M. Dodge, with orders to follow as far east as Athens, Tennessee,
there to await instructions. We instantly discontinued all
attempts to repair the Charleston Railroad; and the remaining three
divisions of the Fifteenth Corps marched to Eastport, crossed the
Tennessee River by the aid of the gunboats, a ferry-boat, and a
couple of transports which had come up, and hurried eastward.
In person I crossed on the 1st of November, and rode forward to
Florence, where I overtook Ewing's division. The other divisions
followed rapidly. On the road to Florence I was accompanied by my
staff, some clerks, and mounted orderlies. Major Ezra Taylor
was chief of artillery, and one of his sons was a clerk at
head-quarters. The latter seems to have dropped out of the column,
and gone to a farm house near the road. There was no organized
force of the rebel army north of the Tennessee River, but the
country was full of guerrillas. A party of these pounced down on
the farm, caught young Taylor and another of the clerks, and after
reaching Florence, Major Taylor heard of the capture of his son, and
learned that when last seen he was stripped of his hat and coat, was
tied to the tail-board of a wagon, and driven rapidly to the north
of the road we had traveled.
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