Paris Landing was a busy landing and crossing point on the Tennessee River, a waterway of strategic importance during the war. After the fall of Forts Henry and Donelson in February 1862, Confederate hopes of maintaining control of Paris Landing vanished. On March 11, Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant ordered four infantry companies and an artillery battery to establish a garrison there and secure the county and the landing. As fighting moved elsewhere in Tennessee, Paris Landing was largely forgotten until late October 1864, when Confederate Gen. Nathan B. Forrest began raids in the region against Union transportation and communications lines. Confederates established a concealed battery there and attacked Federal gunboats steaming upriver to Johnsonville, a major Union supply base. They captured or destroyed several vessels, including USS Undine after an hour-long artillery duel on October 30 between the gunboat and Forrest’s horse artillery. Acting Master John L. Bryant reported that the enemy opened with a cross fire of artillery and musketry, and that he replied with his broadside guns and fired canister at Confederate soldiers in the bushes to good effect, but when a steam pipe burst and made Undine entirely unmanageable, he surrendered. Forrest’s men repaired the vessel and resumed attacks on Federal gunboats, but on November 2 Undine was severely damaged in another fight, taken to Reynoldsburg Island, and burned to the waterline two days later.