Battle of Sacramento (Kentucky)
The Battle of Sacramento was an engagement of the American Civil War that took place in Sacramento, Kentucky on December 28, 1861. Confederate cavalry under Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest, numbering between 200 and 300, attacked, encircled and defeated a Union force of 500 under Major Eli H. Murray which had been watering south of the town after moving across the bank of the Green River. Though exact casualty information is disputed, with differing accounts from each side, several eyewitnesses attested to the personal courage of Forrest, and the Confederate commander was praised by his superiors for his bravery.
Overview of the site of the Battle of Sacramento, located off the western side of Kentucky Routes 81/85 just south of the city of Sacramento, Kentucky
Major Murray
Colonel Forrest
Nathan Bedford Forrest was a Confederate Army general during the American Civil War and was later the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan from 1867 to 1869.
Nathan Bedford Forrest
Nathan Bedford Forrest Boyhood Home, Chapel Hill, Tennessee (2021)
"N. B. Forrest – Before the War" from Andrew Nelson Lytle's Bedford Forrest and His Critter Company (1931)
N. B. Forrest, his 15-year-old son W. M. Forrest, and his 25-year-old brother Jeffrey E. Forrest all enlisted in the Confederate States Army on the same day ("Capt. William M. Forrest With a Group of the Members of Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest's Staff" Memphis Commercial Appeal, February 9, 1908)
