Holly Springs Project
Introduction

This Web site explores new methods of using the Internet for the presentation of historical content and serves as an experiment in electronic collaboration for historical research.

 This site uses new technologies to assemble and display a coherent presentation of the largely forgotten events that occurred on a single day in northern Mississippi over 130 years ago. The people involved, the events proceeding this day, and the unprecedented consequences of these events provide essential parts of this story.  

Though the Civil War was only in its second year, a growing awareness of the war’s eventual outcome was spreading across the South. In Arkansas, Tennessee and most recently, Mississippi thousands of irreplaceable lives had been lost for no strategic purpose. The battles at Pea Ridge, Shiloh and Corinth had greatly depleted Southern resources and manpower. The already exhausted forces under the command of General Pemberton were retreating farther south to protect the last remaining stronghold on the Mississippi River, Vicksburg. If Vicksburg fell it would divide the South and leave Grant’s Federal troops in complete control of the strategically crucial Mississippi River and the entire center of the continent.  

The flamboyant Earl Van Dorn, who had commanded the disastrous events at Pea Ridge and Corinth was no longer in command. However, the desperation of the current situation which lead to the events at Holly Springs, would for a final time, place Earl Van Dorn in the dynamic center of Confederate defensive efforts.  

The events at Holly Spings all began with a simple idea from an obscure Lt. Colonel, now largely forgotten; an amateur solder from the frontier boom town of Rockwall, Texas, John Summerfield Griffith. A practical man, like most Texans of his day; Griffith had a lifetime of experience with horses and weapons. The West provide the perfect training ground for what Sherman would come to regard as the "finest cavalry in the world".

Calendar of Events: December 1862