pon seeing this attack, the gunboats Peosta and Paw Paw opened fire on Paducah. The firing became especially heavy on Trimble Street. An old maple tree on Trimble Street was pierced by a cannonball coming from one of the gunboats. For years it was one of the reminders of the battle. In this, the third and final phase of the battle, Forrest suffered a great loss, that of A. P. Thompson. Sometime around dusk Thompson was in an alley between Hospital and Trimble Streets. Today, Hospital Street is Martin Luther King Boulevard and Trimble Street is Park Avenue. There is an alley that is formed by Fourth and Fifth Streets. Thompson, a native of Paducah, is reported to have been in this alley, sitting on his horse conversing with two of his staff members, one of which was Lieutenant Hickenberry. In Hickenberry’s diary, he reports that Thompson was on his horse, looking through a pair of field glasses. While looking upon the action at the fort, which was no more than one hundred yards away, without warning Thompson wheeled his horse around as if he was attempting to move. As he wheeled his horse, a cannonball fired by Sgt. Tom Hayes of the 15th Kentucky Cavalry cut through the neck of Thompson’s horse, hit the pommel of the saddle, sprang up and cut his head and the top of his shoulders completely off. The scene was visible from the fort, and one Union veteran said he saw the Colonel fall backward off of the saddle with his feet still in the stirrups. The horse then bolted, pulling Thompson out of the stirrups. This caused his backbone to fall to the street “and coil up like a snake,” only a few blocks from the house in which he grew up. Legend has it that a letter of commission for Brigadier General was later found in his coat pocket. After hearing of their leader’s death, the Confederates retreated and reorganized under the wounded Colonel Ed Crossland. Meanwhile, across town, Colonel Bell, w...
