The Battle of Okolona

Brigadier-General William Sooy Smith’s 7,000 Federals continued their withdrawal toward Memphis the day after skirmishing with Major-General Nathan Bedford Forrest’s 2,500 Confederates near West Point, Mississippi. Forrest pursued, and near dawn on February 22 his advance elements attacked Smith’s rear guard in “the prairie,” an open field about four miles south of Okolona. As Confederate reinforcements joined the fray, they charged and drove the Federals through town.

Smith organized a defense line a mile north of Okolona, but another Confederate charge broke it. The Federals fell back another mile and tried to make a stand, only to be pushed back again. Smith finally halted his troopers in woods on Ivey’s Farm, about seven miles northwest of Okolona.

The Confederate cavalrymen dismounted and charged the new Federal line, but they were repulsed; Forrest’s brother, Colonel Jeffrey E. Forrest, was killed in the assault. General Forrest had two horses shot from under him during the fight. The Confederates charged a second time while trying to turn Smith’s right flank, but this failed as well.

Smith then ordered a counterattack, but the numerically inferior Confederates fought it off. They also repulsed a second countercharge, using their sabers when they ran out of ammunition. Smith finally ordered his troopers to continue withdrawing toward Pontotoc. Forrest did not pursue due to exhaustion and lack of ammunition. The 11-mile running skirmish was over.

Despite losing his brother, this was one of Forrest’s greatest victories because he soundly defeated an enemy force nearly three times his size. Forrest lost 110 men (25 killed, 75 wounded, and 10 missing) at Okolona and 144 total in the three-day span of February 20-22. His Confederates seized three stands of colors during that time.

Smith lost 388 men (54 killed, 179 wounded, and 155 missing) at Okolona. His troopers nearly starved on their way back to Tennessee because they had ravaged the countryside coming into Mississippi. Smith reported that his men had captured 200 Confederates, freed about 3,000 slaves, and burned 2,000 bales of cotton.

But Smith failed to achieve his main goal, which was to link with Major-General William T. Sherman’s Army of the Tennessee at Meridian. This caused Sherman to call off his plan to advance on the factory town of Selma, Alabama, and for this, Sherman called Smith’s effort “unsatisfactory.” After hearing nothing from Smith for several days, Sherman decided to take his army back west to Vicksburg. Smith eventually returned to Collierville in western Tennessee, and both Federal commands ended up back where they started.

The Confederates were glad to have contained Sherman’s campaign within the Vicksburg-Meridian corridor. Lieutenant-General Leonidas Polk, commanding the Army of Mississippi, issued congratulations to his troops:

“The concentration of our cavalry on the enemy’s column of cavalry from West Tennessee formed the turning point of the campaign. That concentration broke down his only means of subsisting his infantry. His column was defeated and routed, and his whole force compelled to make a hasty retreat. Never did a grand campaign, inaugurated with such pretention, terminate more ingloriously. With a force three times that which was opposed to its advance, they have been defeated and forced to leave the field with a loss of men, small arms and artillery.”

The Federal high command next looked to conquer western Louisiana and eastern Texas, and secure that region’s 500,000 cotton bales. Major-General Ulysses S. Grant, commanding the Military Division of the Mississippi, directed Sherman to send 10,000 troops to Major-General Nathaniel P. Banks’s Army of the Gulf, which would be conducting the campaign. Sherman would then meet with Grant to develop plans to advance into northern Georgia and capture Atlanta.

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Bibliography

• Foote, Shelby, The Civil War, A Narrative: Fredericksburg to Meridian. New York: Vintage Civil War Library, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group (Kindle Edition), 2011.
• Long, E.B. with Long, Barbara, The Civil War Day by Day. New York: Da Capo Press, Inc., 1971.
• Pollard, Edward A., Southern History of the War (facsimile of the 1866 edition). New York: Fairfax Press, 1990.
• Stanchak, John E. (Patricia L. Faust ed.), Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War. New York: Harper & Row, 1986.