During Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest's cavalry raid through West Tennessee from Dec. 15, 1862 to Jan. 3, 1863, his brigade destroyed railroads and severed Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's supply line between Columbus, Kentucky and Vicksburg, Mississippi. After crossing the Tennessee River at Clifton and defeating Union Col. Robert C. Ingersoll's cavalry at Lexington, Forrest captured Trenton, an important stop on the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, on December 20, 1862, briefly occupied the town, and rode on toward Union City the next day. Forrest's aide, Capt. Charles W. Anderson, allegedly entered the Gibson County courthouse, gathered the bonds and oaths of allegiance to the United States that Trenton residents had signed, piled them in the yard, and burned them. Corp. William H.H. Ibbetson of Co. D, 122nd Illinois Infantry, who arrived in Trenton with his regiment on October 9, 1862, wrote that the town was very nice but showed unmistakable signs of the Civil War, with many vacant homes and a population reduced from 1,500 to not more than 500. Forrest later raided back through Tennessee, evaded defeat at Parker's Cross Roads, crossed the river again at Clifton, and prompted Grant to change his supply base to Memphis. The current Gibson County courthouse was completed in 1899 as the fourth courthouse on the site, following a log building completed in 1825, a brick structure built in 1829, and another brick courthouse built between 1839 and 1841 that survived the Civil War.