his fingers to make such a raid. Yet by the time the dispatch arrived, Smith's work was largely done. He recalled the guards he had placed on the homes he had previously selected, then simultaneously pulled back the cavalry that secured the town perimeter. It was then he issued the order to begin the burning. While some accounts describe soldiers scurrying helter skelter like demons setting the town ablaze, many describe a much more ordered process in which Smith personally supervised the torching of specific stuctures. The private homes he selected for burning, in almost every case, were those of prominent secessionists, political leaders, and wealthy planters. The businesses on the square, however, were indiscriminately torched. The courthouse was set alight, as was Mrs. Butler's Oxford Inn and Avent's Bank, Neilsen's Mercantile and the Masonic Hall. The carpentry and blacksmith shops, the newspaper and liquor stores, along with a number of the finer homes around the square were set on fire. On Depot Street , the home of James Brown, which served as Grant's headquarters, was consumed by flames, as was the home of Dr. Henry Branham next door. By 4 :00 p.m. Smith's work was done. Collecting his forces, he rode past the burnt foundation of the train depot, then turned northwest onto the Memphis Road and disappeared into the night.

In his wake the Union army left the burnt skeleton of Oxford along with a wasteland that was once the proud and prosperous landscape of Lafayette County. “We are a subjugated people,” wrote a defeated Rebecca Pegues in June 1865. “Humiliated to the dust.” What the Yankees left held no further military significance for either army, and no other battles or skirmishes happened there. From August 1864 until Appomattox, the white residents who remained in Oxford were confronted by a barren, empty, desolate purgatory of broken dreams and tortured, tideless grief. They dug up the silver, groveled for scraps and ate what they could to keep from starving. The more than five thousand former slaves were left to the reality of their freedom and the confusing tide of blessings and dangers it wrought.

Soon the soldiers, who years before departed Oxford in gloried optimism and patriotic pageantry, began at last to make their way back along the roads in weary procession, like pale, fallen leaves carried adrift on the currents of a summer stream. There were no drums or fifes to march to, no shiny brass buttons or swords to glitter boldly in the sun. Only the vanquished remained, left only to their memories of who they once were and confronted by the enigma of what they had become.
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Bibliography
Enzweiler, Stephen. Oxford in the Civil War: Battle for a Vanquished Land. Charleston: History Press, 2010.

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In August, 1864, Union general Andrew Jackson Smith was sent out from Memphis to systematically hunt down Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was known to be operating in the area of northern Mississippi. Reports had Forrest in Pontotoc on August 20th and in Oxford on the 21st. But as Smith occupied Holly Springs, word came that the rebel general had departed Oxford and was heading west toward Memphis.

In this excerpt from Stephen Enzweiler's book OXFORD IN THE CIVIL WAR, we read about what happened next...
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With Forrest moving west, Smith unexplainably ordered his entire cavalry to head south and advance once again upon Oxford. He arrived unopposed at just after eight o'clock on the morning of August 22, 1864. Residents watched as Union troops spread quickly throughout the town. The Union general himself, according to some reports, appeared to be well intentioned toward the inhabitants, selecting certain homes and posting guards on them, then sending out reconnaissance patrols to secure the perimeter of the town. Then calling his officers together, he laid out his plan for what was to be done, each subordinate acknowledging it and departing to take up his position.

By mid-morning, the Union general rode out to the Thompson home, where he quickly surveyed the interior of the house, then ordered Kate Thompson and all other occupants out. Soldiers had to carry the still bedridden Sallie Thompson out through the front door and deposit her on the lawn. Kate was forced outside as well, grabbing at the few keepsakes as she was hustled out onto the lawn. After a quick survey of the details, Smith simply ordered it put to the torch. Joanna Isom, one of Jacob Thompson's house servants who was seven at the time, remembered that Smith and his men rode away “whoopin' an' hollerin' an' singin.'” As the fire spread, someone thought to run inside and rescue Sallie's baby before the flames engulfed the house entirely. By two o'clock, it began to rain. Kate Thompson, Sallie and the baby, along with Joanna, her mother Amy, and the rest of the servants, could only stand by helpless and watch in stunned amazement as the fiery destruction did its work.

Arriving back in the square, Smith was hastily handed a dispatch informing him that Nathan Bedford Forrest had raided and heavily damaged the Union supply depot at Memphis . According to some accounts, Smith's manner changed at that moment into an even darker mood, and it was then—some say in revenge for Forrest's raid—that he ordered the town torched. Yet his decision to move his forces on Oxford in the first place when he already knew Forrest was headed west suggests he had another motive for coming to Oxford. No military necessity dictated it nor was there any other reason for Smith to occupy the town except a premeditated purpose of burning it. The dispatch,
which certainly left him red-faced, only served to aggravate the Union general; it did not reflect well on him or his superiors that he had let the rebel commander slip through