The Battle of Johnsonville was fought November 4–5, 1864, in Benton and Humphreys counties, Tennessee, during the American Civil War. Confederate cavalry commander Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest culminated a 23-day raid through western Tennessee by attacking the Union supply base at Johnsonville. Forrest's attack destroyed a total of 28 Union boats and barges in the Tennessee River and millions of dollars of supplies, disrupting the logistical operations of Union Major General George H. Thomas in Nashville. As a result, Thomas's army was hampered in its plan to defeat Confederate Lieutenant General John Bell Hood's invasion of Tennessee, known as the Franklin–Nashville campaign. (Thomas eventually succeeded in repulsing Hood.)
Part of the battlefield has been preserved in Johnsonville State Historic Park. Much of the original battleground was submerged by the creation of Kentucky Lake in 1944.
The Union relied on the Tennessee River as a critical route to supply Federal forces in the state. Supplies were offloaded at Johnsonville and shipped by rail to Nashville. In the fall of 1864 the supplies were principally meant for the Army of the Cumberland, commanded by Thomas. Meanwhile, Hood's army was marching through northern Alabama on its way to an invasion of Tennessee. In late September 1864, Hood's army departed northwest from the vicinity of Atlanta, Georgia, hoping its destruction of Union supply lines would lure Major General William T. Sherman's Union army into battle. Sherman pursued Hood as far as Gaylesville, Alabama, but decided to return his army to Atlanta. He conducted a March to the Sea through Georgia, destroying supplies and infrastructure. Tennessee had been occupied by federal troops since 1862, and Sherman charged Thomas with its defense.
Lieutenant General Richard Taylor ordered Forrest on a wide-ranging cavalry raid through Western Tennessee to destroy the Union supply line to Nashville. Forrest's initial objective was Fort Heiman on the Tennessee River north of Johnsonville, possession of which would prevent Union transports from reaching Johnsonville, upriver. The first of Forrest's men began to ride on October 16, 1864. They were exhausted from a previous raid and Forrest gave them orders to disperse, obtain new mounts and supplies, and return to the raid. Forrest began moving north on October 24 and reached Fort Heiman on October 28, where he emplaced artillery. On October 29 and October 30, his artillery fire resulted in the capture of the steamers Mazeppa, Anna, and Venus, as well as the gunboat Undine. At this point, the Union stopped river supply traffic to Johnsonville.
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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