Brice's Crossroad Mississippi

The Battle of Brice's Crossroads was fought on June 10, 1864, near Baldwyn, Mississippi. It pitted a 4,787-man contingent led by Confederate Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest against an 8,100-strong Union force led by Brigadier General Samuel D. Sturgis. The battle ended in a rout of the Union forces and cemented Forrest's reputation as one of the great cavalrymen.

The battle remains a textbook example of an outnumbered force prevailing through better tactics, terrain mastery, and aggressive offensive action. Despite this, the Confederates gained little through the victory other than temporarily keeping the Union out of Alabama and Mississippi.

Although the hubster and I aren't big fans of Nathan Bedford Forrest by any means (mainly because of his ill treatment of African Americans and because of a certain organization he founded) we were excited to see Brice's Crossroads because of the seemingly impossible victory Forrest led his men to there. That's why we were disappointed when we got there only to find the visitors center closed that day. Without the information from the visitor center all you really see is a couple of cannons and a monument at an intersection.

 

Nonetheless, we got out of our trusty Nissan Pathfinder and toured the small lot. I pulled out my voice recorder and attempted to make contact with the spirits I could feel hovering around. Although we were there less than ten minutes, I got the voice of a young male spirit saying, "Bring me my father." And an EVP of another male saying, "Nothing good was done in that group."

This is a battlefield we'll be returning to on a day when the visitors center is open. It gives us a good excuse to head down to Mississippi again so we can follow the burger trail and try a slug burger. (We're told no slugs are harmed in the making of a slug burger, so don't worry.)