lies at Holly Springs, and
government stores of the value of a million and a half of dollars
had gone up in smoke and flame. About the same time Forrest had
struck the Mobile and Ohio railroad, on which we depended to bring
us from the north our supplies of hardtack and bacon, and had made
a wreck of the road from about Jackson, Tennessee, nearly to
Columbus, Kentucky. For some months previous to these disasters the
regiment to which I belonged, the 61st Illinois Infantry, had been
stationed at Bolivar, Tennessee, engaged in guarding the railroad
from that place to Toone's Station, a few miles north of Bolivar.
On December 18, with another regiment of our brigade, we were sent
by rail to Jackson to assist in repelling Forrest, who was
threatening that place. On the following day the two regiments,
numbering in the aggregate about 500 men, in connection with a
small detachment of our cavalry, had a lively and spirited little
brush with the Confederate forces about two miles east of Jackson,
near a country burying ground called Salem Cemetery, which resulted
in our having the good fortune to give them a salutary check.

Reinforcements were sent out from Jackson, and Forrest disappeared.
The next day our entire command marched about fifteen miles
eastwardly in the direction of the Tennessee river. It was
doubtless supposed by our commanding general that the Confederates
had retreated in that direction, but he was mistaken. Forrest had
simply whipped around Jackson, struck the railroad a few miles
north thereof, and then had continued north up the road, capturing
and destroying as he went. On the succeeding day, December 21st, we
all marched back to Jackson, and my regiment went into camp on a
bleak, muddy hillside in the suburbs of the town, and there we
remained until December 29th, when we were sent to Carroll Station,
about eight miles north of Jackson.

I well remember how gloomy I felt on the morning of that Christmas
Day at Jackson, Tennessee. I was then only a little over nineteen
years of age. I had been in the army nearly a year, lacking just a
few days, and every day of that time, except a furlough of two days
granted at our camp of instruction before we left Illinois for the
front, had been passed with the regiment in camp and field.

Christmas morning my thoughts natu