While General Van Dorn
had his headquarters in Holly Springs, viz., in October, 1862, he
was very short of the comforts and luxuries of life, and resorted
to every possible device to draw from the abundant supplies in
Memphis. He had no difficulty whatever in getting spies into the
town for information, but he had trouble in getting bulky supplies
out through our guards, though sometimes I connived at his supplies
of cigars, liquors, boots, gloves, etc., for his individual use;
but medicines and large supplies of all kinds were confiscated, if
attempted to be passed out. As we rode that morning toward Oxford,
I observed in a farmer's barn-yard a wagon that looked like a city
furniture-wagon with springs. We were always short of wagons, so I
called the attention of the quartermaster, Colonel J. Condit Smith,
saying, "There is a good wagon; go for it." He dropped out of the
retinue with an orderly, and after we had ridden a mile or so he
overtook us, and I asked him, "What luck?" He answered, "All
right; I have secured that wagon, and I also got another," and
explained that he had gone to the farmer's house to inquire about
the furniture-wagon, when the farmer said it did not belong to him,
but to some party in Memphis, adding that in his barn was another
belonging to the same party.
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