Civil War Trail Preview

Near McFarland Park was the site of the Florence steamboat landing—head of steamboat navigation on the Tennessee River. Upstream of this point, the Muscle Shoals prevented virtually all river craft from ascending any higher upriver. Below this point, the river connected to an astonishingly extensive transportation network through the Ohio and Mississippi River systems.

Late in December 1864, following the disastrous Confederate defeats at Franklin and Nashville
and their subsequent retreat out of Middle Tennessee, the Confederate Army of Tennessee
removed south of the Tennessee River and all but ceased to be an organized fighting force. By
New Year's Day 1865, Union forces held sway north of the Tennessee River and would retain
control through to the end of war. After halting their pursuit of the rebel General John Bell Hood
at the river’s edge in Lauderdale County, Alabama, Federal cavalry forces under command of
Brevet Major-General James Harrison Wilson made their headquarters at Gravelly Springs in
January 1865 and spent the rest of the winter in camps preparing for a renewed spring
campaign.
Over the upcoming weeks, six cavalry divisions — amounting to between approximately 22,000
and 27,000 men — spread out their encampments for ten miles along the Waterloo Road
between Gravelly Springs and Waterloo in what has been estimated as the largest gathering of
cavalry in the history of the Western Hemisphere. After a series of delays, by March 22, 1865,
three divisions of Wilson’s corps were again on the move. What resulted was a momentous raid,
known to history as Wilson’s Raid, which would lead to not only the burning of the University of
Alabama, the destruction of the famed rebel arsenal at Selma, the surrender of General Nathan
Bedford Forrest, and occupation of the State Capitol (and symbolic birthplace of the
Confederacy) at Montgomery, but the capture of Confederate President Jefferson Davis in the
final days of the war. Less than 14,000 of the men encamped at Gravelly Springs, however,
would ultimately participate in Wilson’s Raid in the spring of 1865.

Shoal Creek begins near Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, and winds its way south into Lauderdale County, Alabama, near Green Hill. In the community today known as Happy Hollow, a bridge carried the Military Road across Shoal Creek. Here was located the factory of Baugh, Kennedy and Company. Near the creek’s mouth at the Tennessee River, a bridge carried the Huntsville Road across.

On November 5, 1864, Confederates attacked the United States cavalry commanded by John T. Croxton all along the line of Shoal Creek. Croxton was outflanked, driven from his position on the Huntsville Road bridge, and fell back to Four Mile Creek. Further up the creek at Baugh’s Factory, Col. Clift was also outflanked and retreated towards Lexington. United States soldier John McCartey, who was wounded in the fighting on November 5, 1864, recalled more than ten years later his experience after being left behind in the hands of southern civilians.

Lying on the Memphis and Charleston Railroad between Corinth and Tuscumbia, and in close proximity to the Tennessee River above Colbert’s Shoals at Chickasaw (Riverton), Cherokee sat astride two vital transportation corridors. As a result, the community was visited early in the war and frequently by both armies. Events were especially active in the Spring of 1863, with the Federal Army’s stronghold at Corinth, Mississippi, acting as a base of operations, supporting Streight’s Raid in April 1863. And in October 1863, as William Tecumseh Sherman moved east in the direction of Chattanooga, skirmishes raged in the vicinity, resulting in the engagement at Little Bear Creek. A calmer period followed between the end of 1863 and the end of 1864. Finally, in the closing days of the war, Wilson’s cavalry crossed south of the Tennessee River from their winter encampment at Gravelly Springs, en route to the raid on the University of Alabama and Selma.