The First Time In Town

In Rutherford County, Tennessee on July 13th 1862 the First Battle of Murfreesboro was fought.


Union Major General Don Carlos Buell started his Army of the Ohio toward Chattanooga, Tennessee from Corinth, Mississippi on June 10th 1862. In response to this Union threat, Confederate Brigadier General Nathan Bedford Forrest moved to Chattanooga. In early July Confederate cavalry under Forrest and Colonel John Hunt Morgan began raiding around Middle Tennessee and Kentucky.

On July 9th 1862 Forrest took two cavalry regiments and left Chattanooga. He met up with some other Confederate units, making his total force about 1,400 men. The target was the Union supply depot on the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Union troops under Brigadier General Thomas Turpin Crittenden where garrisoned in three location around the town of Murfreesboro. They were made up of parts of four companies of infantry, cavalry and artillery. In the early morning of July 13th 1862 Forrest’s cavalry engaged Union picket east of Murfreesboro, and then overran a Union hospital and the camp of the 9th Pennsylvania Cavalry. The Confederate soldiers then moved onto the Union troops at the Murfreesboro’s jail and courthouse. By that afternoon all of the Union troops had surrendered, a total of about 1,000 men. The Confederates destroyed the railroad tracks and most of the Union supplies. The Confederates lost about 150 men.