Brices Cross Roads National Battlefield Site memorializes the Battle of Brice's Cross Roads, in which a U.S. Army force was defeated by a smaller Confederate force commanded by Major-General Nathan Bedford Forrest on June 10, 1864, but nonetheless secured Union supply lines between Nashville and Chattanooga, Tennessee.
The 1-acre site is a grassy park with a flagpole, a memorial monument, and two cannons. There are no visitor services; information is provided at the visitor center for the Natchez Trace Parkway 15 miles south. The monument and site are very similar to that at Tupelo National Battlefield.
The Brices Cross Roads National Battlefield Site, in Lee County, Mississippi, preserves the battlefield at Brices Cross Roads, which extended northward into southwestern Prentiss County. This is the spot where the Brice family house once stood. It is located about 6 miles (10 km) west of Baldwyn, on Highway 370. The site features a memorial erected soon after the battlefield was designated as a historic site in 1929. In addition, on June 11, 2005, a second memorial was dedicated to Confederate Capt. John W. Morton, Chief of Artillery, and his battery. Brices Cross Roads is the only component of the National Park System designated a "battlefield site".
The modern Bethany Presbyterian Church is located on the southeast side of the crossroads. At the time of the battle, this congregation's meeting house was located further south along Baldwyn Road. The Old Bethany Cemetery, adjacent to the battlefield site, predates the American Civil War. Many of the area's earliest settlers were buried there. The graves of more than 90 Confederate soldiers killed in the battle are also located in this cemetery. U.S. Army soldiers killed in the battle were buried in common graves on the battlefield but were later reinterred in the Memphis National Cemetery at Memphis, Tennessee.
The Brices Cross Roads Visitor Center, located in Baldwyn, is owned and operated by a public commission. Brices Cross Roads National Battlefield Commission, Inc., formed in 1994 by residents, is also involved in protecting the greater battlefield. With assistance from the American Battlefield Trust and the support of federal, state, and local governments, the commission has purchased for preservation 1,500 acres (6.1 km2) of the original battlefield.
The site was established on February 21, 1929, and transferred from the United States Department of War to the National Park Service on August 10, 1933. The battlefield was automatically listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966. It is administered under the Natchez Trace Parkway.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
This page covers Battle of Brices Crossroads – Tishomingo Creek. A full Aubrey report for the area pulls together this battle alongside historic sites, land records, and everything else the record holds within a few miles:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
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