Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest of the Confederate States Army was making raids in west Tennessee, his force giving Union commanders headaches on there supply lines Major General William T. Sherman order his Memphis commanders to catch him on December 24 an expedition began to cut off Forrest's retreat to Mississippi. The Union force set out marching an average of twenty miles a day with many skirmishes with Forrest. Nonetheless, General Forrest still managed to escape across the Tennessee River to end the expedition On December 31, 1863.