Following their defeat in the battle of Corinth, Confederate forces under Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton established a line of defense on the Tallahatchie River in November 1862. Union Gen. U.S. Grant, moving down the Mississippi Central Railroad, expected to fight Pemberton's army on this line. A Union cavalry raid from Arkansas toward Grenada, however, convinced Pemberton that his left flank was threatened, and in early December he fell back to Grenada and the Yalobusha River line.