By December 29, 1862, Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest’s West Tennessee railroad raid was ending after his cavalry disrupted Federal supply and communication lines there. The weary cavalrymen were riding toward the Tennessee River and safety behind Confederate lines in Middle Tennessee. By late that afternoon, Forrest’s brigade was bivouacked near Flake’s Store four miles southwest of Clarksburg. Meanwhile, Union Gen. Jeremiah Sullivan in Jackson ordered Col. Cyrus L. Dunham’s brigade at Huntington to move south rapidly and intercept Forrest before he could escape, and also ordered Col. John Fuller to move his Ohio brigade from Trenton to Huntingdon in support. Dunham marched at noon on December 30, and by dark had arrived at Clarksburg, where Forrest had placed pickets. Clarksburg was then a small village with a few dozen residents, general stores, a gristmill, and a cotton gin. A sharp skirmish left two Confederates dead, the pickets being driven away, and Dunham occupying Clarksburg. Dunham remained there overnight and, as Lt. Ayers wrote, had “the citizens to bake our bread for us.” Both commanders now knew where each other’s forces were located. Forrest planned to engage and defeat both Dunham’s and Fuller’s brigades at Parker’s Crossroads five miles south of Clarksburg. Early the next morning, Dunham marched south down the Huntingdon and Lexington Road, and five-year-old “Em” Clark watched from his father’s arms through the front doors of the old store to the left as Fuller’s Ohioans marched through Clarksburg to Parker’s Crossroads, where they would join Dunham at the crucial moment, planning to hammer Forrest.