hold
goods packed on a mule, a horse, or a cow. They made a picturesque column,
much longer than my command. At night their camps spread over a large
territory, the camp-fires surrounded by the most motley and poorly-dressed
crowd I ever saw, and it was a problem to me what I could do with them or
what would become of them if the enemy's forces should happen to get into
my rear. However, we all arrived safely at Corinth, where I established
the great contraband camp and guarded it by two companies of Negro
soldiers that I uniformed, armed, and equipped without any authority, and
which came near giving me trouble. Many of the Negro men afterwards joined
the First Alabama Colored Infantry and other Negro Regiments that I raised
and mustered into the service.

In my advance up the Valley of the Tennessee, after I had passed Beaver
Creek the enemy got into my rear, committing depredations and picking up
stragglers, and all kinds of reports went back to Corinth of our fighting,
capture, and other calamities too numerous to mention. These reports were
all repeated to General Grant, who said, after being surfeited with them,
"Well, if Dodge has accomplished what he started out to do, we can afford
to lose him." General Grant said afterwards in discussing this movement
that he knew they could not capture or destroy the kind of troops I had
with me without my being heard from; that they might defeat me, but they
could not capture me; and the boys used to use this saying in rounding up
what value I was to the service. As my own report and that of Colonel
Streight gives more and better detail of the movements of both, and the
results, I submit them here:

I moved from Corinth with the Second Division, Sixteenth Army Corps,
Wednesday, April 15. Camped at Burnsville. The next day moved to
Cook's, two and a half miles west of Great Bear Creek, and made my
preparations to cross, the rebels holding the opposite side.

Friday morning, April 17, I made a feint at Jackson and Bailings
Fords, and, under the cover of my artillery, threw the most of my
force across at Steminine's Ford.

The cavalry, under Colonel Cornyn, and mounted infantry, under
Lieutenant-Colonel Phillips, made the crossing and pushed forward. My
instructions were for them to go forward three and a half miles, and
await my coming. Colonel Cornyn, meeting the enemy about a mile out,
commenced fighting them, they falling b