In September 1864, after Union Gen. William T. Sherman defeated Confederate Gen. John Bell Hood at Atlanta, Hood led the Army of Tennessee northwest against Sherman’s supply lines and then north into Tennessee rather than contest Sherman’s March to the Sea. Gen. John M. Schofield, detached from Sherman’s army, delayed Hood at Columbia and Spring Hill before falling back to Franklin, where the bloodbath on November 30 crippled the Confederates; Hood then followed Schofield to the outskirts of Nashville and Union Gen. George H. Thomas’s strong defenses, and Thomas crushed Hood’s army on December 15-16. Near the crossroads in present-day Summertown, the engagement of Fouche Springs was some of the earliest significant fighting of the Hood Campaign. Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest’s cavalry led Hood’s Army of Tennessee into Lawrence County and then north toward the Duck River. Forrest reported that his troops had several engagements with the enemy and were almost constantly skirmishing with him, but drove him in every encounter. The first encounter took place on November 23 at Henryville, south of Summertown, where Confederate Gen. James R. Chalmers’s troops captured 45 Union soldiers. Later that day, Forrest and his men encountered a larger Federal force, Col. Horace Capron’s 1st Cavalry Brigade, near Fouche Springs. Forrest split his command, sending Col. Edmund W. Rucker’s brigade forward to engage the Federals while he took his escort to the right and sent Col. David C. Kelley to the left, hoping to combine his force with Kelley’s and strike a decisive blow to the Federal rear. When Kelley’s men did not arrive in time, Forrest’s escort struck anyway, producing what Forrest later called a perfect stampede and capturing about 50 prisoners, 20 horses, and 1 ambulance. The fighting on November 23 alerted Federal commanders that the Confederates were approaching the Duck River in considerable force, and Union Gens. John M. Schofield, Jacob D. Cox, and David S. Stanley immediately began moving their troops to Columbia to guarantee they could cross the Duck River before Hood’s soldiers arrived. The race was on to Columbia, Franklin, and then Nashville.