Fort Smith stood one and one-quarter miles northeast at Mitchellville Station on the L&N Railroad, where a railhead began as a Union supply depot for General Rosecran’s army at Nashville. After South Tunnel was destroyed by General Morgan’s Confederate raiders, supplies were transported over land by escorted wagon trains. When the railroad reopened on November 26, 1862, Fort Smith, under the command of Colonel George P. Smith, commander of the 129th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment, served as a garrison for Union soldiers guarding the railroad from Confederate guerrilla activity.