Decatur was a Civil War engagement fought in Alabama, 1864. It was a Union victory.
As Gen. John B. Hood began the Franklin-Nashville Campaign during the fall of 1864, his Army of Tennessee demonstrated against Decatur, Alabama, October 26-29, in an attempt to cross the Tennessee River. Union forces, under the command of Brig. Gen. Robert S. Granger for most of the battle, numbered only about 5,000 men, but successfully prevented the much larger Confederate force from crossing the river.
As Hood pushed his forces across the northern reaches of Alabama, he set his sights on carrying the fight into Tennessee, territory then held by Union troops. His army had pulled out from the area around Atlanta, Georgia, heading northwest in late September 1864, in hopes that wrecking Union supply lines would draw Major-General William T. Sherman's forces into a decisive engagement. Sherman chased Hood as far as Gaylesville, Alabama, before abandoning the pursuit, turning his army back toward Atlanta, and opting instead to march through Georgia toward the sea. Tennessee's defense he entrusted to Thomas, stationed at Nashville.
On October 22, Hood set out from Gadsden, Alabama, aiming for Guntersville, Alabama, the spot he intended to use for crossing the Tennessee River. Word soon reached him through cavalry Brigadier-General Phillip Roddey, however, that this crossing point was heavily defended, whereas Decatur, some forty miles to the west, was supposedly held by only a light guard. Worried that Union gunboats might destroy whatever pontoon bridge he attempted to lay down, and lacking Forrest's cavalry to scout ahead and provide him with information, Hood decided to redirect his march toward Decatur instead.
Arriving at Decatur on October 26, Hood discovered that the town's defenses were far stronger than Roddey had estimated. Rather than a modest garrison, a Federal infantry force numbering between 3,000 and 5,000 men held an entrenched line anchored by two forts and stretching across 1,600 yards of rifle pits, with a pair of Federal gunboats keeping watch on the river. From Nashville, General George Thomas responded by dispatching supplies and reinforcements while ordering that Decatur be defended "to the last extremity."
By October 27, Hood had begun positioning his troops as they came up, gradually surrounding the town. The Union side, meanwhile, kept feeding fresh reinforcements into Decatur, and these troops arrived just in time to plug openings in lines that had started to falter.
Fog blanketed the field the following morning when Hood pushed Confederate skirmishers forward to a ravine sitting within 800 yards of the main Union works. The advantage did not last. Around midday, a Federal regiment counterattacked, driving the skirmishers back out of the ravine and taking 125 of them prisoner.
Facing hungry troops and dwindling supplies, Hood recognized that his army could not absorb the losses a large-scale attack would bring, so he abandoned the idea of storming Decatur and set his sights on crossing the Tennessee River at another point. He led his men further west instead, ultimately fording the river near Tuscumbia, Alabama, where the shoals at Muscle Shoals kept the Federal gunboats from interfering.
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