April 17, 1863---Grierson's Raid

APRIL 17, 1863:         

Grierson’s Raid:    

Up until this time in the war, Confederate cavalry commanders such as Nathan Bedford Forrest, John Hunt Morgan, and J.E.B. Stuart had ridden circles around the Union, sometimes literally. It was time to out-do the Confederates in cavalry expeditions. The task fell to Col. Benjamin Grierson, a former music teacher who, oddly enough, hated horses after being kicked in the head by one as a child. Grierson and his 1,700 horse troopers rode over six hundred miles through hostile territory (from southern Tennessee, through the State of Mississippi and to Union-held Baton Rouge, Louisiana), over routes no Union soldier had traveled before. They tore up railroads and burned crossties, freed slaves, burned Confederate storehouses, destroyed locomotives and commissary stores, ripped up bridges and trestles, burned buildings, and inflicted ten times the casualties they received, all while detachments of his troops made feints confusing the Confederates as to his actual whereabouts and direction. The Raid ended on May 2^nd.