HOOD’S EXPEDITION--THE WILSON RAID TO SELMA.
We had not more than gotten the last three men with their horses and accoutrements across the Tennessee river, as related in the preceding chapter, than two gunboats and two transports came puffing along. It was easy to conjecture what would have happened to five men and three horses, if our little craft with its burden had been met in midstream by the gunboats. And yet we had been taking the risk of being sunk or captured all that day. We rode leisurely to Bolivar and the men dispersed to their homes for a much needed rest.
Just as I was congratulating myself that I would have a few days for recuperation, several carbuncles developed on my body as a result of poor food and exposure. This affliction virtually placed me on furlough from the middle of October till the middle of January. In the meantime, Forrest’s Cavalry had assembled at Corinth and gone on an expedition to the Tennessee river, which finally culminated in the movement with Hood to Nashville. Others have written graphic accounts of how Forrest with a force of three thousand men, cavalry and artillery, boldly attacked transports and gunboats and concluded his operations in that quarter by the total destruction of an immense depot of supplies at Johnsonville. He said himself that he captured and destroyed in two or three days four gunboats, fourteen transports, twenty barges, twenty-six pieces of artillery which, with stores destroyed, amounted to a money value of over six million dollars. He captured 150 prisoners, while his own loss was two killed and nine wounded. Altogether this was one of the most remarkable campaigns of the whole war, and I have always somewhat regretted that I could not participate in its operations. As for the expedition to Nashville which followed, I have always considered myself fortunate in having missed it. The history of it is a pitiful story and well worth reading, particularly by those who did not hear it from the lips of hundreds of brave men who gave vivid accounts of personal experiences. I began to hear these pitiful accounts early in January from soldiers returning to their homes in an utter state of demoralization. I began to consider whether or not I could recover my health and join Company E ere there was a collapse of the Confederacy. However, as the men of our regiment had been permitted to go to their homes for a few days, there was time for consideration.