Union soldiers had crowded about the Adair County courthouse square in Columbia, as Confederate troops marched northward from Burkesville in Cumberland County by what is now Kentucky Highway 704 and Route 61. Tutt Street in Columbia was then the dividing line between the two armies. Mostly forgotten outside Kentucky, Tebbs Bend was among the bloodiest encounters of the war in the Western theater. Later [[Governor]] James B. McCreary, a Confederate [[major]], wrote in his diary: "Many of our best men were killed or wounded. The beginning of this raid is ominous." Tebbs Bend deflected the Confederates from proceeding to [[Louisville]], which seemed as weakly defended at that time as [[Washington, D.C.]], had been in August 1814 during the [[War of 1812]].<ref name=tebbs/> | Union soldiers had crowded about the Adair County courthouse square in Columbia, as Confederate troops marched northward from Burkesville in Cumberland County by what is now Kentucky Highway 704 and Route 61. Tutt Street in Columbia was then the dividing line between the two armies. Mostly forgotten outside Kentucky, Tebbs Bend was among the bloodiest encounters of the war in the Western theater. Later [[Governor]] James B. McCreary, a Confederate [[major]], wrote in his diary: "Many of our best men were killed or wounded. The beginning of this raid is ominous." Tebbs Bend deflected the Confederates from proceeding to [[Louisville]], which seemed as weakly defended at that time as [[Washington, D.C.]], had been in August 1814 during the [[War of 1812]].<ref name=tebbs/> |