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Setting on high bluffs overlooking the Tombigbee River, Gainesville, Alabama held a strategic position. With a commanding view of the river and lowlands beyond, Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest contemplated the position of his troops as he gazed across the Alabama landscape. Perhaps from this high ground his force of 2,900 cavalrymen could hold out against the mounting odds. It was April of 1865 and the War Between the States was drawing to an end.

After retreating from the Battle of Selma, suffering a rare defeat, Forrest was desperate. A skirmish with Yankee cavalry near Pleasant Ridge in Pickens County preceded a river crossing to the bluff and the town he now occupied. Sitting astride an unfamiliar horse, he patted the animal reassuringly. Twenty-nine horses had been killed while he was mounted on them during the war.

The first bank in Alabama was located in Gainesville. The building has been relocated to the property of North River Yacht Club in Tuscaloosa.

The mount perked his ears nervously to the sounds of soldiers making camp in the fading light along the river below. Forrest’s thoughts went to those faithful men. They had proved time and again their devotion to him and the Confederate cause. He must not let them see the weariness he felt. But what could he do now? Every time he had been in tight spots before, somehow, someway, he had escaped the Yankee’s superior numbers. Could he do it again? There was hope. He had learned of a lone cannon reported to be in Meridian, Mississippi. With it his troops might have a chance.

Thirty-five years before, the town of Gainesville had

come into existence. After the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek in 1830, John Coleman, the husband of a Choctaw Indian woman, sold 640 acres of land located on the cliffs above the Tombigbee to Colonel Moses Lewis for $2,000. Colonel Lewis, a native of New England, had the land surveyed into lots and began the town. Lewis named the town after the Indian Agent who helped negotiate the treaty, George Strother Gaines. Over the ensuing years a number of fine homes were built in Gainesville. Many of those homes survive today.

The town grew rapidly, becoming a commercial center of Western Alabama. People came from North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and New England. Merchants and planters discovered opportunities there and the town flourished. By 1840, Gainesville was the third largest town in Alabama with a population of 4,000.

The hotel was known for its dance floor with springs underneath giving partygoers a bounce to their step. A horse racing track and academies for both boys and girls had been built. The town had the first bank in Alabama, a cotton gin, gristmill, blacksmith shop, saloons, drug stores, gun shops, a livery stable and two newspapers. Six thousand bales of cotton were shipped from the docks along the river each year to Mobile. It was a major inland river port.

At one point Gainesville was even considered for national prominence. A large meat packing company

The cannon that Gen. Forrest hoped would save his men sets in the midst of the headstones of fallen Confederate soldiers.

sent out representatives with instructions to find a suitable location for expansion. The representatives scoured the land searching for the perfect place. Of all the towns throughout the young nation only two were selected to decide between. One was Chicago, Illinois the other was Gainesville, Alabama. Alas, Gainesville lost the vote.

In 1855, another blow to the town’s future prospects took place. A fire destroyed most of the commercial buildings. So by the spring of 1865 when General Forrest was confronted with his dilemma, Gainesville was already a town in decay. The cannon was General Forrest’s best hope. With it his men had a chance. Forrest lead a detail to Meridian himself to bring back the cannon, but the cannon had been moved to protect it from the Federals. By the time the cannon was located and brought to Gainesville, Federal troops were so close a decision was made to dump the weapon into the river to prevent it falling into their hands.

About this time word came that General Robert E. Lee had surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia and the war was coming to a close. His men had followed General Forrest through some of the hardest times of the war. Now they wept and begged him to take them to the West or to Mexico and continue the fight from there. Like General Lee, Forrest would have none of that. He told his men it was time for the war to end; it was time to go home.

During this time, a Gainesville doctor had been treating the sick and wounded soldiers. He would ride down to their encampment by the river in his carriage, treat all he could and bringback those gallant men too ill to be left in the field. Many of these Southern boys

died of disease or lack of nourishment while being disbanded and paroled by the Federal authorities.

It was the custom when there was a funeral in town for all the church bells to ring as the procession made its way from the service to the cemetery. On those days when a young soldier from another town or another state passed away, bells of the churches tolled the notice that yet another had been claimed by the war. It is said that some of the graves in the cemetery are filled with two or three bodies, the number of dying was so great.

Today a section of the Old Cemetery is filled with Confederate markers showing where these men were laid to rest. Placed in the midst of those fallen heroes is the same cannon that General Forrest had so hoped would save his men and his cause.