On 25 March 1864, Confederate Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest seized the city of Paducah to strike Federal forces, break up guerilla bands, recover deserters, and recruit and reoutfit his men. After covering one hundred miles in fifty hours of riding, he reached the outskirts during mid-afternoon with about 2,500 men, most of them in Brigadier General Abram Buford's 2nd Division, and his force quickly overran six outlying redoubts guarding the streets into the city. Colonel A.P. Thompson, commanding the Kentucky Brigade, pursued Federal troops through the city as they retreated into Fort Anderson, a Mahan style earthen fort near the river at the west end of 4th Street between Park Avenue and Clay Street. Thompson surrounded the fort with the 3rd and 7th Kentucky Mounted Infantry, while the 8th Kentucky Mounted, the 12th Kentucky Cavalry, and other units were sent elsewhere in the city to gather needed supplies and horses and destroy Federal property they could not carry away. Inside the fort, Colonel S.G. Hicks had 665 men in the 122nd Illinois Infantry, 16th Kentucky Cavalry, and 8th United States Colored Artillery (Heavy), supported by the gunboats Peosta and Paw Paw in the Ohio River. Skirmishing continued until 4:30 PM, when a demand for surrender was sent in and Hicks refused. No assault on the fort was planned, but as Thompson was gathering his men, a percussion shell struck him, exploded, and killed him instantly; his horse ran a block and died, and Thompson, a lawyer in Paducah before the war, was killed three blocks from his home. After burning some Federal confiscated cotton and a steamer in dry dock, Forrest withdrew the next morning to Mayfield with fifty prisoners, four hundred horses, and a large quantity of supplies. Confederate casualties were ten killed and forty wounded, while Federal casualties, besides the prisoners, were fourteen killed and forty-six wounded. Afterward, newspapers reported that Forrest had missed 140 excellent army horses, and on learning this he sent Buford back to Paducah, where Buford drove the Federals back into the fort, collected the remaining horses and their equipment, and rode south to rejoin Forrest.