One of the most desperate marches men were ever called to encounter, was performed by General Breckenridge’s division between Fayetteville and Huntsville.  They moved at ten A.M., and marched till one o’clock next morning, making thirty miles over a terrible road, amid driving rain and sleet during the whole time.  The reason for this desperate work was, that a day’s march lay between the rear-guard and the main body of General Johnson’s army, and there was danger that it would be cut off.  It cost the general hundreds of men.  One-fourth of the division dropped out of the ranks unable to proceed, and were taken up by the guard, until every wagon and ambulance was loaded, and then scores were deserted on the road, who straggled in on following days, or made their way back to their homes in Tennessee or Kentucky.

This retreat left a good deal of desolation in its track; for although the officers endeavored to restrain their men, yet they must have wood; and where the forest was sometimes a mile from the camping ground, and fences were near, the fences suffered; and where sheep and hogs abounded when we came, bones and bristles were more abundant after we left.  Horses were needed in the army; and after it left, none were seen on the farms.  And then the impressed soldiers, judging from my own feelings, were not over-scrupulous in guarding the property of Rebels.  The proud old planters, who had aided in bringing on the rebellion, were unwillingly compelled to bear part of its burdens.

This long and disastrous retreat was rendered a necessity as soon as Fort Henry, on the Tennessee river, was taken by the Federal forces, as this river was opened, and they could throw an army in the rear of the Confederates as far south as Florence, in Alabama, within a few days.  Indeed the Confederate officers expected this, and wondered that the Federals failed to do it immediately, as this movement would have cut off Johnson’s retreat, and have forced him to surrender, fight, or escape eastward through Knoxville, giving up the whole West to the loyal forces.  The delay of the United States forces to take Fort Donelson allowed General A. Sidney Johnson to reach Corinth by March.  Here General Beauregard, in command of the army of the Mississippi valley, and already there in person, determined to make a stand.

Great difference of opinion existed among Southern officers as to the expediency of this retreat.  Many, among whom were Generals Breckenridge, Hindman, and Bowen, counseled to assume the offensive, and make a bold dash upon Louisville, Ky.  This became the general opinion subsequently; and had it been adopted as the policy in the beginning, would have given a different phase to the war in the West, at least for a time.