There was a small brigade of troops in Holly Springs the morning of the 20th and Grant had warned Murphy the previous evening to prepare for an attack. The 29th, 62nd and 101st Illinois Infantry and the 2nd Illinois Cavalry were available to defend the town. Murphy did nothing to prepare. He could have easily fortified key buildings and made cotton bale forts. The Confederates were not nearly so well armed as they would become on the morning of the 20th. The Federals would have been heavily outnumbered but a spirited defense from a fortified position could have saved Murphys reputaion if not the supply depot.
The Union defense at Cold Water, Davis Mill and Middleburg are great examples. At Coldwater Col. Timothy O'Meara with a reenforced regiment stood off Jackson's brigade of cavalry. The following day, the 21st, Col. William Morgan with a mere 250 men fended off Van Dorn's entire force, and lastly, on Christmas Eve, 115 men of the 12th Michigan Infantry resisted the efforts of the Texas Cavalry Brigade for several hours before Van Dorn called off the attack.
Van Dorn made one critical error in planning his raid, the same mistake made by Brigadier General Frank Armstrong in his August, 1862 raid into Tennessee; neither brought a single piece of artillery. Confederate memoirs and journals, from both raids, bemoan the lack of artillery and all that could have been done with but a single piece.
Tom