Grierson’s order was in part as follows: “The Colonel commanding thinks that your expedition will be useless as he thinks it impossible to reach the boats. … The Colonel wishes you to save the command, and rest men and horses as much as possible.”
“I placed this order in my pocket,” Prince said, “sent the escort back to Colonel Grierson and marched away to capture the steamboats if possible.” The steamboats were the Starlight and the Red Chief. Approaching under cover of an early morning fog which concealed him from the Port Hudson gunners, Prince set his artillery in position and ordered the Starlight’s watchman to bring the boat into shore if he wished to save himself and the boats from being blown to bits. Prince captured both boats and thirty prisoners—the crew and engineers sleeping on board the vessels.
“In regard to my violation of the order of Colonel Grierson, my brigade commander, I did not think then, and do not think now that that amounted to anything because I was proceeding according to the order of Major-General Banks, then in command of the whole army, and because the splendid success of the enterprise was a complete vindication.”
* See page 37. Streight’s raid was coordinated with Grierson’s and was planned partly as a cover for the latter. General Forrest, outnumbered three to one by Streight, made his capture by a clever ruse. He marched his few pieces of horse-artillery around and around again through a cut-off in a mountain road until Streight became convinced he was out-manned and out-gunned, and so surrendered. “I ordered my men to come forward and take possession of the arms,” Forrest said afterwards. “When Streight saw they were barely four hundred men, he did rear! Demanded to have his arms back and that we should fight it out. I just laughed at him and patted him on the shoulder, and said, ‘Ah, Colonel, all is fair in love and war, you know.’”—Theo. F. Rodenbough, “Some Cavalry Leaders,” Photographic History of the Civil War, vol. 4, pp. 280–82.
* “Eastern troops do not fight like Western troops and Genl. Banks has very few Western troops in his department.”—Benjamin Grierson to Alice Grierson, June 16, 1863 (Grierson Papers).
* See page 110 for an explanation of how Sergeant Surby obtained this Confederate money. Mrs. Newman later arranged to return his personal belongings and a considerable amount of money left over after she paid the burial expenses of Blackburn and Hughes.
Notes
Abbreviations used for most frequently cited sources
FFL: Forbes family letters, and journals of Stephen Alfred Forbes, collected and arranged chronologically by Ethel Forbes Scott. Manuscripts.
FORBES: Stephen A. Forbes, “Grierson’s Cavalry Raid,” Illinois State Historical Society, Transactions, 1907, pp. 99–130.
GRIERSON: Benjamin Henry Grierson, autobiography. Manuscript.
OR: The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Washington, 1880–1901.
RS: Benjamin Henry Grierson, Record of Services Rendered the Government, 1863 [Ft. Concho, Texas], privately printed.
SURBY: Richard W. Surby, Grierson Raids, Chicago, 1865.
FIRST DAY—Friday, April 17
1. Surby, p. 21.
2. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 3, p. 197; Surby, p. 20.
3. FFL, Henry Forbes to Nettie Forbes, July 25, 1864.
4. Forbes, p. 125.
5. David D. Porter, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War, New York, 1885.
6. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 3, p. 50.
7. Ibid., p. 95.
8. Ibid., p. 185.
9. Headquarters, Army, Memphis via Cairo, to Col. B. H. Grierson, April 13, 1863 (Grierson Papers).
10. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 3, p. 197.
11. Lloyd Lewis, “Taps for the Cavalry,” American Mercury, August, 1930, pp. 409–16.
12. Francis Morris, “Cavalry Horses in America,” Report of the U. S. Commissioner of Agriculture, 1863, pp. 159–75.
13. William F. Scott, Story of a Cavalry Regiment, New York, 1893, pp. 2–3.
14. FFL, Henry Forbes to Agnes Forbes, Sept. 21, 1861.
15. FFL, Stephen Forbes to Nettie Forbes, Oct. 6, 1861.
16. FFL, Stephen Forbes’s journal, Nov. 20, 1861.
17. FFL, Henry Forbes to Agnes Forbes, Feb. 8, 1862.
18. Photographic History of the Civil War, New York, 1911, vol. 4, pp. 56–58.
19. FFL, Henry Forbes to Agnes Forbes and others, March 12, 1862.
20. Scott, p. 283.
21. Ibid., pp. 27–28.
22. Ibid., pp. 26–27.
23. Grierson’s military papers, 1863 file; RS, p. 101.
23. Fred A. Shannon, Organization and Administration of the Union Army, 1861–1865, Cleveland, 1928, vol. 2, pp. 270–71.
25. FFL, Stephen Forbes to Flavilla Forbes, April 13, 1863.
SECOND DAY—Saturday, April 18
1. Surby, pp. 20–21, 23; Adjutant General of the State of Illinois, Reports, 1861–1866, Springfield, 1901, vol. 8, pp. 50, 103.
2. OR, ser. I, vol. 17, pt. 1, p. 502.
3. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 529.
4. Ibid., p. 522.
5. Grierson, p. 101.
6. Illinois State Register, July 1, 1852.
7. Lyman B. Pierce, History of the Second Iowa Cavalry, Burlington, Iowa, 1865, pp. 9–13.
8. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 484.
9. FFL, Henry Forbes to Nettie Forbes, May 23, 1863.
10. The excerpts that follow are from the journal of Stephen Forbes, the letters of both Forbes brothers, and from a book of reminiscences by Henry H. Eby entitled Observations of an Illinois Boy in Battle, Camp, and Prisons, Mendota, Ill., 1910, pp. 30–31.
11. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, pp. 529, 534–35; pt. 3, p. 777.
12. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 522; Surby, p. 24.
13. Surby, p. 24.
14. RS, p. 102.
15. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 522; Surby, pp. 24–25.
16. R. R. Hancock, Hancock’s Dairy: or a History of the Second Tennessee Confederate Cavalry, Nashville, 1887, pp. 236–38.
17. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 3, pp. 654–55.
18. Ibid., p. 716.
19. John K. Bettersworth, Confederate Mississippi, Baton Rouge, 1943, pp. 60–89.
20. Bettersworth, pp. 194–95; John Clifford Pemberton, Pemberton, Defender of Vicksburg, Chapel Hill, 1942, pp. 41–58.
21. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 3, pp. 737–38; 740–41, 745–46.
22. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 690.
THIRD DAY—Sunday, April 19
1. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 557; pt. 3, pp. 196, 203, 206.
2. Illinois State Journal, May 8, 1863.
3. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt, 1, p. 522.
4. Elizabeth Jane Beach to Nathan and Smithy Renfroe, July 29, 1864, Journal of Mississippi History, vol. 2 (1940), pp. 42–48.
5. Ibid.
6. Eby, pp. 35–36, 60.
7. FFL, Stephen Forbes’s journal, Oct. 13, 1864.
8. FFL, Stephen Forbes to Nettie Forbes, Jan. 5, 1862.
9. FFL, Henry Forbes described this method of scouting, including a diagram, in a letter to Nettie Forbes, May 19, 1862.
10. Surby, p. 25.
11. Hancock, pp. 578–81.
12. George F. Hager, “Second Tennessee Cavalry,” Military Annals of Tennessee, ed. by John B. Lindsley, 1886, p. 623.
13. Hancock, pp. 238–39; OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 534.
14. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 253.
FOURTH DAY—Monday, April 20
1. Hancock, p. 232.
2. FFL, Henry Forbes to “Friends at Home,” July 30, 1862.
3. Cordelia Scales to Lulie Irby, Nov. 24, 1861, and Jan. 27, 1863, Journal of Mississippi History, vol. 1 (1939), pp. 171–79.
4. Grierson, p. 381.
5. RS, p. 102.
6. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, pp. 521–22.
7. Surby, pp. 26–27.
8. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 3, p. 215.
9. I
bid., p. 770.
10. Ibid., pp. 550–51.
11. Ibid., p. 551.
FIFTH DAY—Tuesday, April 21
1. Pierce, pp. 191–94.
2. Surby, p. 194.
3. Grierson, p. 384.
4. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 523.
5. RS, p. 103.
6. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 530.
7. Pierce, p. 49.
8. Robert W. Banks to Lucretia Banks, Sept. 18, 1862, Journal of Mississippi History, vol. 5 (1943), p. 145.
9. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, pp. 534–35.
10. Ibid., p. 535.
11. Hager, p. 613.
12. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 552.
13. Richmond Examiner as reprinted in The Rebellion Record, edited by Frank Moore, New York, 1864, vol. 7, pp. 24–25.
14. Pierce, p. 50.
15. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 530.
16. Ibid.
17. Grierson, pp. 366–67.
18. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 422.
19. Surby, pp. 29–30.
20. Based on Surby, p. 30.
21. Columbus (Mississippi) Republic, as cited in Forbes. Date of newspaper not given.
SIXTH DAY—Wednesday, April 22
1. FFL, Henry Forbes to Frances Snow, Feb. 15, 1862.
2. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 523; Surby, p. 31.
3. FFL, Henry Forbes’s account of Grierson Raid, p. 207; Forbes, pp. 110–11.
4. FFL, Henry Forbes’s letters, Aug. 25 and Oct. 18, 1862, and Stephen Forbes to Agnes Forbes, Dec. 11, 1862.
5. FFL, Stephen Forbes’s prison journal, June, 1862.
6. Ibid., July, 1862.
7. FFL, Henry Forbes’s account of Grierson Raid, p. 207.
8. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 524.
9. Surby, pp. 33–34.
10. National Tribune, July 12, 1883, p. 1.
11. Grierson quotation based on OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 524.
12. Ibid., p. 528.
13. New York Times, May 18, 1863.
14. Pierce, pp. 51–52.
15. Hancock, pp. 240–41; OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 535.
16. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 552.
17. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 3, p. 776.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
SEVENTH DAY—Thursday, April 23
1. This section is based on the first edition of Surby’s account (pp. 36–38) and also the revision which appeared in the National Tribune for July 12, 1883.
2. Surby, pp. 38–39.
3. Grierson, p. 397.
4. Surby, p. 39.
5. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 528; Forbes, pp. 105–106.
6. Surby, pp. 39–40.
7. FFL, Henry Forbes’s account of Grierson Raid, p. 208.
8. FFL, Stephen Forbes to Nettie Forbes, April 8, 1862.
9. Surby, pp. 40–45.
10. FFL, Stephen Forbes’s journal, Oct. 1, 1864.
11. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 552.
12. Pierce, p. 52.
13. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 3, pp. 778, 779.
EIGHTH DAY—Friday, April 24
1. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, pp. 79–80; pt. 3, pp. 225–32.
2. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 3, p. 231.
3. Ibid., pp. 214–15.
4. Surby, p. 45.
5. Surby, pp. 45–46.
6. Based on Surby, p. 46.
8. National Tribune, July 19, 1883, p. 1.
9. Surby, p. 48.
10. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 524.
11. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 3, p. 781.
12. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 525.
13. Paulding (Mississippi) Clarion, May 1, 1863, as cited in Forbes, p. 127.
14. Grierson, p. 402.
15. Surby, pp. 50–51.
16. Forbes, p. 110.
17. FFL, Henry Forbes’s account of Grierson Raid, p. 208.
18. Forbes, p. 110.
19. Ibid.
20. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 552.
NINTH DAY—Saturday, April 25
1. B. H. Grierson to T. W. Lippincott, March 13, 1886 (Grierson Papers).
2. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 525.
3. Paulding (Mississippi) Clarion, May 1, 1863, as cited in Forbes, p. 127.
4. Bettersworth, pp. 202–204, 225–28.
5. Surby, pp. 53–55.
6. Based on Surby, pp. 57–58.
7. Based on Paulding (Mississippi) Clarion, May 1, 1863, as cited in Forbes, p. 127.
8. Surby, p. 59.
9. Grierson, pp. 403–404.
10. Ibid.
11. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 3, p. 791.
12. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 525; Surby, pp. 60–61.
13. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 532.
14. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 3, p. 785.
15. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 544.
16. FFL, Henry Forbes’s account of Grierson Raid, p. 208.
17. FFL, Stephen Forbes’s prison journal, June, 1862.
18. FFL, Henry Forbes’s account of Grierson Raid, pp. 208–209. Quoted dialogue as recalled by Captain Forbes.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. Jackson (Mississippi) Appeal, April 28, 1863, as cited in Forbes, p. 129.
22. Cordelia Scales to Lulie Irby, Jan. 27, 1863, Journal of Mississippi History, vol. 1 (1939), pp. 175–76, 179.
TENTH DAY—Sunday, April 26
1. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 525.
2. Surby, pp. 28–29.
3. Scott, p. 381.
4. Surby, p. 61.
5. Surby, p. 63.
6. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 526.
7. Forbes, pp. 112–13; FFL, Henry Forbes’s account of Grierson Raid, p. 210.
8. Forbes, p. 113.
9. Forbes, pp. 113–14.
10. Pierce, p. 55.
11. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 531.
12. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 3, p. 789.
13. Ibid., p. 790.
ELEVENTH DAY—Monday, April 27
1. Grierson, pp. 505–506; RS, p. 119.
2. Surby, pp. 64–65; New York Times, May 18, 1863.
3. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 526.
4. Grierson, pp. 409–10; RS, p. 104.
5. Grierson, p. 410; RS, p. 104.
6. Forbes, p. 114.
7. FFL, Henry Forbes’s account of Grierson Raid, p. 212.
8. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 528.
9. RS, p. 105.
10. Surby, pp. 66–69.
11. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 3, pp. 791–94.
12. Surby, pp. 75–76.
13. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 31.
TWELFTH DAY—Tuesday, April 28
1. RS, pp. 105–106; OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 526.
2. Surby, p. 78.
3. Grierson, p. 415; OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 526.
4. FFL, Stephen Forbes’s journal, August 28, 1864. Forbes left no account of the Union Church attack. These descriptions of a similar surprise attack on the Seventh Illinois Regiment are inserted here for dramatic effect.
5. Ibid.
6. RS, p. 106.
7. Grierson, p. 415; OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 526.
8. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 3, p. 792.
9. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 538.
10. FFL, Stephen Forbes’s prison journal, June, 1862.
11. Clement A. Evans, Confederate Military History, 1899, vol. 7, p. 235.
12. Surby, pp. 90–91. Conversations as recorded by Sergeant Surby, with some omissions and rearrangement for clarity.
13. Jackson (Mississippi) Appeal, April 28, 1863, as cited in Forbes, pp. 127–28.
14. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 3, pp. 256, 547, 797–99.
THIRTEENTH DAY—Wednesday, April 29
1. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 3, p. 111.
2. Ibid., pp. 798–99.
3. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, p
t. 1, p. 547.
4. B. H. Grierson to T. W. Lippincott, March 13, 1886 (Grierson Papers).
5. Grierson, p. 419.
6. Forbes, p. 115.
7. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 527.
8. RS, p. 106.
9. Forbes, p. 116.
10. Surby, p. 99.
11. New York Times, May 18, 1863.
12. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 547–48.
13. Ibid., p. 533.
14. Ibid., p. 32.
FOURTEENTH DAY—Thursday, April 30
1. Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs, New York, 1885, vol. 1, pp. 480–82; OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, pp. 48, 83, 128, 142.
2. Moore, vol. 7, p. 24.
3. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 548.
4. Ibid., 527.
5. Grierson, pp. 423–24; RS, p. 106.
6. Grierson, p. 422.
7. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 549.
8. Grierson, p. 422.
9. RS, p. 106.
10. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 527.
11. Grierson, pp. 424–26; RS, pp. 106–107.
12. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 548.
13. Ibid., p. 553.
FIFTEENTH DAY—Friday, May 1
1. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, pp. 548–49.
2. Forbes, p. 102.
3. RS, p. 107.
4. Surby, p. 104.
5. Andrew B. Booth, comp., Records of Louisiana Confederate Soldiers and Louisiana Confederate Commands, New Orleans, 1920, vol. 2, p. 672.
6. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 539.
7. Surby, p. 105; National Tribune, Aug. 16, 1883, p. 2.
8. Surby, p. 106.
9. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, pp. 539–40; Surby, pp. 107–109. Dialogue as indicated in Surby’s narrative.
10. Based on Surby, pp. 109–10. National Tribune, Aug. 16, 1883, p. 2.
11. FFL, Stephen Forbes to Nettie Forbes, May 11, 1862. A description of a similar encounter.
12. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 540.
13. Grierson, pp. 428–29.
14. RS, p. 107.
15. Grierson, p. 432.
16. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, pp. 527, 543.
17. Grierson, p. 432.
18. FFL, Henry Forbes’s account of Grierson Raid, pp. 213–14.
19. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, pp. 537, 540, 549.
20. Surby, p. 153.
21. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 3, p. 814.
SIXTEENTH DAY—Saturday, May 2
1. FFL, Henry Forbes’s account of Grierson Raid, p. 214.
2. OR, ser. I, vol. 24, pt. 1, p. 528.
3. T. H. Bowman, Reminiscences of an ex-Confederate Soldier; or Forty Years on Crutches, Austin, Texas, 1904, p. 21.