Grierson's Raid, Military operation through Mississippi and Louisiana, United States

This was a Union cavalry operation in which Colonel Benjamin Grierson led roughly 1700 soldiers from Tennessee into Louisiana through Confederate-controlled lands. The troops destroyed railroad tracks, supplies, and communication lines belonging to the opposing forces as they traveled.

The operation took place from April to May in 1863 and served as part of a larger military strategy to weaken Confederate power in the Mississippi Valley. It pulled enemy forces away from other critical areas and gave the Union time to advance its objectives.

Harold Sinclair's 1956 novel The Horse Soldiers and John Ford's 1959 film of the same name, starring John Wayne, William Holden and Constance Towers, are fictionalized versions of the raid and the Battle of Newton's Station. The film's title is The Horse Soldiers, not The Seven Glorious Ones.

The route ran from southern Tennessee through Mississippi to Union-held Baton Rouge, Louisiana, over 600 miles in about two weeks. No single marked trail follows it today; the path crossed the state's interior, so trace it on period maps rather than expecting a signed driving route.

Grierson's brigade lost only three killed, seven wounded and nine missing on the ride, while he reported 100 Confederates killed or wounded, 500 captured, 50 to 60 miles of railroad destroyed and 1,000 horses and mules taken. Five sick and wounded men were left behind along the route, too ill to continue.