d the train, and after giving the citizens
notice that all such acts of bushwhacking would bring on them
certain destruction of property, as it was known that professed
peaceful citizens were often themselves the guilty parties or
harbored the guilty ones, himself fired the town as an earnest of
what a repetition of such deeds would bring.

Many fruitless small expeditions were undertaken to drive out the
constant invasions made by Wheeler's, Morgan's, Adams', and Scott's
cavalry north of the Tennessee and upon our lines of communication.

On May 18th, having become restless in camp, I volunteered as
special aide to Colonel Wm. H. Lytle on an expedition to Winchester,
Tennessee. We passed through a region thickly infested with the
most daring bands of guerillas, and at Winchester had an encounter
with some of Adams' regular cavalry, who, after making a rash charge
into the town while we occupied it and losing a few men, retreated
eastward to the mountains.

On May 13th General James S. Negley led a force from Pulaski against
Adams' cavalry at Rogersville, north of the Tennessee opposite the
Muscle Shoals, and with slight loss drove it across the river.
Later there was a more determined effort by the Confederates to
occupy, with considerable bodies of cavalry and light artillery,
the country north of the Tennessee below Chattanooga, but June 4th,
an expedition under Negley, composed of troops selected from
Mitchel's command, surprised Adams with his principal force twelve
miles northwest of Jasper, and routed him, killing about twenty of
his men and wounding and capturing about one hundred more; also
capturing arms, ammunition, commissary wagons, and supplies.(18)
Negley pushed his command over the mountains up to the Tennessee,
threatening to cross to the south side at Shellmound, and at other
points, and finally took position opposite Chattanooga.

The expedition caused much consternation among the rebels, though
little was actually accomplished. The attack made on Chattanooga,
June 7th and 8th, failed, and Negley's command returned.(19)
Colonel Joshua W. Sill, 33d Ohio, afterwards Brigadier-General,
and killed at the battle of Stone's River, commanded a brigade
under Mitchel and in the Chattanooga expedition. He was an
accomplished, educated officer, modest almost to a fault, yet brave
and capable of great deeds. His body is buried at Chillicothe,
Ohio.

Mitchel's position in Northern Alabama was at all tim