Alabama Civil War Sites
Battle of Decatur | Decatur, Alabama was a significant crossroads for commerce in the south. In the days before the Tennessee Valley Authority tamed the Tennessee River, Muscle Shoals was an impassable series of rapids.

Battle of Decatur

By |

Concerned over the possibility of Federal gunboats destroying any pontoon bridge he might deploy, along with the absence of Nathan Bedford Forrest’s horseman to bring him intelligence, Hood changed his course to Decatur.
Decatur, Alabama, located in north central Alabama on the Tennessee River, was a strategic point for the South because of the fact that the Memphis and Charleston railroad crossed the Tennessee River.