Fort/Stockade

At Collierville, Union forces occupied the town from 1862 until the end of the war in 1865 and defended a strong fort immediately north of the depot, with stockades inside, an embankment seven or eight feet high, and a surrounding ditch, while the loopholed depot served as a citadel. In fighting there during Chalmers's raid, attacking forces under Colonels Green, Stewart, Inge, Neely, Duckworth, and McCulloch drove Union troops from positions along railroad cuts and embankments into the depot and fort after hours of hard combat. Another account of the Battle of Collierville reported that on October 11, 1863, a Confederate force estimated at three to five thousand attacked about five hundred Union soldiers from the 66th Indiana, 15th Regulars, and part of the 7th Illinois Cavalry after days of railroad destruction and wire cutting. A train from Memphis carrying the 13th Regulars, along with Generals Sherman, Ewing, and Lightburn, reached the scene, and the generals joined about fifty convalescents in the fort after a demand for surrender was refused. The fighting lasted from ten o'clock in the morning until three o'clock in the afternoon, when a Union charge on the right broke the attacking column and ended the action in a hasty retreat.

Collierville, Tennessee · United States