The surrender of Holly Springs was most reprehensible and showed either
the disloyalty of Colonel Murphy to the cause which he professed to
serve, or gross cowardice.
After the war was over I read from the diary of a lady who accompanied
General Pemberton in his retreat from the Tallahatchie, that the retreat
was almost a panic. The roads were bad and it was difficult to move the
artillery and trains. Why there should have been a panic I do not see.
No expedition had yet started down the Mississippi River. Had I known
the demoralized condition of the enemy, or the fact that central
Mississippi abounded so in all army supplies, I would have been in
pursuit of Pemberton while his cavalry was destroying the roads in my
rear.
After sending cavalry to drive Van Dorn away, my next order was to
dispatch all the wagons we had, under proper escort, to collect and
bring in all supplies of forage and food from a region of fifteen miles
east and west of the road from our front back to Grand Junction, leaving
two months' supplies for the families of those whose stores were taken.
I was amazed at the quantity of supplies the country afforded. It
showed that we could have subsisted off the country for two months
instead of two weeks without going beyond the limits designated. This
taught me a lesson which was taken advantage of later in the campaign
when our army lived twenty days with the issue of only five days'
rations by the commissary.
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