JANUARY 27, 1864:
The
Battle of Fair Garden, Tennessee. After maintaining control of some Tennessee
territory after the Battle of Dandridge on the 17th, General James
Longstreet had been sending out pickets in the region to extend his toehold
into a bridgehead. On this day, Confederate and Union cavalry forces met on the
road near Fair Garden. The battle became a classic (and bloody) 19th
Century sabre charge on horseback, in which the North lost 100 men and the
South 165. The Federals chased the Confederates nearly out of the State, but
the Union cavalry commander broke off the attack when he came within sight of
Longstreet’s large main body.
