Although the Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest had been defeated and wounded at Tupelo, his cavalry unit was still a danger to the Federals, operating in the Union Army’s rear areas and raiding supply centers, railroad stations and isolated garrisons. A month after his unsuccessful battle at Tupelo, Forrest planned another daring raid against the Federals. This time his target was Memphis.
For those who don't know, I live in a converted campervan and am traveling around the country, posting photo diaries of places that I have visited. :)
When the Union Army captured Nashville in February 1862, the Confederate state’s capitol was moved to Memphis, which was an important river port as well as Tennessee’s largest city. In June 1862, the Union Navy moved against the port as part of the Anaconda blockade. On June 6, a Federal fleet of 18 ships with 80 guns faced off against a Confederate flotilla of 8 ships and 18 guns. The Battle of Memphis was over in just 90 minutes, with 7 of the 8 Southern ships sunk. A force of Union troops came ashore and occupied the city, hanging the US flag from the roof of the Post Office building. Within a short time, Fort Pickering had been built, and the city became a hospital center, with beds for over 5,000 wounded or sick soldiers. General Ulysses S Grant and General William T Sherman both had their headquarters here.
One building in Memphis, however, quickly became notorious. The Irving Block office building had been constructed just before the outbreak of war. The Confederates had used it as a hospital, but when the Federals occupied Memphis they decided that the building—with its iron-slatted windows—was better suited for another purpose; it became a prison, used to hold both captured Confederate troopers and civilian secessionists, including the city’s former Mayor.
However, under the occupation government of General Stephen Hurlbut, the Irving Block Prison became the center of a vast extortion racket. One of Hurlbut’s duties was to root out the underground market for contraband Confederate cotton, which was being illegally sold in the city and the profits smuggled back to the Confederacy. But Hurlbut quickly turned the anti-smuggling campaign into a crooked and corrupt scam. At first, he simply arrested the city’s most wealthy traders, accused them (without evidence) of smuggling, and demanding exorbitant bribes for their release. Many were held anyway even if they paid.
When Hurlbut appointed Union Army Captain George Williams as the commandant at the prison, things got worse. Not only did Williams also begin extorting bribes from the family members of prisoners, but much of the money slated towards caring for the POWs and detainees disappeared into corrupt pockets, and conditions inside the prison soon turned wretched. There were about 1200 Confederate POWs (and a handful of Federal troops who were awaiting court-martial) inside the prison, as well as 100 or so civilians who were deemed “dangerous”. They received little food or medical care, and many were chained in their cells 24 hours a day, denied even trips to the bathroom. City residents began calling it “The Bastille”.
By April 1864 the corruption and horrible conditions inside the Irving Block Prison had become so widely-known that an investigation was launched by the Union Army’s Office of the Judge Advocate General, which reported to President Lincoln that, “The prison … is represented as the filthiest place the inspector ever saw occupied by human beings. The whole management and government of the prison could not be worse.” The Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, removed Captain Williams as commandant, but soon afterwards General Grant intervened on his behalf, and Williams was reinstated.
Meanwhile, rumors of the conditions inside the prison had spread throughout the Confederacy, and in August 1864 Confederate General Forrest decided to act. With 1500 cavalry, Forrest moved stealthily towards Memphis. Outnumbered four to one by the 6,000 Federal occupation troops there, he could not hope to capture the city, but he did have the goals of attacking the prison and releasing the prisoners there, and raiding the headquarters buildings used by Hurlbut and by the Union General Cadwallader Washburn, in an attempt to capture them. He also hoped that a raid on Memphis would force the Union to withdraw troops from Petersburg or Atlanta to reinforce the city.
The raid, which would become known as the “Second Battle of Memphis”, began at 4 in the morning on August 21. It was a foggy night, and Forrest’s troops took advantage by calling out to the Federal sentries that they were a patrol that was bringing in new Confederate POWs. Once they overpowered the pickets and entered the city, Forrest’s cavalry split into three groups.
One detachment headed for the Irving Block prison, hoping to storm the building, release the prisoners, and burn it. But they were stopped by the armed prison guards, who were quickly reinforced by nearby Union troops.
A second group made its way to the building where General Hurlbut was billeted—the Gayoso House Hotel—but the military governor was not there.
The final squadron, led by the General’s brother Lt Colonel Jesse Forrest, rode to another hotel where General Washburn had his quarters, but Washburn had already been warned and had fled on horseback, in his nightclothes, to nearby Fort Pickering. The Confederates captured only his dress uniform.
For the next two hours, while knots of soldiers fought each other in the streets of Memphis, the Confederates cut the city’s telegraph lines, burned a few buildings, and searched for the missing Union Generals. Then, as the sun came up, Forrest and his troops mounted up and left, taking 600 horses and about 500 Union prisoners along with them.
They also took General Washburn’s captured uniform coat, which Forrest mockingly returned to him the next day by messenger, after having it cleaned and pressed. When General Hurlbut was told about the raid, he was reported to have exclaimed, “They replaced me with General Washburn because I couldn’t keep Forrest out of west Tennessee—and Washburn couldn’t keep Forrest out of his own bedroom!”
After the raid, Hurlbut was removed as military governor of Memphis. Captain Williams remained in command of the prison, but now he had a change of heart and began trying to clean up the corruption and improve the conditions inside. Despite his efforts, the Irving Block Prison was ordered closed by President Lincoln in early 1865.
Today, none of the buildings that were the focus of Forrest’s raid still exist. There is a display of naval artifacts from the period at the Mississippi River Museum. When he died after the war, the Confederate General Forrest was buried in Memphis, his home town, and his grave was known as Forrest Park. In 2013 the city government voted to change the name of the park to “Health Sciences Park”, and nearby Confederate Park was renamed “Memphis Park”. The city also removed a large memorial to Forrest that had been put up by the Sons of Confederate Veterans. His gravestone is in the process of being removed: it’s not clear what will happen to his buried remains.
A few photos.
