At 2 o'clock on the morning of the 17th an order came for the pickets to fall back noiselessly to the trenches, which we did very quietly. On arriving here we found the main body of the enemy had slipped off during the night. By a rapid march we reached Brandon, on the Southern Railroad, having made fourteen miles before the heat of the day. The retreat was admirably managed throughout, and it was not until late in the day that the enemy learned that the bird had flown. At this place, the progress of the brigade was delayed some time to allow another body of troops, coming by a different road, to get in advance, and it was late in the evening before we reached a camping-place, three miles east of Brandon. On this march we suffered greatly from hunger, in consequence of not finding our wagon-train in time to save the rations from being spoilt. Corn-fields suffered that night.
SOURCE: Edwin L. Drake, Editor, The Annals of the Army of Tennessee and Early Western History, Vol. 1, p. 280
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