Forrest's Raid into West Tennessee (1862-63) & Related Sites

Confederate Brig. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest launched an expedition into West Tennessee between December 11, 1862, and January 1, 1863, intending to interrupt the rail supply line to Union Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's army that was campaigning down the Mississippi Central Railroad. If Forrest could destroy the Mobile & Ohio Railroad running south from Columbus, Kentucky, through Jackson, Tennessee, Grant would be forced to curtail or halt his operations against Vicksburg. Forrest's 2,500-man cavalry brigade crossed the Tennessee River at Clifton on December 15, heading west.

Grant concentrated 10,000 troops at Jackson, Tennessee, under Brig. Gen. Jeremiah C. Sullivan and ordered 800 cavalrymen under Col. Robert G. Ingersoll to confront Forrest. Forrest, however, captured Ingersoll and his artillery and smashed the Union cavalry at a point 5 miles east of Lexington on December 18 and continued his advance. Forrest's success prompted Sullivan to concentrate his forces in Jackson, leaving the countryside and area railroads undefended. Survivors, escaping to Jackson, spread exaggerated stories of Forrest's strength.

As Forrest continued his advance, Sullivan ordered Col. Adolph Englemann to take a small force northeast of Jackson. At Old Salem Cemetery, acting on the defensive Englemann's two infantry regiments repulsed a Confederate mounted attack and then withdrew a mile back into their fortifications in Jackson. The attack by Forrest's cavalry was a feint and show of force to hold the Federals' attention while two of his cavalry regiments destroyed the railroads north and south of town. Confederate Col. George G. Dibrell's men destroyed Carroll Station, 5 miles to the northwest, and captured both soldiers and valuable supplies, while Col. A. A. Russell headed south and destroyed the railroad between Jackson and Bolivar.

On December 19, after the Battle of Jackson, Forrest regrouped his force at Spring Creek for further raids on Federal installations to the north. On the 20th at Humboldt a detachment of Forrest's cavalry captured both railroads running into the town, destroyed track, trestles, and rolling stock, and burned stores and munitions. Meanwhile, Forrest led part of his brigade northward and captured the Federal garrison at Trenton, entrenching around the railroad station on the west side of town. During the day's activities Forrest's men took 700 prisoners. After pausing for regrouping at Trenton, he moved northward with his entire brigade capturing two companies of Federals and destroying stores at Rutherford. On the 21st, a detachment of Forrest's brigade captured Company K, 119th Illinois Infantry, at Dyer, while burning stores and tearing up track to the north and south of town. That same day another detachemnt, moving north from Rutherford, captured the Federal garrison of 250 men, including Col. Thomas J. Kinney, commanding the 122nd Illinois Infantry, at Kenton. They also tore up the 5 miles of track between Rutherford and Kenton. By noon on the 22nd, destruction was completed so Forrest's men moved toward Union City. After destroying 15 miles of railroad track and trestles in the Obion River bottoms, Forrest's brigade captured the Federal garrison at Union City on the 23rd, while destroying railroad lines running northeast and southwest into Federal territory as well as railroads running northward and southeast toward Dresden. Moving to McKenzie on the 24th, Forrest's brigade captured the 100-man garrison south of the village. Here they spent Christmas Eve, while working parties completed destruction of 4 miles of trestles and bridges between the forks of the Obion River while other parties completed destruction of the railroad running to Dresden. Forrest's brigade, rearmed and re-equipped with material and horses captured from the Union storehouse which they had plundered, passed through McLemoresville, Huntingdon, and Clarksburg on the 29th and 30th enroute to Lexington and their re-crossing of the Tennessee River at Clifton.

After the Battle of Parker's Cross Roads on December 31, Forrest re-crossed the Tennessee River at Clifton on January 1, 1863, brushing aside the Union 6th Tennessee Cavalry. During the 18-day expedition, Forrest had torn up three trunk railroads and stopped traffic on the Mobile & Ohio until March 1863. He had taken more Federal prisoners than he had soldiers, confiscated or destroyed ten guns and military stores worth millions of dollars, immobilized more than ten times his strength in Federal troops, and delayed Grant's Vicksburg campaign by a number of months.

Forrest's Raid into West Tennessee consists of a series of individual sites of local significance that are associated with military activities and events that achieved or affected important local objectives of the Vicksburg campaign.