Thursday, May 15, 2014

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Elizabeth Budd Smith, September 14, 1862

CAMP ON HERNANDO ROAD, NEAR MEMPHIS,
Sept. 14, 1862.

I mentioned that I had just returned from an expedition into Mississippi in my letter of yesterday. The rebels had become troublesome south of this city, on the route of the Tennessee and Mississippi Railroad, and our brigade marched in that direction to check their depredations and to seek an engagement. We marched about two thousand strong — one thousand three hundred and fifty infantry, four hundred cavalry, and a battery of artillery. Our cavalry in advance came up with the enemy on Monday and had a sharp skirmish, driving them back some two and a half miles. I have ascertained since my letter of yesterday, in which I make a somewhat different statement, that forty-one of the enemy were killed and between seventy and eighty wounded; a number of prisoners and horses were taken. We had one man killed and four wounded. The cavalry afterwards entered Senatobia, an important point on the railroad, and burned the depot and cars that were there, scattering various guerilla bands they met on the road there and back. Meanwhile, our main body destroyed the railroad bridge over Coldwater, an important and expensive structure, tore up the railroad track and destroyed all communication with the enemy and Hernando. General Sherman pronounces the expedition one of the most successful and best conducted that has been made during the campaign and best calculated to check the operations of the enemy.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 238-9

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