Battle for Lexington

Battle for Lexington. Ingersoll's Last Stand. , Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest led his cavalry brigade on a raid through West Tennessee, Dec. 15, 1862-Jan 3, 1863, destroying railroads and severing Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s supply line between Columbus, Kentucky, and Vicksburg, Mississippi. Forrest crossed the Tennessee River at Clifton, defeated Union Col. Robert G. Ingersoll’s cavalry at Lexington, captured Trenton and Union City, and ranged briefly into Kentucky. He raided back through Tennessee, evaded defeat at Parker’s Cross Roads, and crossed the river again at Clifton. Grant changed his supply base to Memphis.

Near this site on December 18, 1862, Col. Robert G. Ingersoll surrendered to Capt. Frank B. Gurley, of Gen. Nathan B. Forrest’s brigade, ending the battle for Lexington. Ingersoll commanded his own regiment, the 11th Illinois Cavalry, as well as the 2nd West Tennessee Cavalry, the 5th Ohio Cavalry, and a two-gun section of the 14th Indiana Battery. He posted most of his command on the Old Stage Road from Lexington and sent two companies of the 2nd West Tennessee to block the Lower Road against Forrest’s advance. When the Federal units encountered the Confederates, on Ingersoll’s orders they fell back toward Beech Creek. Ingersoll slowed Forrest’s advance with his artillery, but soon the Confederates drove the 2nd Tennessee back up the Lower Road and threatened to flank Ingersoll’s position overlooking the creek. Ingersoll ordered his guns to retire while part of the 11th Illinois charged to push back the Confederate onslaught. For a moment, the cavalrymen succeeded, but soon Ingersoll’s position was virtually encircled. The guns were overrun, and Ingersoll was taken prisoner along with about 150 other Federals.

Ingersoll, who was among the nation’s foremost orators after the war, accepted his capture with good grace. As Gurley held him at gunpoint, Ingersoll asked, “Is this your Southern Confederacy for which I have so diligently searched?” Informed that it was, he replied, “Then I am your guest until the wheels of the great (prisoner exchange) Cartel are put in motion.” Ingersoll was paroled three days later, after he learned the finer points of draw poker from one of his captors. He lost $50 that a Confederate soldier loaned him but repaid it thirty years later. Forrest and his brigade rode on toward Jackson.

(Inscriptions under the photos in the lower center) , Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, postwar photograph-Courtesy Library of Congress; Capt. Frank B. Gurley, from Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest (1899)