28. Brices Cross Roads National Battlefield Site, Mississippi

               Hello!  Welcome back to our blog on the National Park Service.  In this post we’ll be making a stop at one of the smallest places in the NPS, a single acre plot commemorating the battle of Brices Cross Roads in Mississippi.

Entrance Sign.  Note that although the sign reads "National Battlefield," it is officially designated "National Battlefield Site."

BACKGROUND:

               By the summer of 1864, the Civil War was going badly for the Confederacy.  After a series of devastating defeats at Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga, the hopes of a southern victory were rapidly diminishing.  To make matters worse, General William T. Sherman had begun his drive south from Chattanooga to retake Atlanta for the Union.  Hoping to stall Sherman’s advance, the infamous Confederate cavalry commander General Nathan Bedford Forrest rode west into Union controlled northern Mississippi to strike Sherman’s supply lines.

               Just north of Tupelo, Mississippi, Forrest encountered a Union force under the command of General Samuel Sturgis sent to stop him.  Forrest attacked the Union troops in an area around a rural intersection known as Brices Cross Roads.  During the battle, the Confederates succeeded in executing a double envelopment, a somewhat rare military maneuver where an army turns both of the enemy’s flanks.  Sturgis was forced to retreat to avoid encirclement but lost most of his army’s supply wagons.  Forrest meanwhile, freshly resupplied courtesy of the captured Union supplies, continued to vex the Union in the area for another month until the Battle of Tupelo.

Brices Cross Roads as it appears today.

THE BATTLEFIELD SITE:

               Brices Cross Roads National Battlefield Site is among the smallest units in the National Park Service.  Although the battlefield is in a largely rural area that has not been altered much since the Civil War, and most of it is currently preserved through the Civil War Trust, a charitable organization whose mission is to preserve battlefields across the country, only a small one-acre plot of land on one corner of the intersection of the historical Brices Cross Roads is owned by the National Park Service.  The site is marked by an NPS sign, a lone monument, and a pair of cannon.  There is a small pull-off for parking next to the site.

The monument at Brices Cross Roads.

TRAVEL TIPS:

               Brices Cross Roads National Battlefield Site is located roughly twenty minutes north of Tupelo, Mississippi.  The site has no official NPS visitor center, however the nearby Mississippi Final Stands Interpretive Center in nearby Baldwyn, Mississippi provides visitor information for Brices Cross Roads and its identical twin NPS site Tupelo National Battlefield.  Passport stamps can be found at the Mississippi Final Stands Interpretive Center and at the NPS Natchez Trace Parkway visitor center in nearby Tupelo.

The Mississippi Final Stands Interpretive Center.