Guntown: Near the Battle of Brice's Cross Roads

Guntown itself is a small railroad community founded in eighteen sixty-six, but the surrounding land carries a larger story. On June tenth, eighteen sixty-four, about six miles northwest of here at a spot called Brice's Cross Roads, Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest led thirty-five hundred cavalry against a Union force of about eight thousand soldiers. In a matter of hours, Forrest routed the Federal column, capturing sixteen artillery pieces, more than fifteen hundred prisoners, and enormous quantities of supplies.

Historians regard Brice's Cross Roads as one of the most tactically brilliant cavalry victories in American military history. The battle is sometimes called the Battle of Guntown. A small national battlefield site commemorates it today.