Work for Giants

Fighting Nathan Bedford Forrest in North Mississippi

During the summer of 1864, a Union column commanded by Maj. Gen. Andrew Jackson Smith set out from Tennessee with a goal that had proven impossible in all prior attempts—to find and defeat the cavalry under the command of Confederate major general Nathan Bedford Forrest. Forrest’s cavalry was the greatest threat to the long supply line feeding Sherman’s Union armies as they advanced on Atlanta.

Joined by reinforcements led by Lt. Gen. Stephen Dill Lee, Forrest and his men were confident, and their morale had never been higher. However, for two weeks, Smith outmarched, outfought, and outmaneuvered the team of Lee and Forrest. In three days of bitter fighting, culminating in the battle at Harrisburg, the Confederates suffered a staggering defeat. Work for Giants focuses on the details of this overlooked campaign and the efforts, postbattle and postwar, to minimize the outcome and consequences of this important Union victory.

Thomas E. Parson is a park ranger at the Corinth Civil War Interpretive Center, a unit of Shiloh National Military Park. He is also the author of Bear Flag and Bay State in the Civil War: The Californians of the Second Massachusetts Cavalry.