Van Dorn Captures Holly Springs

Van Dorn Captures Holly Springs. Stop 6 Van Dorn Raid:. General Van Dorn advised Colonel Griffith of the Texas Brigade: "Take care that you do not find a hornet's nest at the square!" Griffith led his brigade westward down Depot Street (Van Dorn Avenue) to the Town Square, ushered by Rebel yells and the warning "Clear the street darn your souls, here comes your wild Texas boys!" A Union officer, who was quartered in the Strickland and Fant law office just south of this corner, recalled that he hurriedly dressed, ran outside, and glanced around this corner to see Southerners galloping toward him. Shots were fired; bullets clipped the bricks over the officer's head; and he ran down Market Street to the city cemetery. A member of the 101st Illinois band, who was lodged in the same building, said, "I looked down the street toward the railroad depot, and saw what seemed to be a herd of wild buffalo, snorting, mad, all headed toward me at the rate of a mile a minute, yelling bellowing and shouting, bullets whistling around my head." The Texans charged into the Town Square, and, in just minutes, Griffith sent word to Van Dorn, "The hornet's nest is ours!" , After securing the Town Square, Griffith sent the 6th and 9th Texas south of town to guard the road to Oxford. The 27th Texas remained in the square to guard the Union prisoners. While approximately 1,500 prisoners were signing paroles, Van Dorn addressed the problem of the destruction of a vast amount of munitions and supplies. The Federals had filled the courthouse, the three-story Masonic temple on the east side of the square, an adjacent large brick livery stable, and many other large buildings and houses on or near the square to capacity with weaponry and munitions. The Confederates laboriously piled munitions in the streets for detonation, but the exploding shells soon spread fires to nearby buildings. The explosions broke nearly every window in town, and the whole east block of the square was destroyed. The unfinished Presbyterian Church, just south of the square on Memphis Street, was also used for munitions storage and narrowly escaped destruction.