11^th hour strikes at Okolona, Brice’s Crossroads and Tupelo.

In 1864, after the capture of Vicksburg, Sherman determined to advance east to the rail line at Meridian, and then, perhaps, south to Mobile. To that end, he ordered Union General William Sooy Smith to leave Memphis immediately and meet him at Meridian. Smith delayed, however, and then picking up escaped slaves as he moved south, chose to fight at Aberdeen and Prairie Station, and skirmished at Ellis Bridge in West Point, before Confederate Colonel Jeffrey Forrest finally drew Union forces into a swamp at Okolona, near the Tombigbee River, and with aid from the reinforcements of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, ultimately forced a Union retreat.

Later that same year, General Forrest determined that he would advance north into middle Tennessee to strike at the line carrying supplies to Sherman’s army in Georgia. Although Sherman sent a much larger Union column under General Samuel Sturgis to head off the attack, Forrest achieved a resounding success at the Battle of Brice’s Crossroad, a victory that helped to solidify the Confederate’s reputation.

A month later, Sherman ordered General A.J. Smith out of LaGrange to stop Forrest and protect the Union lifeline. When he reached Pontotoc, Forrest was in nearby Okolona. His commander was Lt. General Stephen D. Lee, the officer who had been in charge at Fort Sumpter when the first shots of the Civil War were fired. Lee advised against attack without reinforcements. Smith moved to Tupelo, where Lee launched a number of unsuccessful advances. Although he didn’t destroy Forrest’s army, Smith effectively vanquished the threat to Sherman’s lines, and the Battle of Tupelo signaled the beginning of the end of the war in the west.

There were many other skirmishes in the Hills, more than 100 in and around the Corinth area, 60 different raids in Holly Springs alone. For example, after they left Holly Springs on their most famous raid, Van Dorn’s cavalry came to grief against a smaller but well-prepared Union contingent at Davis Mill. When Grant made his final advance on Vicksburg, he employed a former music teacher to harass and confuse Confederate forces with a massive cavalry raid through the region. A man who hated horses after being kicked in the head by one as a child, Colonel Benjamen Grierson was nevertheless (or perhaps because of that) a ruthlessly effective cavalry leader. Beginning in LaGrange, Tennessee, just above the state line, the infamous Grierson’s Raid through the Mississippi Hills left smoldering towns and charred hunks of bridges in its wake, becoming infamous in the state and later famous in Hollywood after the release of the John Wayne-William Holden film The Horse Soldiers, which was inspired—very loosely—by the raid.