Maj.-Gen. Reuben Davis, with 2,000 men, reinforced Johnston at Bowling Green, on December 16th, and four days later was assigned to the command of the fortifications in and about Bowling Green, in which his men were posted. Here they remained until their term of enlistment expired.
During the fall of 1861, the forces under General Polk, at Columbus and thence down to Island No. 10, included the batteries of Hudson and Melancthon Smith; the First Mississippi cavalry battalion, Lieut.-Col. John H. Miller, including the companies of Captains Hudson, Cole and Klein, besides Miller's original battalion; Col. A. K. Blythe’s Mississippi regiment of infantry; the Thirteenth and Twenty-second regiments, and the Twenty-fifth infantry, Col. J. D. Martin, subsequently known as the Second Confederate States infantry. Part of these commands had a creditable part in the defeat of General Grant at Belmont, on the Missouri shore, November 7, 1861.
It will be remembered that on the morning of the 7th Grant landed about 3,500 men on the Missouri shore to attack Polk’s camp of observation, held by a small force under Colonel Tappan, while his gunboats opened upon the Columbus works. Polk sent across reinforcements to Tappan, making his force about equal to Grant’s. In the resistance to Grant's advance the cavalry companies of Montgomery and Bowles, of Miller's battalion, took an active part. But Tappan was compelled to fall back and abandon his camp to the enemy. When this disaster was apparent, General Cheatham was sent across the river with his brigade, which included Blythe's Mississippi regiment, and Captain Smith's battery was sent to the river, whence he shelled the Federal troops and effectively aided in their discomfiture. A new line was formed on the Missouri side, and a gallant advance was made, which resulted in the defeat of the Federals, who were driven to their boat and compelled to embark in
