HE LEAVES BRAGG'S ARMY.
On the 3d of October, 1863, he was ordered by General Bragg to turn over his command, except Dibrell's brigade, to General Wheeler for an expedition into Tennessee. Regarding this as derogatory to him, he resigned his commission. General Bragg was my first brigade commander, and I was more attached to him than any General under whom I served. I knew him to be a pure and unselfish patriot, and in the fall of 1861 bore from him to President Davis the strikingly unselfish proposition to turn over to General A. S. Johnston, for active service in Kentucky, his well-drilled army at Pensacola, and to receive raw recruits in its place, if he could not be taken with his men; and I would say nothing now even to wound his memory. But the promotion of Wheeler over Forrest, which he, in an honest desire to promote the good of the service, recommended, was unfortunate.
Wheeler, a brave, generous, unselfish and educated soldier, did not desire it, and suffered in public estimation when it was thrust on him. Forrest, though a great strategist, trusted largely for tactics and many military details to officers under him; and if Wheeler had remained second to Forrest, as he was perfectly willing to do, a more splendid combination for cavalry operations could scarcely have been made. Thus ended Forrest's career in Bragg's army; but before we turn from this Department, I must recall an anecdote strikingly illustrative of the estimation in which Forrest was held by the people, and which he always told on himself with great delight. When Bragg was retreating from Tennessee, Forrest was among the last of the rear guard, and an old lady ran out of her house to the gate, as he was passing, and urged him to turn back and fight. As he rode on without stopping, she shook her fist at him in great rage and said: " Oh! you great, big, cowardly rascal, I only wish old Forrest was here; he'd make you fight!"
ORGANIZES A NEW COMMAND IN WEST TENNESSEE AND NORTH MISSISSIPPI.
Mr. Davis refused to accept his resignation, but promoted him to the rank of Major-General, and assigned him to the command of North Mississippi and West Tennessee, and gave him permission to take with him his old battalion, now known as McDonald's, and Morton's battery, which he had organized, and whose guns he had captured—the whole force amounting to three hundred men and four guns. He reached Mississippi with this force on the 15th of November, 1863, and after reporting to General Joseph E. Johnston, and receiving the assistance of Major-General S. D. Lee to pass the enemy's line on the Memphis and Charleston railroad, he reached Jackson, Tennessee, on the 6th day of December, 1863, and for the fourth time during the war began to organize a new command. At this time West Tennessee was full of little com-
