David --

Your last paragraph refers to Andrew nelson Lytle's description from Bedford Forrest and His Critter Company, page 298. The two incidents you described refer to the same battlefield event. Rather than proving that all Forrest's troopers carried at least one revolver each, these accounts suggest that many of Rucker's men carried handguns. First-hand testimony by men of Rucker's 7th Tennessee based on this same event describe fighting with clubbed muskets.

The thread primarily focused on arms available in Forrest command at the time of Brice's Crossroads. Can you explain why we should discount a personal inspection of each company under Forrest's command taken three weeks before the battle? We have Forrest's directions to brigade commanders to make their men available for inspection. We also know that the final report noted that at least 3,000 of Forrest's men had no arms whatsoever.

The inspection shows Forrest's escort company to be the best armed unit available, each man having one revolver each and at least one first-class carbine each. Is this a surprise? Should we also be surprised that Gholson's Mississippi state troops are mostly unarmed?

According to the report by the Ohio officer, his detachment was surprised and captured by Capt. Harris of the 4th Tennessee Cavalry. Having the unpleasant duty of explaining his surprise of his entire command, apparently captured before his men could offer any resistance, he offers that a larger group of Confederates struck simultaneously from two different directions in a carefully-timed attack. The attackers were armed to the teeth and under command of the South's most feared cavalry leader, Nathan Bedford Forrest. It stands to reason that these factors were offered to make the circumstances of the Ohio officer's capture a little less embarrassing.

The attack took place near Sevierville TN. At the time Forrest was hundreds of miles away, preparing a defense of east central Mississippi. Captain Pryor N. Harris and his men hadn't served under Forrest since the summer of 1863.

The O.R. for August of 1864 shows Forrest still attempting to make up the deficiency of arms in his command. General Gorgas in Richmond responded with a shipment of 1,000 short Enfields. Some of these appear on arms inventories of Roddey's cavalry (then under Forrest's command) taken in mid-October of 1864.

In May 1864 several hundred of Forrest's cavalrymen carried the Mississippi rifle, which used 54 cal. ammunition. Arms requisitions by ordnance officers are quite useful, but a contemporary inspection report would be the best information available. Forrest reports the capture of 1,500 small arms (rifles, carbines and pistols) after Brice's Crossroads, but even that wasn't nearly enough to outfit his command as he wished.

It's a credit to Forrest and his officers and men that even though many of them brought no arms whatsoever to the battlefield at Brice's Crossroads, they still met and defeated the best-armed and equipped soldiers that the Federal government could send against them.