Fort Granger

Fort Granger, completed in the spring of 1863, used its original entrance and exit, the sally port, as a narrow passageway for moving men, supplies, and equipment into the fort and out toward the railroad and the Federal camp to the north. Union soldiers had enough artillery to protect this entrance from Confederate cavalry attack, with cannons on either side of the sally port providing deadly crossfire. Nearly every surrounding trench line and earthwork was lined with abatis, felled trees with sharpened branches protruding from the earthen wall, which functioned like modern-day barbed wire and were very difficult to penetrate, though their widespread use quickly stripped towns such as Franklin of trees. A secure passage to town was not achieved until Federal troops built a pontoon bridge a few hundred yards north of the fort. Pvt. Charles S. Falkler of the 92nd Illinois Infantry wrote on March 19 and April 13, 1863, that a powerful fort was being built, that two big siege guns had arrived by rail and been mounted, and that his camp stood on one side of the Big Harpeth while Franklin lay across the river, reached by a pontoon bridge.

Franklin, Tennessee · United States