Grierson's Raid

The raid was a diversion, and it worked. About 1,700 troopers of the 6th and 7th Illinois and 2nd Iowa Cavalry rode more than 600 miles from La Grange, Tennessee, to Baton Rouge between April 17 and May 2, 1863, while Grant moved on Vicksburg. They tore up railroads, destroyed locomotives, stores and bridges, and freed enslaved people along the way. Pemberton had few cavalry and had to tie up a whole division guarding the Vicksburg-Jackson railroad, which helped Grant's crossing at Bruinsburg go largely unopposed. Grierson lost 3 killed, 7 wounded and 9 missing.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam D. Hamilton Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge — 12 mi
  A 48,000-acre refuge of bottomland forest and lakes in Noxubee, Oktibbeha and Winston counties, rebuilt from worn-out farmland, with red-cockaded woodpeckers, alligators and winter eagles.
• Howlin' Wolf Memorial and Blues Trail Marker — 15 mi
  A Mississippi Blues Trail marker and granite memorial on East Broad Street honoring Chester Burnett, who was born nearby in 1910 and became the Chicago blues giant Howlin' Wolf.
• Waverley Mansion — 20 mi
  A National Historic Landmark mansion above the Tombigbee River, home of a plantation family that enslaved more than a hundred people, left empty for half a century before a family restored it.
• Tennessee Williams Welcome Center — 23 mi
  The 1875 Episcopal rectory where Tennessee Williams was born in 1911, moved to Main Street in the 1990s and now Columbus's welcome center and a National Literary Landmark.

More markers nearby

• Starkville — 0.8 mi
• First Presbyterian Church — 0.9 mi
• Johnny Cash "Starkville City Jail" — 0.9 mi
• "Cool Papa" Bell — 0.9 mi