Forrest's Memphis Raid: Attack Before Breakfast

In the predawn hours of August twenty-first, eighteen sixty-four, roughly two thousand Confederate cavalry rode out of the Mississippi darkness toward a city held by six thousand Union troops. Their commander was Nathan Bedford Forrest, and this was not a conventional military assault. It was a raid designed to humiliate, disrupt, and above all to pull Union forces away from northern Mississippi, where they were threatening Confederate supply lines.

Forrest's riders approached through thick fog before sunrise. Claiming to be a Union patrol returning with prisoners, they eliminated the sentries at the outskirts of the city. Then they galloped into the streets of Memphis and split into groups pursuing three separate objectives: capture three Union generals in their quarters, free Southern prisoners from Irving Block Prison, and cause enough chaos to force a recall of Federal forces from Mississippi.

The raid produced more chaos than results. One of the targeted generals was not in his quarters. Another escaped through a back door in his nightshirt. The attack on Irving Block Prison stalled when Union troops blocked the main approach. After roughly two hours of shooting through the streets of a stunned city, Forrest ordered a withdrawal. His men cut telegraph wires, rounded up five hundred prisoners, and seized horses and supplies before riding back out.

By conventional measures, the raid failed. No generals were captured. The prison was not liberated. But Forrest's strategic goal was achieved: Union commanders recalled their forces from northern Mississippi to reinforce Memphis. For two hours on an August morning, Confederate cavalry had ridden freely through a major Union-occupied city.