Meridian was an important rail junction while Selma was important as a cannon foundry. If Sherman moved on both of these he would hurt Johnston before the Federals moved against him at Dalton.

Sherman was at Vicksburg and wanted to use February 1864 to disrupt the Confederate transportation by tearing up the rail lines at Meridian, then moving on to the cannon foundries at Selma. There are two main Confederate forces that Sherman will need to take account of, one under Leonidas Polk (picture on the right), the other was the cavalry commanded by Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Bragg had wanted Polk court martialed after Chickamauga, he had not started his attack on the 20th September in a timely fashion, but Polk was on good terms with President Davis. Forrest was a legendary cavalry commander, like Prince Rupert who commanded the King’s cavalry in the English Civil War. Grant had told Sherman that he would have General Thomas threaten Johnston’s position by moving on the small town of Dalton, it was hoped that this would prevent Johnston from being able to send reinforcements to Polk. Unfortunately incorrect information on Longstreet’s  strength caused Thomas to believe that there was a risk to Knoxville, so it was not until the 22nd February that Maj. Gen. Palmer led 25,000 of Thomas’ men towards Dalton.  And Polk was reinforced, Davis instructed Johnston so to do and Hardee was sent with the divisions of Cheatham, Cleburne and Walker adding 16,000 men to the 15,000 that Polk already had. But this did not happen until after Sherman had left Vicksburg.

To counter the threat from Forrest’s cavalry Sherman had ordered his own cavalry under Maj. Gen. Sooy Smith to leave Memphis with his 7,000 cavalry (more than double Forrest’s force) on the 1st February.  Sherman warned Smith that he would need to be careful of Forrest, but at the same time he expected Smith to engage him “a chief part of the enterprise was to destroy the Rebel cavalry.”  Unfortunately Smith probably respected the threat from Forrest a little too much and delayed leaving Memphis, in fact he did not leave until the 11th, ten days behind schedule.  When Sherman left Vicksburg he was sure that Polk did not know where the Federals were heading for, his spies had told him that “Gen. Polk seemed to have no suspicion of our intentions to disturb his serenity.”

Sherman arrived at Meridian on the 14th February, expecting to meet up with Smith and his cavalry, they were not there and did not arrive during the five days that Sherman spent sacking the town and destroying the rail tracks; “We staid (sic) in Meridian five days, expecting every hour to hear of General Sooy Smith, but could get no tidings of him whatever.” [Sherman’s memoirs]. Polk had obviously become aware of Sherman’s destination after he had left Vicksburg and took the opportunity to move all the supplies out of the important railhead.  He commented in the official report that “It will be a novel thing in war if infantry has to wait the motions of cavalry.” 

Nathan Bedford Forrest

With the non-arrival of Smith’s cavalry Sherman felt that he should not continue on as he had planned to Selma, so on the 19th he headed back towards Vicksburg. Smith was unaware of the movements of Sherman and continued on his way but on the 21st he decided he had gone far enough, but then they ran into Forrest.  Near Okolona the Federal cavalry commander allowed “General Forrest to head him off and to defeat him with an inferior force.”  In his memoirs Sherman was quite damning of Smith’s failure; “..I wanted to destroy General Forrest..In this we failed utterly, because General W. Sooy Smith did not fulfill his orders, which were clear and specific, as contained in my letter of instructions to him of January 27th at Memphis, and my personal explanations to him at the same time.” Forrest’s own brother fell in the action and died.

As Sherman moved back to Vicksburg believing that he had dealt a crippling blow to Johnston’s communications and transport the Confederates were putting a different spin on events saying that Forrest had caused Sherman to retreat from an intended march on Mobile; that had not been Sherman’s intention and he was later keen to dispel this view. In his memoirs he said that “I never had the remotest idea of going to Mobile..” and he quoted from a letter he had written to Maj. Gen. Banks on the 31st January.  In the letter he stated “I want to keep up the delusion of an attack on Mobile and the Alabama River, and therefore would be obliged if you would keep up an irritating foraging or other expedition in that direction.”  There would be plenty more opportunity for the Confederates to express a view on Sherman before 1864 was finished.