McKenzie’s Station, strategically important because it stood at the junction of two railroads in northwestern Carroll County, lay directly in the path of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest’s first West Tennessee raid in December 1862. After capturing Union City, Forrest turned east on Christmas Day, burning trestles and destroying track between there and McKenzie, and two days later his troopers arrived with captured wagons loaded with coffee, flour, and military supplies. There Forrest learned that Federal forces had deserted the bridges over the Obion River. As two infantry brigades under Union Gen. Jeremiah C. Sullivan closed in, local farmers directed Forrest to an old bridge on a back road leading to McLemoresville. After the Confederates reinforced the rickety bridge that night, they crossed the swampy Obion bottoms, slipped between the pursuing Federal columns, and moved south toward Parker’s Crossroads. During the war, Carroll County was divided almost evenly between secessionists and Unionists, sending similar numbers of recruits to both armies; poorer farmers in the eastern agricultural districts generally remained loyal to the Union, while cotton growers in the prime western lands usually supported the Confederacy.