Pemberton's army fell back to Grenada without a fight, so Battery E continued with its division to Corinth. It entered Holly Springs, Mississippi sometime prior to January 4, 1863, where Rice describes a scene of devastation left behind by Confederate General Earl van Dorn's raid on the town on December 20, 1862: "broken guns, dead horses, several unburned men, pieces of shells, lights out of every window, government wagons and ambulances half burnt up. The great depot all gone, a train of cars burned upon the track. The air filled the smoke and smell of burning cotton. Large brick buildings blown to atoms, pillaged houses and sick men laying beside the streets."