of the men had stopped to pillage the Yankee wagons.

His orders were: " Bring them into line at a gallop," which was instantly done.

By the time the lines were formed, he asked, in a loud voice, for a white handkerchief. A man answered from the ranks that he had one. Forrest then, in a loud voice, said to the man: "Put it on a stick and go down there and tell them Yankees that if they do not surrender I will kill the last one of them."

The man started, and so did the Yankees, on a perfect stampede. We actually caught some of them. Certainly no man but Forrest would ever have thought of playing such a trick on the enemy. We were at that time in their clutches, if they had but known it. A bold charge at the time by that yankee command would have captured Forrest. We could not possibly have escaped. But the charge was not made, and we rode away to fight them again at Moscow, where we forced our way through them and saved our recruits and supplies, taking all into Mississippi.

The old battalion was then consolidated with Jeff Forrest's Regiment. However, this did not last long. Shortly after this, near Como, Miss., the officers of the battalion were all placed under arrest, charged with mutiny. General Forrest was absent at Mobile at the time. Still, his act was the cause of the trouble. Just before his departure for Mobile he sent a supernumerary officer to take command of us (Allen, our senior captain, being at the time absent and wounded). We felt it our duty to contend for the rights of our wounded brother officer; hence the arrest for mutiny. But when Forrest returned he gave us what we asked for, Philip T. Allen, Major, commanding, and were ready for battle again.

Soon after this Col. D. C. Kelley came back to us, and new companies were added, and it was a full regiment again. We then went with Mc Culloch's Brigade to Montevallo, Ala., but were ordered back immediately to take part in the Cross Roads fight. Col. Kelley, with part of the regiment, was in the battle. We reached Mississippi, in time for the fight at Harrisburg. In this battle your scribe got a wound that laid him on the shelf for several months. After this, and before I had rejoined them, the old boys turned up in Memphis one morning. When I found them again they were on the Tennessee river, near Paris Landing.

A few days after I got there we had a fight with some gunboats. I must here tell the part that we took in that novel affair. While the regiment was under the bank fighting the gunboat, there was a steamboat run within range of our guns, having on her some Yankees, and she was forced to surrender. I was ordered by Colonel Kelley to take charge of the boat and run her to a landing. On reaching the landing Colonel Kelley came aboard and told me Forrest's orders were that we run the steamboat across the river and bring him that gunboat, and he asked me what I thought of it. I told him I thought it "mighty ticklish" business, that the old regiment could fight on land, but we were inexperienced in naval matters, though if the "old Tycoon" said so we would have to turn mariners and try it. So Company C, with D. C. Kelley as admiral (I reckon) left our moorings and started out on our first naval expedition, and I really thought it would be our last. Col. Kelley stood in the pilot house with a cocked pistol to direct the Yankee pilot. Lieut. Jim Sutherland, with pistol in hand, stood by the engineer. I was ordered to keep the men on the alert. I knew that one broadside from the gunboat would have sent the admiral and Company C to the bottom of the river, but the thing turned out differently than any sane man would have expected. The yanks ran the bow of their boat into the bank and deserted her without shutting off steam or taking anything with them, not even their dead and wounded. They also left us a splendid dinner, cooked and on the table.

We attacked the gunboat by a hawser to the transport and turned it across the river. We now had a fleet of two transports and a gunboat. They were placed in charge of an old steamboat captain and ordered to accompany the expedition to Johnsonville, but when unprotected by our guns en route, an attack was made by an overwhelming Federal fleet, and we lost our capture. I learn that Col. Kelley still has in his possession the side arms of the officer commanding on the captured boat. That officer, as he delivered the arms, said, "I surrender to the commander of the sharpshooters who made it impossible for me to handle my boat. I could otherwise have run the gauntlet of the artillery.

The next day, I think it was, the fleet was lost. From this place we went to Johnsonville, on the Tennessee river, and assisted in the destruction of a great many of the enemy's boats and large quantities of army stores. We then joined Hood at Florence, Ala., went on that campaign to Nashville and back to Mississippi, taking an active part in the battles fought on the trip from Mississippi to Alabama to look after General Wilson, but Forrest's ranks had become too thin to check such numbers as Wilson had. So the end came, but there were but few of the old regiment to surrender.

The large majority of those who started with Forrest from Memphis in the beginning were in their graves—yes, dead on the field of honor. The remnant left stacked their arms with sad hearts and wended their wav to desolated homes. Since then the majority of that remnant has passed away, and it won't be long until all will "cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees." Thank God, I have never met one of the regiment who had apology to make for the part he took in that war.

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