NATHAN BEDFORD FORREST Memorial Park

Nathan Bedford Forrest Memorial Park overlooks the site where General Forrest's cavalry corps destroyed a large number of Federal naval vessels and laid waste to the Federal supply base at Johnsonville, Tennessee. Late in 1864, Forrest, moving carefully to avoid detection, set up his artillery at two positions on the west side of the Tennessee River opposite Johnsonville. At 2:00 p.m. on November 4, 1864 the Confederate batteries opened fire on the Union base. The Federals were caught completely unaware, and by the next morning almost nothing remained of the supply center but ashes and charred, smoking debris. The destruction was complete: some thirty-odd barges, transports, and gunboats either were sunk or became derelict, smoldering hulks abandoned to the whim of the river; the railroad depot, filled with supplies, and the warehouses and other buildings of the depot were leveled; gone also were the piles of stores that, on noon of the day before, had covered several acres of the surrounding slope. According to the Federal estimate, over eight million dollars worth of property was destroyed. In 1929, the Tennessee State Legislature established the Nathan Bedford Forrest Memorial Park and provided 810,000 for erection of a monument on Pilot Knob overlook­ing the site of Forrest's victory. The view from Pilot Knob, the highest spot in West Tennessee, is unex­celled in that section of the state. While gazing out across the broad Tennessee River (now Kentucky Lake), the peaceful scene makes it difficult to imagine the din of battle, the smoke from burning supplies, and the escaping steam of gunboats sinking below the waves a century ago. LOCATION: Off U.S. Highway 70, 8 Mi. E. of Camden.