They were finally going home. For more than two years the soldiers of the Confederate 3rd Kentucky Infantry Regiment had been fighting for Southern independence while their home state was occupied by Northern armies. Kentuckians in Confederate service, like the troops of the 3rd Kentucky Infantry, could not return home unless raids or campaigns carried them there. In March of 1864, the 3rd Kentucky got its chance when Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest mounted a cavalry raid from northern Mississippi into western Kentucky.
Although it was an infantry regiment, the 3rd Kentucky was depleted by battle. To recruit Blue Grass natives for his raid, Forrest included the thin ranks of three Kentucky infantry regiments to join the strike force as "mounted infantry." So eager were the Kentuckians to join the raid that some offered to accompany the expedition on foot if horses were lacking. The distant target was the city of Paducah, where Forrest hoped to capture much-needed medical supplies.

On March 15,1864, Forrest and his troops started out for western Kentucky. The men of the 3rd Kentucky willingly endured the demands of the trek. "Our horses were all old hacks, and so weak that for many days we walked fifteen minutes of every hour to give them a rest," recalled a veteran of the expedition. On March 25, the raiders reached Paducah and found it occupied by a force of Northern troops fortified in a well-armed earthwork. Forrest detailed troops to trade fire with the fort and dispatched others to seize all available medical supplies. One brigade of Forrest's force was led by Colonel Albert P. Thompson, the 3rd Kentucky's commander, who lived nearby. His homecoming proved fatal. As Thompson directed his troops up Paducah's streets toward the Federal fort, he was struck by Northern artillery fire.
The fighting ended at nightfall. Satisfied with his raid, Forrest headed south the next day, but dismissed his Kentuckians so they could hurriedly visit their families. "We had the entire possession of the town," noted one of the Kentuckians, "[and] we accomplished all we aimed."

The troops of the 3rd Kentucky Infantry were compelled by circumstances to enter Confederate service outside of their state, which was initially treated as neutral territory by Northern and Southern authorities. Eventually both sides battled to hold Kentucky and the Northern forces won.
The 3rd Kentucky Infantry was organized in July of 1861 at Camp Boone in Montgomery County, Tennessee. The regiment's first commander was Colonel Lloyd Tilghman. Like many Confederate troops in the war's western theater, they were poorly equipped at the beginning of the war. "They had been partially supplied with Belgian rifles, but owing to the scarcity of any kind of arms, numbers of them had to use the old flintlock musket," reported a Kentucky authority. "The cartridge consisted of powder, one large ball about an ounce in weight, and three buckshot; this proved to be an efficient ammunition, as was demonstrated at Shiloh."
The regiment joined the Confederate Army of Kentucky under General Simon B. Buckner in October of 1861. In March of 1862 it was placed in the Kentucky Brigade of the Army of the Mississippi. The regiment was engaged at the Battle of Shiloh on April 6-7,1862, then participated in the Corinth Campaign and in early actions around Vicksburg.

Posted to the District of the Mississippi, the 3rd Kentucky Infantry fought at the Battle of Baton Rouge on August 5, 1862 as part of Colonel Albert P. Thompson's brigade. "The brigade was formed in an open field (with the 3rd Kentucky Infantry on the right flank) and ordered to march forward," reported Captain James H. Bowman, who commanded the regiment at Baton Rouge. "The Third crossed a lawn into a field, received...fire from the enemy's skirmishers, when we were ordered to charge. The skirmishers were routed and the regiment halted in a pea patch and was ordered to lie down.

After Baton Rouge, the 3rd Kentucky was present at Coffeeville, Chickasaw Bayou, served in the Vicksburg Campaign, and fought at Champion's Hill. Much of the regiment's service in 1863 and 1864 was in General W.W. Loring's Division. Depleted and dispersed, the regiment was placed in General Nathan Bedford Forrest's Cavalry Corps in March of 1864 and served in Forrest's raid on Paducah. The regiment later served in the Meridian Campaign, was present at Fort Pillow, and was engaged at Brice's Cross Roads. The regiment also served in the Franklin-Nashville Campaign under General John Bell Hood. In March and April of 1865, the 3rd Kentucky was called on to help resist Northern cavalry raids in the deep South. There, the regiment's war-weary survivors ended their Confederate service and were finally able to return home.