Forrest's Murfreesboro Raid, July 13, 1862

The jail and the courthouse were the first targets. Confederate cavalry reached the square at daybreak, opened the jail, and set the courthouse on fire; its guards surrendered to put the flames out. Brigadier General Thomas T. Crittenden, who had arrived to command the garrison only the day before, was awakened and captured. The Third Minnesota fought on at its camp until late afternoon. Nathan Bedford Forrest, whose fortune came largely from the slave trade, left having wrecked track and stores. The raid's real effect was to pull Union forces away from a drive on Chattanooga.

What the plaque says

Forrest's Murfreesboro Raid July 13, 1862 A task force of Col. Nathan Bedford Forrest's Brigade, consisting of the 1st Georgia Battalion (Morrison) and led by Forrest in person, charged rapidly to this area at daybreak, where they overcame one company of the 9th Michigan Infantry and two companies of the 8th Kentucky Cavalry, released a number of Confederate civilian prisoners, and captured the area commander, Brig. Gen. T.T. Crittenden, and his staff, while other units of the brigade busied themselves elsewhere.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Stones River National Battlefield — 3.0 mi
  The Murfreesboro battlefield of December 1862, with a national cemetery built by Black soldiers, a Trail of Tears route and the story of the freedmen's settlement called Cemetery.
• Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration — 25 mi
  The Shelbyville show grounds where the Tennessee Walking Horse has been crowned world grand champion each late summer since 1939, and where the practice of soring is part of the story.
• Henry Horton State Park — 25 mi
  A Duck River park on Governor Henry Horton's former farm in Marshall County, with a mill ruin from 1845, kayak floats and the grave of a governor the House declined to impeach.
• Fort Negley — 30 mi
  The largest inland stone fort of the Civil War, built in 1862 on St. Cloud Hill by more than 2,700 conscripted Black laborers, hundreds of whom died.

More markers nearby

• Morgan's Wedding — steps away
• Hardy Murfree — steps away
• Grantland Rice — steps away
• James Daniel Richardson — steps away