Forrest himself was having the time of his life. He was serving as cannoneer, firing away at Johnsonville and shouting in erroneuous terms, "Elevate the breech a little lower, boys---elevate the breech a little lower!" Each time he fired and the recoil rolled the guns back, the generals Abraham Buford and Tyree Bell repositioned the gun. It was undoubtedly the highest ranking gun crew in all of military history.

General "Cump" Sherman, writing about it later, called it "a feat of arms which, I must confess, excited my admiration". Later, he razed several hundred homes in Georgia while taunting the civilians who had also been robbed of their food stores in time for winter. Class act.