Captain Charles Wright Wills: May 9, 1864

May 9, 1864.

Yesterday we traveled southeast, crossing six or seven ridges, one or two of which were quite high. Taylor's was the highest. To-day we have made only about eight miles all the way through a pass in Rocky Face ridge, which is a high mountain. There are four divisions ahead of us. A regiment of Kentucky cavalry (Rebel) slipped in between ours and the division ahead of us, trying to capture a train. The 9th Illinois Infantry had the advance of our division and killed 30 Rebels and took four prisoners, losing only one man killed and their lieutenant colonel slightly wounded. Pretty good. Dodge has got the railroad and broken it, so we hear. The fight seems to be a stand-off until to-morrow. We are in line of battle for the first time on the trip, and the ordnance train is ahead of the baggage. Just saw an officer from the front (your letter of the 3d of April received this minute); he says Dodge is within a mile of Resaca, and driving the enemy, and will have the town by dark. Has not cut the railroad yet. This officer saw a train arrive from Dalton, with some 2,500 Rebel troops aboard. McPherson and Logan are both on the field. Some Rebel prisoners taken to-day say they intend making this a Chickamauga to us. Have a nice camp. There is some little forage here, but it is nothing for the number of troops we have.

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 237

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: January 2, 1863

A dispatch from Gov. Harris gives some additional particulars of the battle near Murfreesborough, Tenn. He says the enemy was driven back six miles, losing four generals killed and three captured, and that we destroyed $2,000,000 commissary and other stores. But still we have no account of what was done yesterday on the “extreme left.”

Gen. Stuart has been near Alexandria, and his prisoners are coming in by every train. He captured and destroyed many stores, and, up to the last intelligence, without loss on his side. He is believed, now, to be in Maryland, having crossed the Potomac near Leesburg.

The mayor of our city, Jos. Mayo, meeting two friends last night, whom he recognized but who did not recognize him, playfully seized one of them, a judge, and, garroter fashion, demanded his money or his life. The judge's friend fell upon the mayor with a stick and beat him dreadfully before the joke was discovered.

The President was at Mobile on the 30th December, having visited both Murfreesborough and Vicksburg, but not witnessing either of the battles.

We are in great exaltation again! Dispatches from Gen. Bragg, received last night, relieve us with the information that the stronghold of the enemy, which he failed to carry on the day of battle, was abandoned the next day; that Forrest and Morgan I were operating successfully far in the rear of the invader, and that Gen. Wheeler had made a circuit of the hostile army after the battle, burning several hundred of their wagons, capturing an ordnance train, and making more prisoners. Bragg says the enemy's telegraphic and railroad communications with his rear have been demolished, and that he will follow up the defeated foe. I think we will get Nashville now.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 229-30