Forrest Averts Disaster

During the Battle of Parker's Crossroads, General Nathan Bedford Forrest was with the artillery on the opposite side of the battlefield when Colonel John Fuller's Ohio Brigade arrived. Forrest wrote that he could not believe they were Federals until he rode into their lines himself. He had left Captain W.S. McLemore's battalion in Clarksburg, five miles north, to warn him of approaching Union reinforcements, but McLemore failed in that duty and the Confederates were caught completely by surprise. Faced with surrender or fighting, Forrest chose to fight. Grabbing a scratch force from his escort and a few nearby men, his small mounted force rushed at the charging Ohio troops. The bluff stopped the Union soldiers, and Forrest used the pause to turn south and retreat through a ravine that concealed his men as they swept around Dunham and made for Lexington. A few days after the battle, Forrest wrote that, with his command exposed to fire from both front and rear, he was compelled to withdraw in good order. His quick decision to go on the offensive slowed the Union assault and saved most of his artillery and men.

Parker's Crossroads, Tennessee · United States