The Holly Springs Raid (December 20, 1862) saw Earl Van Dorn lead Confederate cavalry against a Union supply depot at Holly Springs, Mississippi during the American Civil War. The mounted raiders achieved complete surprise, capturing the Federal garrison and destroying $1.5 million of supplies intended for Ulysses S. Grant's army. In the following days, Van Dorn's troopers moved north along the Mississippi Central Railroad almost to Bolivar, Tennessee, destroying track and bridges, before escaping into northern Mississippi. The damage inflicted by the Holly Springs Raid together with the harm caused by Nathan Bedford Forrest's West Tennessee Raids forced Grant's Union army to withdraw to Memphis. Additionally, both Van Dorn and Forrest's raids obstructed the full implementation of Grant's controversial General Order No. 11 for weeks, preventing many Jewish people from being expelled from Grant's military district.
After Van Dorn's defeat in the Second Battle of Corinth on October 3–4, 1862, Confederate President Jefferson Davis named John C. Pemberton to lead the Department of Mississippi and East Louisiana and elevated him in rank to Lieutenant General. The promotion made Pemberton superior to Van Dorn. On October 25, Grant assumed command of the Department of Tennessee and a week later he started the Vicksburg campaign. By the end of October, Grant massed almost 50,000 Federal troops around Memphis and Corinth, Mississippi. Grant planned to move south along the Mississippi Central Railroad with 40,000 troops. As he awaited approval from Union General-in-chief Henry Halleck, Grant began concentrating five divisions at Grand Junction, Tennessee. When Halleck endorsed the plan and told Grant that 20,000 additional reinforcements were forthcoming, Grant decided to wait for the new troops. However, he sent James B. McPherson ahead with two divisions. Though a recent prisoner exchange swelled Van Dorn's strength to 24,000 troops, many of his soldiers were in poor health and the onset of cold weather increased the sick list.
On November 9, Van Dorn withdrew from Holly Springs to a new defensive line behind the Tallahatchie River. On December 1, Grant pressed forward again. A Federal force under Alvin Peterson Hovey steamed down the Mississippi River, landed at Greenville, Mississippi, and marched inland toward the railroad. Van Dorn retreated behind the Yalobusha River covering Grenada, only 120 mi (193 km) north of Vicksburg. At this time, Lieutenant Colonel John S. Griffiths of the 6th Texas Cavalry Regiment suggested raiding Grant's supply base at Holly Springs. Pemberton liked the idea and gave Van Dorn three brigades of cavalry to attempt the raid. He assigned Van Dorn's corps to Dabney H. Maury.
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.
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