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the prospects of further retreat (and perhaps eventual defeat) did little to raise his morale.
Johnston, of course, was faced with virtually a ready-made decision. He was incapable, with his current resources, to inflict any damage on Grant now that Pemberton had surrendered. His only hope was to save what was left of his Confederate army by falling back to the east. Final^y^ after 12 days of scattered skirmishing, he was forced to give up Jackson for the second time.
Most of this time Baxter had been in the rifle pits north of the city that marked the picket lines between the two armies. But with the advance of Federals in overwhelming numbers, Baxter was prepared to accept the inevitable. Still as late as July 16, Company E was still in the rifle-pits north of Jackson and on that date managed to repulse a forced reconnaissance by the 97th Indiana Infantry of the Ninth Corps. The victory was a shortlived one, and during the night the Confederates retired across the Pearl River and fell back east of Jackson toward Meridian.
Curiously, the Federals mounted no vigorous pursuit. More than two months later, Baxter and Company E, 20th Mississippi, were still two miles west of Meridian. There Baxter celebrated his 16th birthday anniversary. It had been a long journey from that May morning in 1861 when he cast his lot at 13 with the Adams Rifles in Handsboro and determined to defend the Confederate States of America. His defense proved to be no bed of roses: the western Virginia campaign, Fort Donelson, a prisoner of war in Chicago?s Camp Douglas, northern Mississippi after Shiloh and Corinth, the river attack at Fort Pemberton, and now Vicksburg and its aftermath. Two years and a half had made him a veteran in a multitude of ways, and despite the fact he was barely 16, he had become a man and a good soldier.
A few days after Baxter?s birthday, the regiment was on the move again, this time back toweard Jackson. They rode the Southern Railroad of Mississippi from Meridian to near Jackson, and finally wound up at Canton toward the end of October. Here they went through the annual exercise of putting up log huts against the rigors of the usual cold, wet Mississippi winters. There might have been picket duty, perhaps some light
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