Battle of Day's Gap

Description: Union Col.

Abel D. Streight led a provisional brigade on a raid to cut the Western & Atlantic Railroad that supplied Gen. Braxton Bragg’s Confederate army in Middle Tennessee. From Nashville, Tennessee, Streight’s command traveled to Eastport, Mississippi, and then proceeded east to Tuscumbia, Alabama, in conjunction with another Union force commanded by Brig. Gen. Grenville Dodge. On April 26, 1863, Streight’s men left Tuscumbia and marched southeast, their initial movements screened by Dodge’s troops.

On April 30, Confederate Brig. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest’s brigade caught up with Streight’s expedition and attacked its rearguard at Day’s Gap on Sand Mountain. The Federals repulsed this attack and continued their march to avoid further delay and envelopment. Thus began a running series of skirmishes and engagements at Crooked Creek (April 30), Hog Mountain (April 30), Blountsville (May 1), Black Creek/Gadsden (May 2), and Blount’s Plantation (May 2). Forrest finally surrounded the exhausted Union soldiers near Rome, Georgia, where he forced their surrender on May 3.

The Battle of Day's Gap, fought on April 30, 1863, was the first in a series of American Civil War skirmishes in Cullman County, Alabama, that lasted until May 2, known as Streight's Raid. Commanding the Union forces was Col. Abel Streight; Brig. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest led the Confederate forces.