Battle of Parker's Cross Roads  "Rapidly Tightening Blue Noose"  December 31, 1862

In December 1862, Confederate Gen. Nathan B. Forrest mounted his second raid into western Tennessee. For two weeks his 2,000 troopers created chaos throughout the northwestern part of the state, capturing 1,200 Union troops and destroying rail lines that supplied Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's army, which was marching through Mississippi toward Vicksburg. "We have made a clean sweep of the Federals and railroads north of Jackson," reported Forrest on December 24.

Three days later, while the raiders were at McKenzie, Forrest learned that Union forces were closing in and decided it was time to recross the Tennessee River to the safety of Confederate territory. Union Gen. Jeremiah C. Sullivan, whose forces in western Tennessee outnumbered Forrest's four to one, wired Grant: "I have Forrest in a tight place. ...The gunboats are up the river as far as Clifton and have destroyed all the bridges and ferries.... My troops are moving on him from three directions." With the rain-swollen Tennessee River closed off on his east, Union troops blocking to the north and south, and two brigades of Union soldiers marching toward him from the west, Forrest was indeed enclosed by a rapidly tightening blue noose.

On December 31, when Forrest's raiders arrived at Parker's Cross Roads from the north, they found Col. Cyrus L. Dunham's Union brigade- roughly the same size as the Rebel force- deployed across the intersection and inviting attack. Forrest, with eight cannon to the Union's three, began a fierce artillery duel that forced the Union line to fall back south of the crossroads; the road southward, however, was still blocked.

Forrest split his dismounted troopers; one detachment circled to the Yankee's right rear and another to their left rear while he commanded the force still in the Yankee front. The three Rebel units made a simultaneous charge that broke the Union lines and sent the blue-clad soldiers retreating into nearby woods. When the Northerners began showing white flags, Forrest ordered his men to cease firing.

Fascinating Fact:  After crossing the Tennessee River at Clifton at the beginning of the raid, Forrest had concealed his boats by sinking them. It was toward Clifton and the boats- which he would refloat- that he was headed on his return.


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