In 1862, Union forces moved into this region to control shipping and military traffic along the Tennessee River, using naval gunboats to try to cut Confederate supply links to West Tennessee and the Deep South, while Confederate cavalry detachments resisted by harassing the Union presence, plundering, capturing soldiers, and gathering recruits and conscripts. In the spring of 1863, a Confederate force was posted in and around the Perry County Courthouse. On May 12, 1863, U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Seth L. Phelps landed in Decaturville to support Lt. Col. William K. M. Breckenridge, commander of the 6th Tennessee Cavalry, a regiment of Tennessee Unionists. Phelps used his gunboats to ferry 55 of Breckenridge’s men and horses across the river, and around daybreak they attacked the Confederate force at the courthouse, completely surprising the place. Breckenridge’s men killed three Confederates, captured Col. Frierson and 46 of his men, then burned the courthouse along with Confederate arms and supplies. They returned to the gunboats with captured Confederate officers, soldiers, and conscripts, who were sent to the Union prison in Cairo, Illinois. The wooden Perry County Courthouse, built in 1848 where the present courthouse stands, had been the center of local business and government in Linden, established in 1847, and its destruction caused the loss of some official records.