For over a week Federal cavalry commanded by General Andrew Jackson Smith doggedly pursued Nathan Bedford Forrest’s Confederate cavalry which actively harassed Sherman’s lengthening supply line. On Thursday, July 14, 1864 at Harrisburg, Mississippi the two forces clashed in a disjointed battle which ended by noon. Technically a Federal victory, Harrisburg was strategically insignificant, because on the next day Smith’s victorious Union force elected to pull back slowly toward Memphis, Tennessee, allowing Forrest’s Confederates the freedom to continue to roam free and attack Sherman’s supply lines. The stated reason for Smith’s retreat was an alleged shortage of supplies. Considering Early’s successful withdrawal from Washington, the Union War Department could not have been happy with Smith’s decision, after besting Forrest at Harrisburg, to retreat toward Memphis.