everything that would in any way aid the
enemy. I took stock of all kinds that I could find, and rendered the
valley so destitute that it cannot be occupied by the Confederates,
except provisions and forage are transported to them. I also destroyed
telegraph and railroad between Tuscumbia and Decatur, and all the
ferries between Savannah and Courtland.

I have no doubt but that Colonel Streight would have succeeded had he
been properly equipped and joined me at the time agreed upon. The
great delay in an enemy's country necessary to fit him out gave them
time to throw a large force in our front. Although Colonel Streight
had two days' start, they can harass him, and perhaps check his
movements long enough for them to secure all their important bridges.
If he could have started from Bear Creek the day I arrived there, then
my movements would have been so quick and strong that the enemy could
not have got their forces together.

The animals furnished him were very poor at the start. Four hundred of
them were used up before leaving me, and those furnished him by me
were about all the serviceable stock he had, though I hear he got two
hundred good mules the day he left me, in Moulton Valley.

On my return, I sent Colonel Cornyn, with the Tenth Missouri, Seventh
Kansas, Fifteenth Illinois Cavalry, and Ninth Illinois Mounted
Infantry, to attack the force congregated at Tupelo and Okolona. He
came up with the enemy on Wednesday, and immediately attacked them,
they being some three thousand strong, under Major-General S. J.
Gholson and Brigadier-General Ruggles. Brigadier-General Chalmers,
with thirty-five hundred men, was at Pontotoc, but failed to come to
Gholson's aid, though ordered to.

Colonel Cornyn fought so determinedly and so fast that he soon routed
the force in his front, driving them in all directions, killing and
wounding a large number and taking one hundred prisoners, including
some seven officers; also a large number of arms and one hundred and
fifty horses, saddles, etc.

The enemy fled toward Okolona and Pontotoc, and Colonel Cornyn
returned to Corinth.

The expedition so far can be summed up as having accomplished the
object for which it started, the infantry having marched two hundred
and fifty miles and the cavalry some four hundred, and fought six
succes