Left Logan's mill
before the sun was up. The rain continues, and the mud is deep. At eleven
o'clock we reached what is known as Marshall's store, near which, until
recently, the enemy had a pretty large camp. Halted at the place half an hour,
and then moved four miles further on, where we found the roads impassable for
our artillery and transportation.
Learning that the
enemy had abandoned Big Springs and fallen back to Huntersville, the soldiers
were permitted to break ranks, while Colonel Marrow and Major Keifer, with a
company of cavalry, rode forward to the Springs. Colonel Nick Anderson,
Adjutant Mitchell and I followed. We found on the road evidence of the recent
presence of a very large force. Quite a number of wagons had been left behind.
Many tents had been ripped, cut to pieces, or burned, so as to render them
worthless. A large number of beef hides were strung along the road. One wagon,
loaded with muskets, had been destroyed. All of which showed, simply, that
before the rebels abandoned the place the roads had become so bad that they
could not carry off their baggage.
The object of the
expedition being now accomplished, we started back at three o'clock in the
afternoon, and encamped for the night at Marshall's store.
SOURCE: John
Beatty, The Citizen-soldier: Or, Memoirs of a Volunteer, p. 77
