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12. Union City
- Louisiana State University Press
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1. OR, 32(3):117–19, 593–94; Lonnie E. Maness, “A Ruse That Worked: The Capture of Union City in 1864,” WTHSP 30 (1976): 93–94; TICW, 1:335; ORS, 65:528, 530; Proclamation Ordering Elections, Jan. 26, 1864, PAJ, 6:594–96; John Houston Bills Diary, Mar. 5, 1864, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. CHAPTER 12 Union City I n mid-March 1864 General Forrest, hoping to increase his army by collecting deserters, conscripts, and coming-of-age volunteers, left Mississippi on an expedition into West Tennessee and western Kentucky. Along the way he would seize supplies and horses, disrupt the enemy’s lines of communication , and boost civilian morale by punishing Tennessee Tories. Since January Colonel Hurst had carried out his “roving commission” from Sooy Smith to “grup up” West Tennessee, and since February Maj. William F. Bradford’s new battalion at Fort Pillow had harassed citizens east to Brownsville. Of course threats and worse assailed known unionists. At Bolivar Forrest’s scouts posted warnings against any citizen voting in the county election called for March 5 by Governor Johnson.1 At Purdy, according to Maj. Charles W. Anderson, Forrest’s chief of staff, Hurst and his cavalry had “laid in ashes the homes of absent Confederate soldiers ” along with those of “a number of [its] citizens . . . in sympathy with the South.” One young woman who tied the fire to the loss of “the only pair of horses in town which belonged to [Colonel] Hurst,” wrote that the unionist’s victims had “lived in the churches & [the] college.” They probably found refuge in the wooden Methodist sanctuary, the brick Presbyterian sanctuary, and the “two-story brick” college called Purdy University. The “substantial frame structure” of the Baptist church had burned earlier. Since two regiments of Forrest’s army included soldiers from McNairy County, the general feared that the men would torch Hurst’s house, as well as those of innocent unionists, and Union City 197 2. Charles W. Anderson, “Gen. Forrest among Civilians,” CV 3 (Apr. 1895): 106; Emma Inman Williams, ed., “Hettie Wisdom Tapp’s Memoirs,” WTHSP 36 (1982): 123; Adams, “Old Purdy,” 10–13. 3. OR, 32(3):117, 119; Richard L. Fuchs, An Unerring Fire: The Massacre at Fort Pillow (Mechanicsburg , Pa., 2002), 24–25, 39; Alderson, “Reminiscences of John Johnston,” THQ 13 (Dec. 1954): 330. 4. Grant to Joseph E. Johnston, Feb. 26, 1864, in Ulysses S. Grant, The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, ed. John Y. Simon, 18 vols. (Carbondale, Ill., 1967–1991), 10:155–56; W. W. Herron, “A History of Lambuth College,” WTHSP 10 (1956): 28. thus foment further damage to Purdy by Hurst and others. So in accordance with community leaders (with whom he met), Forrest issued orders to prevent the destruction of property. Much to the gratitude of Melocky Hurst—“a kind person [with] many friends”—Forrest sent Anderson ahead with a guard to Hurst’s house. The general in turn promised town leaders that if he caught Hurst and his men, he would “wipe them off the face of the earth.”2 At Jackson, partly in response to additional complaints about Hurst, Forrest declared, “Fielding Hurst, and . . . his command of outlaws, are not entitled to be treated as prisoners of war [if] falling into the hands of the forces of the Confederate States.” He also heard from an angry delegation of Brownsville citizens. They accused Tennessee Tories from Fort Pillow, on the Mississippi River forty miles above Memphis, of riding through the countryside with only “the pretense of scouring . . . for arms and ‘rebel soldiers.’” Instead they spent their time “robbing the people of their horses, mules, beef cattle . . . , money, and every . . . article of value.” They also accused the unionists of mistreating “the wives and daughters of Southern soldiers” by making them victims of “their hate and lust.” They wanted Forrest to leave behind a brigade to protect them against those outlaws.3 The general knew that deserters and men avoiding conscription had taken refuge at the fort as members of Bradford’s Battalion, some of whom had been captured and threatened with execution by the Confederacy. Major Bradford had imprisoned a few Confederates at the fort, including for a while the Reverend George W. D. Harris of Dyersburg, the sixty-seven-year-old presiding elder of the Memphis Conference of the Methodist Church and older brother of governor-in-exile Isham Harris (who accompanied Forrest). More important militarily to Forrest than the depredations...