On Sunday October 11, 1863, Confederate forces under Brigadier General James R. Chalmers attacked the Union garrison at Collierville with Tennessee, Mississippi, and Missouri cavalry and the Buckner Battery. Union troops under Colonel D.C. Anthony of the 66th Indiana Infantry defended a 15-acre fort with 8-foot-high earthwork walls, a surrounding ditch, and a line of rifle pits. Chalmers planned to approach by Mt. Pleasant and Sycamore roads, cut telegraph lines, burn railroad trestles, and surround the fort, with attacks assigned from the west, east, center, and north. Anthony placed companies south of the railroad, in the rifle pits at the rear, and northwest of the railroad to guard against a flanking move. About noon, a train from Memphis carrying Major General William Tecumseh Sherman and the 13th U.S. Infantry arrived, bringing the total number of men fighting to about 4,000, and the 13th was ordered into the woods to the left of the 66th Indiana. Moving north, Colonel McGuirk's command reached a 40 acre Union cavalry camp at Fletcher Road and Lancelot, routed the 7th Illinois Cavalry into the Wolf River bottoms, captured 105 prisoners and 5 stand of colors, loaded 18 wagons of supplies, and destroyed 30 more wagons, but this delay prevented the planned attack on the fort from the north. Fighting raged around the fort and depot, and the Confederates eventually drove the Union forces into the fort, depot, or railroad cuts for protection, but neither side gained control of the battle. Fearing reinforcements from Germantown, the Confederates withdrew without taking the fort after a battle that lasted 5 hours. Union losses were 164 killed, wounded, or missing, and Confederate losses were 128 killed, wounded, or missing. Sherman narrowly escaped capture and later carried out his plan of scorched earth warfare against Southern civilians. The Union dead were first buried at what is now the parking lot of the old Baptist church and later removed to the National Cemetery in Memphis, and one unknown Confederate soldier is buried in Magnolia Cemetery.