110 WHIP AND SPUR. 



of the enemy; a skirmish-line was sent forward, 

 and only on the eve of engaging did they dis- 

 cover that we were approaching Hepburn's Bri- 

 gade, of our column, which had reached the same 

 point by another road. 



The first days of our march in Mississippi 

 were through Tippah County, as rough, hope- 

 less, God-forsaken a country as was ever seen 

 outside of Southern Missouri. Its hills were 

 steep, its mud was deep, its houses and farms 

 were poor, its facilities for the subsistence of a 

 protecting army like ours were of the most mea- 

 gre description, and its streams delayed us long 

 with their torrents of bottomless muddy water, 

 fast swelling from the thaw that had unlocked 

 the snow of all the deep-buried hills and mo- 

 rasses of their upper waters. We built ferry- 

 boats and swamped them, built bridges and broke 

 them, and slowly and painfully, horse by horse, 

 transferred the command across the nasty river- 

 beds. Tippah Creek detained us and kept us 

 hard at work all day and all night, and we 

 reached the Tallahatchce at New Albany barelj.' 



