Forrest did not accomplish the chief object of the Middle Tennessee raid, as heretofore stated, which was the destruction of portions of the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad, which connected Sherman’s army, at Atlanta, with its base of supplies. He said afterward that he killed and captured, upon an average, one man for every man he had in the fights. He tore up about one hundred miles of railroad, destroyed ten blockhouses, captured more supplies than his men could carry off and 800 horses, gathered up more than a thousand recruits, and marched five hundred miles in twenty-three days. He lost about three hundred men in killed and wounded.
That a little fun can be mixed up with the horrors of war was illustrated on this trip somewhere over in the hills of Wayne. James E. Wood’s little chestnut sorrel, the horse which had been tendered by his owner to Captain Tate, as related in the account of the fight at Ripley, and from which that gallant officer was shot, struck the frog of one foot against a stone and was rendered unserviceable. Austin Statler and Tom Joyner set about the task of helping their fellow-soldier to a remount. This was difficult to do in a country which had been stripped of all the good stock. The only animal available appeared to be a three-year-old, standing in an enclosure near an humble cottage. Statler, in his blandest manner, explained the situation to the mistress of the cottage, and alluded in earnest words to the fine points of the lame horse, which needed only a few days’ rest to restore him to his former condition of usefulness. No, no; the old lady couldn’t see it in the light in which it had been so earnestly presented. There were seven stout daughters standing by ready to assist their mother, who averred that the animal was “Sal’s colt,” and he couldn’t have it upon any terms whatever. Statler persisted until high words resulted, and the soldiers advanced towards “Sal’s colt.” Thoroughly aroused, and reinforced by her mother and sisters, Sal herself, a buxom lassie, now came to the rescue, cleared the fence at a bound, and sat astride of the bridleless colt. Victory now seemed to perch upon the banner of the females, but the soldiers, who had no idea of seeing their comrade hotfoot it along the roads of Wayne, moved to the assault, determined to capture the colt, but anxious to inflict no bruises upon their adversaries, who fought like wildcats. The contest was fast and furious, but in a class entirely by itself. There were blood and hair in evidence, but no mortal casualties. There were pinching and twisting, wrenching and wringing, clutching and hugging, yes, hugging, till the female side had mostly lost its wind and Sal, grasping the mane of the colt with the grip of despair, while she planted her heels in its sides, was gently lifted from her position by the gallant trio. “It was all over but the shouting.” The bit was forced and the girth was buckled. “Sal’s colt” had changed its politics and been mustered into the service of the Confederacy. The old lady intimated that “men folks” were at hand and ready to avenge all her wrongs. Statler, as a precautionary measure, rode out in the direction indicated by her and saw three armed citizens approaching. With cocked gun and ready pistol he commanded them, with assumed bravado, to lead the way to the cottage, while he assured them that he, too, had “a whole gang in reach.” Tableau vivant: An elderly man “breathing out threatening and slaughter” and declaring that he would have satisfaction before the sun went down; two lusty young men with guns and in the poise of interested spectators; six bouncing young girls well distributed in the ensemble and joining in a chorus of abuse; an elderly woman standing in the kitchen door and wiping the sweat from her neck and ears with her checked apron, beaten but not conquered; Sal perched upon the top rail of the front fence in the attitude of a show girl about to dance a hornpipe, and gazing at three vanishing cavaliers just then turning a corner and making time to overtake the command; lastly, the abandoned warhorse, which had heard the guns at Tishomingo, stripped of his trappings and “turned out to grass,” was standing meekly by and looking as if he might be thinking he had no friends at all.