Resupply And Recruit

Nathan Bedford Forrest

Confederate Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest led a raid on the Ohio River in March, which included the Battle of Paducah on March 25^th 1864.

Confederate Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest headed into Tennessee and Kentucky with about 3,000 men.  The object of this raid was to disrupt Union troops in the area, resupply and recruit.  They reached Paducah, Kentucky on March 25^th 1864 and occupied the town.  Union troops in the town under the command of Colonel Stephen G Hicks, numbering around 650 men withdrew into Fort Anderson on the west side of Paducah.  Forrest tried to get the Union men to surrender, telling them "... if I have to storm your works, you may expect no quarter."  But with support of two gunboats on the Ohio River, Hicks would not surrender.

With Hicks men bottled up in the Fort, the Confederates rounded up horse and mules, and loaded Union Army supplies into wagons, destroying anything they couldn't take.  Some of Forrest’s men decided to attack the Fort, but they were repulsed with heavy casualties.

The River Town

Paducah, Kentucky is located at the mouth of the Tennessee River, and was a strategic point for Union supplies along the Ohio, Mississippi, and Tennessee River systems.

In a response to the Confederate’s occupation of Columbus, Kentucky, Union General Ulysses S Grant’s forces took the town on September 6th 1861, in a bloodless takeover. To protect the town the Union troops built Fort Anderson. Due to Paducah’s location it played a important role in the Western Theater during the Civil War.