On January 1, 1864, we began our movement southward, threatening in all directions, but moving toward the Hatchie River at a point above Bolivar, Tenn. The enemy had failed to find a boat which we had sunk in this stream. At Jack’s Creek we encountered the Bolivar force, and easily pushed it back, allowing our main column to pass on to the crossing place on the Hatchie. Forrest posted a regiment in front of the Bolivar army, and gave them orders to fight to the last if necessary, to hold the enemy until we could cross the river. It took us all night. The enemy had made a desperate fight with our rear guard just at sundown, but withdrew their line at night and reported to their commander that they had hemmed us in a bend of the stream where we had no means of crossing. They had sent a regiment across the river, and it had gone into camp in a cornfield about a mile from our crossing place. Forrest had distributed his 300 veterans among the new troops in order to instruct them as to what was expected of them. After we were safely across the Hatchie followed one of those daring feats of our General so difficult to understand from a description in cold type--so peculiar to his originality on the battle field. Instead of hurling a heavy force against the regiment camping in the cornfield, he attacked them with his picked escort of eighty men, scattering them to give the impression of a full regiment. With ten special captains giving loud commands, as if company after company were moving to the attack, our thin line dashed upon the sleeping foe in the darkness just before daylight and put the entire regiment to flight mainly with our six-shooters. Forrest did not wish to be burdened with prisoners just at this time, and so he planned to frighten this regiment out of the pathway of his army and secure as many of their horses as possible. The plan succeeded, and we lost only three men, one of them being the gallant “Nathan Boone,” commander of the escort. Many of our men were given good mounts from the number captured. My horse was slightly wounded, and I exchanged him for a large, fine animal which I named “Hatch,” “in memory” of a Union colonel commanding a regiment at Bolivar. Our difficulties grew with our progress. An army of 30,000 men, divided into four divisions, was pressing us on all sides. We had to cross Wolf River and the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, and our force did not exceed 5,000 or 6,000 men, many of them neither armed nor mounted. We were burdened with a drove of beef cattle, our supply wagons, and artillery. General Forrest’s plans were known neither to the enemy nor to his own men, and all we could guess was that he would do the unexpected.