[Publisher's Note, by Gene Kizer, Jr. - Nathan Bedford Forrest is one of the greatest military leaders and strategists in all of history. His tactics on the battlefield have been studied around the world since the end of the war. He has been a powerful inspiration to generations of American warriors especially from the South, where patriotism and military service are sacred traditions. Until Biden and Harris came along and devastated military recruiting with racist DEI, 44% of our military was recruited in the South.

This account of the Battle of Brice's Cross Roads comes verbatim from John Allan Wyeth's famous book, Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest.ⁱ]

By ten o'clock, when Lyon had thrown out his skirmishers, Forrest in person had come up with his escort, took command of Lyon's troops, which numbered eight hundred riflemen, and opened the famous battle of Brice's Cross-Roads, which took place in Lee County, Mississippi, on the 10th of June, 1864. It has passed into history as one of the most signal victories of the Civil War, considering the forces engaged. On this field General Forrest displayed not only that bull-dog tenacity of purpose which characterized his aggressive method of warfare, but his remarkable ability as a strategist and those original methods of fighting which then won success and have since attracted the closest attention of students of military science.

The contending forces were: On the Union side, 3200 cavalry and 4500 infantry, with 22 pieces of artillery, commanded by General Samuel D. Sturgis; on the Confederate side, 4713 mounted troops, with 12 pieces of artillery, under General N. B. Forrest [Note in book: "The artillery companies are not included in this enumeration. These would bring the Union strength to about 8000, and the Confederate to about 4875."]

At Brice's the main highway, leading from Memphis to Ripley, and on in a direction slightly east of south to Fulton in Mississippi, intersects almost at a right angle another important road leading from Corinth through Rienzi, Booneville, Baldwyn, and in a southwesterly direction to Pontotoc.

With the exception of two or three cleared patches of land, not exceeding six acres in extent, immediately around Brice's house, the country, which is only slightly undulating, for a mile in every direction was at the time of the battle not only heavily timbered, but there was an undergrowth of black-jack and scrub-oak so dense that in places the troops could with difficulty force their way through, and, being then in full leaf, it was possible to approach within a few yards without being seen. About one mile northeast of Brice's, the Corinth road, with a worm-fence on either hand for about a quarter of a mile, passed through a field, to the outskirts of which on all sides the dense undergrowth extended. This field was enclosed by a heavy rain-fence reinforced on top with poles and brushwood. About the same distance on the highway leading from Brice's towards Ripley and Memphis the road-bed descended some twenty feet into the Tishomingo Creek bottom, along which stream there was a large cornfield, at that time in cultivation, and here this sluggish stream was spanned by a small wooden bridge.

Grierson, satisfied that the Confederates were in considerable strength, dismounted Waring's brigade (1450 strong), which he posted behind the fence in the edge of the dense timber, about equally divided on the north and south side of the road along which Forrest was advancing. Two rifle guns and two howitzers were thrown into position on a slight elevation just behind his line, and 100 picked men armed with revolving rifles were sent forward and concealed in the fence corners of the lane about a hundred yards in advance of his main line.

To the right of Waring was dismounted Grierson's other brigade under Winslow (numbering 1750), and the extreme right of this portion of the Union line was slightly "refused," or drawn back, in the direction of Brice's house. It will be seen that at this critical moment (for General Forrest) General Grierson had on the field 3200 cavalry, with four pieces of artillery in position and six others in reserve, confronted four hundred yards away by 800 mounted troops of Lyon's brigade, with the escort company of 85 men, and Gartrell's company, 50 strong, and with no Confederate artillery within eight miles.

Forrest was naturally an offensive fighter. He rarely stood to receive an attack. If his troops were mounted and the enemy moved first upon him, he always advanced to meet their charge. In a memorable interview with a Federal officer he said he would "give more for fifteen minutes of bulge on the enemy than for a week of tactics." He believed that one man in motion was worth two standing to receive an attack.

When he realized how strong the enemy in his immediate front was, his chief anxiety was that they might charge in force and run over this small command. Rucker was still two miles in the rear and Johnson was yet behind him. He immediately had Lyon's troops dismounted and thrown into line, and their position behind the fence strengthened by brush and logs. To prevent Grierson from attacking, it was important to make a show of force, and with characteristic effrontery, having alternate panels of the worm-fence thrown down, he ordered Lyon to make a demonstration by advancing from the edge of the woods into the open field. Lyon threw out a double line of skirmishers and marched boldly towards the enemy's position.

That Forrest's advance was "pure bluff" should have been clear to Grierson, for Lyon's right just reached the Baldwyn road, while his left extended only a little beyond the junction of Waring's and Winslow's brigades. He was thus widely overlapped on either flank. Major E. Hunn Hanson, of Waring's brigade, says of this movement: "The Confederate line advancing was shorter than our own, their left ending in front of the left and centre of Winslow's brigade."ⁱⁱ

With artillery and small arms the Union line opened upon the Confederates, who kept up their feigned attack for about an hour, then they withdrew without confusion to the edge of the woods from which they had started, and there resumed their position behind the layouts. Major Hanson (above quoted) says: "The Confederates retired with but little disorder to the edge of the woods and kept up a skirmish fire at long range for some time."

ⁱ John Allan Wyeth, M.D., Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1899), 402-429.

ⁱⁱ Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, vol. iv. p. 420.