In July 1862, Union forces occupied Humboldt, an important junction of the Memphis & Ohio and Mobile & Ohio railroads, and Union Gen. Grenville M. Dodge ordered civil officeholders within his command to file oaths of allegiance to the United States within twenty days or face arrest, suspension, and removal to headquarters. Despite efforts to suppress rebellious activity, Confederate raiders periodically destroyed nearby railroad bridges. Near the end of the year, as Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest raided through West Tennessee to disrupt Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s supply line, a detachment of Forrest’s command attacked Union Col. Jacob Fry’s force at Humboldt on December 20, 1862, destroyed the Mobile & Ohio Railroad bridges, and captured 200 prisoners, 500 rifles, and 300,000 rounds of ammunition. Forrest’s wider raid from December 15, 1862, to January 3, 1863, crossed the Tennessee River at Clifton, defeated Union Col. Robert G. Ingersoll’s cavalry at Lexington, captured Trenton and Union City, ranged briefly into Kentucky, evaded defeat at Parker’s Crossroads, and crossed the river again at Clifton, forcing Grant to switch his supply base to Memphis. Twin Oaks, a Greek Revival-style house completed about 1860 for the Rev. Moses E. Senter, who supported the Confederacy, was according to local tradition briefly used as a hospital after the fighting; Senter’s sons William T. and Moses G. Senter later served in Co. B, Tennessee Cavalry under Forrest until the end of the war, and in 1866 Senter became Humboldt’s first mayor before later organizing the First Baptist Church and serving as its minister.