460 



A HISTORY OF CAVALRY. 



[period v. 



lilii 



inn 



-!■ II 



fiercely contested struggles of the war. It ended in 

 favour of the Confederates and their revolvers. The 

 Northerners were broken and dispersed, and many 

 captured. Those who broke through and rode on to 

 the rear were liadly handled by the Confederate reserves, 

 many being killed and wounded, and many taken 

 prisoners. 



Fort Pillow, a strong work armed with fiix pieces of 

 artillery and garrisoned by 580 men, was stonned by 

 Forrest on the 12th April, 1864, with his cavalry, whom 

 he dismounted for the purpose.' 



At tlie battle of Tishimongo Creek, 10th June, 1864, 

 two strong lines of Federal inftintry pressing upon three 

 of Forrest's regiments, which were dismounted, charged 

 so bravely that they came steadily i. > to within thirty 

 paces of the Confederates, who then drew their revolvers, 

 and at close ninge used them with such deadly effect, that 

 they at once drove back the enemy with great slaughter 

 and pressed after them, using their pistols freely in the 

 pursuit. They were then halted and re-formed, and 

 the horses being brought up they mounted and harassed 

 the Hying Federals in their retreat. In this action 

 Forrest had only 3,200 men, as against nearly three 

 times that force under General Sturgis, and yet in two 

 days he had driven the Federals fifty-eight miles, with 

 the loss of nineteen guns, twenty-one caissons, 200 

 waggons, and thirty amljulances, with large quantities of 

 supplies.^ More than two thousand prisoners were taken, 

 and 1,900 of the Federal dead were left upon the battle- 

 field or on the line of retreat. If success be any test of the 

 value of cavalry organised upon the system used by the 

 Americans in their Civil War, this terrible defeat of a 

 greatly superior force of infantry, cavalry, and artillery 

 by a small movable column of mounted riflemen ought 

 to settle the question. 



In the brilliant dash upon Memphis on the 21st 



August, 1864, Forrest captured by a coup de main a 



large city occupied by greatly superior forces of the 



enemy, captured a number of prisoners, and safely 



^ Campaigns of Forrest, 437. ^ jbid. 480. 



