Alan J. Pitts
Re: Brown's Ferry, etc.
Mon May 21 09:51:39 2001


WITH all the errors I make, you'll not need to make any apology to me. Brown's Ferry is definitely the Lawrence County site in question. I read through Hurlburt's report, which describes the 10th Missouri and 7th Kanasas Cav. pushing Forrest's, Roddey's, Julian's and Baxter's commands east of Leighton. There's no specific mention of Roddey in Confederate correspondence or reports from the period you mentioned.

On page 180 of Wyeth's "That Devil Forrest", the author says Forrest relieved Roddey and Julian on April 30th and sent them north to watch Dodge. Ferrell's Battery remained with Forrest. Hurlburt believed the Confederates had been deceived into thinking that Decatur was the Federal objective, and that Roddey & co. had fallen back to cover that place.

I'll check the Brown's Ferry citation you mentioned. General Wood was stationed at either Florence or Tuscumbia when Roddey relieved him, and I believe Hannon's 53rd Mounted was in the area. Based on correspondence, Roddey evidently didn't return to Tuscumbia from Tennessee until the end of March. I'll try to document Roddey's activities after his return to Tennessee through May 1863. Again, I really need to do that anyway.

In his narrarive of Forrest in Streight's Raid, Wyeth includes an interesting story about Emma Samson. I can't quote verbatum now, but Emma had a conversation with a Federal soldier. She told him all of her brothers were in the Southern army, and responded to the Federal's question that, yes, she believed God was on their side. The Federal retorted, "Well, if you had seen us whip Colonel Roddey across the Tennessee River, you'd believe God was on the side with the best artillery!" Of course this is a reference to Napoleon's famous maxim, but his mention of Roddey is interesting.

If Lawrence County is your primary field of interest, I've done some work on fighting in that area during the summer of 1864. During much of that time Johnson's Brigade was either in Mississippi or with Roddey on his little side excursion to Atlanta. However, Col. Patterson provided entertainment for the Federals during General Roddey's absence. Let me know about that.

Also, wasn't there a later alteration of the Lawrence County line? It seems to me that Leighton was considered to be in Lawrence County before the war.