Mr. Slatter: I had the sad pleasure yesterday of reading a letter from a reliable member of Col. Starnes’ 3d Tennessee Cavalry, detailing some of the casualties to our boys in the late disaster at Dovor, or Fort Donelson.
He says that when the regiment to which he was attached arrived, the artillery, was playing on both sides; that Gen. Forrest formed them in line of battle and made a short speech, and ordered them to charge. The artillery playing on them as they formed into line, they charged down a hill, across a ravine, and up the hill into Dover, and there met a shower of balls—were repulsed, then dismounted,, reformed and charged again, with the same result. His regiment lost sixteen men killed and forty four wounded.
Of our boys from this county, Alfred M. Shook was left on the field, supposed to be killed. Only seventeen years old, he joined his uncle, Oliver Shook, to go as an independent with Gen. Forest to Murfreesboro last summer, and there made one of his country’s invaders bite the dust: afterwards joined Col. Starnes, and I fear has paid a patriot’s debt.
De Kalb Huddleston, another youth of seventeen, was shot through the shoulder, and left at a private house ; S. Wagner shot through the wrist; Wm. McCloud, arm broken and left behind. Jas. K. Shook and W. R. Davis each had their horses shot under them.
Winchester Daily Bulletin, Winchester, TN