The Battle of Selma was a military engagement near the end of the American Civil War. It was fought in Selma, Alabama, on April 2, 1865, a town of about ten thousand inhabitants. Union Army forces under Major General James H. Wilson defeated a Confederate Army force under Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest.On March 22, 1865, Wilson led three divisions of Union cavalry, totaling 13,500 men, on a raid from Gravelly Springs, deep into largely untouched southern Alabama.