Flight to Safety

Forrest’s order to charge in both directions bought the Confederate commander time to remount his men and head for the Lexington-Huntingdon Road, while Forrest himself led about 75 men toward his guns rather than abandon the artillery. Despite these efforts, Federal forces captured three of Forrest’s brass cannons and eight limbers, but his rear guard, under heavy fire from Fuller’s cannon west of the Lexington-Huntingdon Road, covered the retreat of the rest of the Confederate artillery. General Jeremiah Sullivan, commander of the District of Jackson, Tennessee, arrived at Parker’s Crossroads shortly after Fuller and, as the highest-ranking Union officer, assumed command, but while he prepared for an expected assault, the Confederates withdrew rapidly south toward Lexington. Forrest’s brigade met there that evening, received rations, and fed the horses, then at 2:00 a.m. on New Year’s Day saddled up and rode toward the Tennessee River. At daybreak, about ten miles east of Lexington, Forrest paroled more than 300 prisoners taken since December 23. After learning that Brigadier General Grenville M. Dodge was coming from Corinth, Mississippi, with a force large enough to destroy the brigade, Forrest also discovered that the 6th Tennessee Union Cavalry was blocking the road ahead under orders to delay and harass his men. A vigorous assault by Dibrell broke the roadblock and drove the Federals back with severe losses. The brigade reached the Tennessee River about 12:30, and Forrest first sent four guns across and placed them to cover the crossing. Horses and mules swam the river, while men and equipment crossed on two flatboats hidden after the crossing made two weeks earlier and on hastily built rafts. By 9:00 p.m., five pieces of artillery, six caissons, 60 wagons, four ambulances, and more than 2,000 men and horses had reached the opposite bank, and Forrest had once again escaped his pursuers. In a January 3, 1863, report from Corinth, Mississippi, to Major General Ulysses S. Grant, Dodge said Forrest escaped across the river at Clifton at 7 a.m. on January 1 after constant travel since the fight, immediately attacked his cavalry, was kept from the river until night, and then crossed with men on rafts and horses swimming, with everything over by 10 o’clock on the morning of January 3.

Parker's Crossroads, Tennessee · United States