able amount of noise and concentrating fire on the fort, Duckworth sent Colonel Hawkins (commander of the Union City fort), a letter demanding surrender. Hawkins wasted little time in accepting the surrender. Little did he know that when he surrendered, reinforcements by way of General Brayman of Cairo, were only six miles away. Brayman writes: “Arriving at a station six miles this side of Union City, I learned with great pain and surprise that Colonel Hawkins had surrendered,” He continues to say, “The force of the enemy does not appear to have been more than a fourth represented, and without artillery.” After taking the town, Duckworth was able to secure sixty thousand dollars in money, mounts, and various supplies. While Duckworth was doing his damage in Union City, Forrest had crossed over into Kentucky. Forrest entered Kentucky by way of Dukedom and proceeded into Pilot Oak, up Old Dukedom Road and into Mayfield on what is now Tenth Street. Here, Forrest told his troops of a leave they would receive to see their families, collect supplies, and mounts. First, however, they were to move on Paducah.In Paducah they would find the second largest earthen fort in the war, second only to Fort Fisher in Petersburg Virginia. It was built by Union forces after General Grant occupied the town in 1861. The exact location is where an abandoned Life Care Center nursing home now stands, just in front of the Executive Inn. It was named for the Union hero of Fort Sumter, Major Robert Anderson. Until Forrest, no one had ever attempted to attack the fort. Fort Anderson stood as “a symbol of Union might in a decidedly pro-Southern region.” Western Kentucky, or the “Jackson Purchase” became known as “Kentucky’s South Carolina and Paducah its Charleston” The fort, all but impregnable, had a castle-like moat over fifty feet wide completely surrounding it. The fort had e...
