Forrest Brass Napoleon Award Forrest's Cannae - The Battle of Brice's Crossroads, June 10, 1864

His book Corinth 1862 is worth twice the price,great book as all of tim's books are.

@nitrofd ,

I think you are confusing, or combining, my good friend Tim Smith and myself. He was the author of Corinth, 1862, an excellent book, which I was quoted as saying on the back of his dust jacket. He returned the gesture and wrote the Forward to my book. While Tim has wrote the book on Corinth, I have worked at the Corinth Civil War Interpretive Center for 14 years. He and I used to live next door to each other at Shiloh in the days when he was a seasonal park ranger.

All the best,

Tom
 
That heat and humidity had to have just wasted the Northern boys. Forrest and his men were just about done in by it and they were born and raised with it!

Boy, wasn't that the very truth during the fighting and the retreat from Brice's Crossroads!

Amazingly, the truth was just the opposite during the Tupleo Campaign. It was in the high 90's to low 100's during the entire two weeks. When marching from Moscow to LaGrange in late June, Smith had hundreds of men fall to heat exhaustion and a few died. During the march south he compensated by starting the column each morning long before dawn and was making camp by noon. Often they marched no more than 7 or 8 miles in a day. Generations of authors and historians have criticized Smith and said it was evidence of his fear of Forrest. But Smith had nothing to gain by rushing down the Pontotoc Road; every day he was in Mississippi was another day Forrest's cavalry was not in Tennessee. The slow marches also had the benefit of acclimating the Northern boys to the terrible heat. On the 13th of July, Smith stole a march toward Tupelo and during the 18-mile long march he did not lose a single man, in fact his soldiers were singing as they marched.

Forrest and Lee had 2,100 dismounted cavalrymen with some Mobile artillerists serving as infantry. They were not used to marching in the heat and were so effected by the temps they played no part in the three days of fighting. Smith stole two marches on his opponents (July 7 and July 13) and both resulted in Confederate men and horses marching and counter-marching through the night, exhausting both. When the Confederates made their disastrous attacks at Harrisburg on the 14th and at Old Town Creek on the 15th, literally hundreds of Confederates succumbed to heat exhaustion and many others died of heat stroke. There are some heart-breaking personal accounts that describe how the charge could barely be made at a walk due to the weather and how veterans were on their knees vomiting in the middle of the field.
 
Sturgis was very proud when he set out to pester Forrest - he boasted to Sherman he would bring back Forrest's scalp. Sherman didn't doubt him - he'd done well so far. As it turned out, Forrest brought back Sturgis' backbone! While he was hoofing it madly across the bridge one of his aides told him the Confederates were pursuing and he shouted, "For God's sake, if Mr Forrest will leave me alone, I will leave him alone!" That Union general never got over the trauma of the battle, his nerves were shot - Sherman sent him west to get him out from under foot as it was clear he was not much good any more. Hearing A J Smith was the next one to go for Forrest, Sturgis paced up and down the floor, wrang his hands and finally wailed, "They can't beat Old Forrest!"

One of the reasons this battle occurred was because Sherman, preparing to get to Atlanta, was worried about his supply lines being cut. He decided to set a trap for Forrest, who was his biggest worry, by sending Sturgis out to provoke a fight with the cavalryman. Forrest, for his part, knew what his real objective should be - he was headed for the Nashville-Chattanooga railroad. However, his commander, Stephen D Lee, recalled him from that destination to return to Mississippi and deal with Sturgis. This was another of those irritatingly curious things with Forrest's military career - very often he had the right idea, but his commanders made him do another! It did give him his crowning victory and cemented his position as a great general but in the end it worked to Sherman's satisfaction. Forrest was occupied and could not get on his lines of communication and supply as he went toward Atlanta. Sturgis had to be dealt with but Forrest would have been quite willing to let someone else do it - he knew he could put a hitch in Sherman's git-along he wouldn't get over quickly!



When Forrest sent Morton right down the road to within 150 yards of the Union line, Morton thought his commander had gone 'round the bend. The captain and his lieutenant looked at each other and the lieutenant said, "Captain, did the general mean we are to go down that road unsupported?" Captain Rice, commanding the other battery, stepped over and exclaimed, "By God, who ever heard of artillery charging?" After a moment's confusion, the young captain snapped, "You heard him!" It worked very well indeed but after the battle, Morton told Forrest, "General, you scared me! You scared me bad!" Forrest smiled and said, "I just wanted to see if the Yankees could take your guns."
Forrest could do that to you.
 
Thank you (all, though of course especially James N) for a clearly described and illustrated account of a battle I was only vaguely aware of.

It happened, Forrest won. That pretty much summed up my prior knowledge, along with the vague idea it occurred during the Atlanta Campaign.

Such threads are why I so admire this site and the people on it.
 
Diane,

I am afraid I must disagree. Though the Confederates made claim to have thwarted the Union plans to ravage the Black Prairie Region, it is a hollow claim as neither Sturgis nor Smith had orders to do any such thing. Both men had similar orders; to divert the attention of Forrest away from Sherman's supply lines in Middle Tennessee and to seek out and destroy Forrest's cavalry. Smith had the added directive of destroying a section of the Mobile & Ohio Railroad. Though Sturgis only succeeded in the diversion, Smith achieved all three of his ordered goals. The Union correspondence in Volume 39 of the OR makes this very clear. Though Sherman made some windy promises to Lincoln and Stanton about what Smith was going to do to Forrest, particularly kill him, the actual orders to Smith read far differently.

Sturgis was as much to credit for the Confederate victory at Brice's Crossroads as Forrest was. He made a string of terrible decisions that almost assured defeat before the first shot was even fired. Had the Union column been under a more competent General, such as A.J. Smith, the results would have most likely been far different.

For two weeks in July of 1864, Smith out-marched, out-fought, and out-generaled the team of Lee and Forrest. I wrote a book about it in 2014; Work for Giants: The Campaign and Battle of Tupelo/Harrisburg. I am currently working on my next book Brice's Crossroads: Forrest Victorious.

(On Wednesday I was in Columbus, Ohio and had dinner with our friend @Eric Wittenberg and then spoke on this subject to the Central Ohio Civil War Roundtable. They are a really good group!)

Tom

Thanks, Tom! I'd thought Forrest had more of a impact in protecting the area but I'm sure going to defer to the guy who wrote the book on it! I want to get both of them. :thumbsup:

I have thought Sherman should have sent A J Smith and Grierson period, forget Sturgis. Neither Smith or Grierson was afraid of Forrest and both gave as good as they got whenever they met up with him. At the beginning of the war, Forrest had zero respect for the Union cavalry, but these guys gave him some! Sherman and Grant were excellent at giving Forrest these devil or the deep blue sea choices, and some of his biting the bait was due to his commanders. I'm pretty sure Forrest knew what Sherman was doing and had some ideas on how to thwart this tactic but his superiors were not there with him. Sturgis' biggest mistake, imho, was in not properly using the colored troops. Those guys badly wanted to get at Forrest and colored troops had given him a bad time at Pulaski. He was beginning to get the idea that the 'cowardly slave' was a myth, and that they could fight as well as his Southerners.

I figured most of what Sherman was telling Lincoln and others about 'that devil Forrest' was hot air but some of it was also whistling past the graveyard. He was the only western cavalryman that really upset Sherman and Grant, and Grant didn't scare worth two bits. Sherman did, however, come close to putting a bounty on Forrest's head - he didn't, but it was sure clear anyone who brought him Forrest's spurs was going to be blessed by Sherman with all manner of good things!

I believe Sturgis' next assignment, which was long in coming, was with Custer's old command the 7th Cavalry - his son was killed with Custer. I'm not sure which of them the town of Sturgis, SD is named after. He also went after the Nez Perce with Howard and did some other miscellaneous Indian fighting. Sherman never trusted him after Brice's Crossroads, though, and believed Forrest had used the man up like a paper towel. I think until his last day somebody could walk up behind him and whisper, "Forrest!" and Sturgis would scream!
 


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Thank you (and legion para and nitofd) for your suggestions.

When I get some time I will indeed examine these for I am aware that my knowledge of this area of the CW is weak.
 
Not a popular face around Oxford even 154 years later!
Regards
David

:D I sure don't doubt it!

P S
We might note that at this time North Mississippi was sometimes called "Forrest Country". His headquarters were in Oxford and the vicinity around it - Smith never decisively defeated Forrest but he did keep him moving. Oxford had a deep connection for Forrest because of the university there. He had been paying for his youngest brother, Jeffrey, to go to the school but his education was interrupted by the war - the family had set great hopes on him. After the war, Forrest's son Willie completed his education at the university and became the first of his family with a college degree. That accomplishment made his Pa fill with more pride than any of his fine victories! Having next to no education himself, he learned through the war the value of one - his lack of it held him back in many ways.
 
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As I've said elsewhere, I wonder how Sturgis got ANY command after the war....

Now that is one I can answer.

Sturgis was a West Pointer and while some promising volunteer officers got commands after the war - Grierson and De Trobriand for example - it was relatively rare and there was a definite bias towards West Pointers.

Whether he should have got a command - that is another question...
 
That is very true - I think his career was preserved because of his decent service during the Mexican War and the CW up until he encountered Forrest. After that, he really couldn't get another victory under his belt. Custer was his lt colonel while he was colonel of the 7th Cavalry, and losing part of his command at the Little Big Horn was not good. Later, the next year, he lost the Battle of Canyon Creek to the Nez Perce - who did a Forrest on him by being half the size of his command. A couple, three years later he was a desk jockey running the Soldiers' Home in Washington.
 
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