Chickasaw State Park

Between the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862 and the end of the war, Confederate and Federal forces contested control of key transportation lines near Chickasaw State Park. Union General Jeremiah S. Sullivan sought to drive Confederate cavalry under Generals Frank C. Armstrong and Nathan B. Forrest from the region. Henderson, the Chester County seat, was a stop on the Mobile & Ohio Railroad and a Confederate recruiting center, but Federal soldiers occupied the town and depot after Shiloh; in November 1862, local Confederate guerrillas known as the Raiders burned the depot to the ground. North of here, Jackson, one of the region's most important railroad junctions, was occupied and fortified by Sullivan's troops in 1862 and remained a Federal command and transportation base for the rest of the war despite the efforts of Armstrong and Forrest. Union troops also quickly occupied strategic crossroads at the plantation home of John H. Bills near Bolivar, which served twice as a hospital for soldiers on both sides in 1862-1863. By November 1862, fighting and foraging had devastated the county, and after the war Federal officials established a branch of the Freedman's Bureau in Bolivar.

Tennessee · United States