Dorn planned a secret raid against Grant, not even telling his soldiers. On December 16, 1862, Van Dorn, with 2,500 fighting cavalry left Grenada, fording the Yalobusha, riding northeast. At dawn, December 20, Van Dorn and his lightning cavalry struck Holly Springs, capturing 1,500 sleepy Union soldiers, while destroying at least $1,500,000 worth of Union supplies. Union post commander Colonel Robert C. Murphy was captured. Six hundred Illinois Union cavalry cut loose and escaped Van Dorn's wrath. Local Confederate women at Holly Springs cheered Van Dorn proclaiming "the Glorious Twentieth". Grant had not been caught unaware of Van Dorn's raid. Grant had placed his Union cavalry on 24-hour watch to protect his supply line. Union cavalry commander T. Lyle Dickie had warned Grant that Van Dorn had left Grenada and was headed northeast. Grant had warned by telegraph post commanders of Van Dorn's raid, but to no avail. Colonel Murphy had been warned by Grant twice Van Dorn was headed his way, but Murphy did nothing to prepare for battle. Grant's wife Julia and son Jesse were not in Holly Springs at the time of Van Dorn's raid. Julia and Jesse had left Holly Springs the night before to meet with Grant at Oxford. Van Dorn's raid directly coincided with Grant's General Order No. 11, issued by Grant less than 72 hours earlier, that expelled Jews as a class from Grant's military district. Grant had believed Jewish traders violated cotton trade regulations by the U.S. Treasury Department. Van Dorn's raid destroyed and disrupted Union communications lines. Additionally, Confederate General Bedford Forrest, on an earlier raid starting December 10, had destroyed communication lines and fifty miles of the Mobile & Ohio Railroad, behind Grant's front line. Van Dorn's cavalry raid delayed the implementation of Grant's General Order No. 11 for weeks, saving many Jews from potential expulsion. After sacking Holly Springs, Van Dorn and his men then followed the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, fought unsuccessfully at Davis's Mills, skirmished near Middleburg, Tennessee, passed around Bolivar, and returned to their Grenada base by December 28. The successful raid helped Van Dorn regain his reputation that was lost at Second Corinth. The attacks of both Van Dorn and Forrest caused Grant to withdraw his troops to Grand Junction, Tennessee, his Union army living off the countryside. With the telegraph lines destroyed by Van Dorn and Forrest, Grant could not communicate his withdrawal to