Germantown suffered during the Civil War because of its strategic location on the Memphis & Charlestown Railroad, as many male church members joined the 4th Tennessee Infantry (CSA) and others resisted occupying Federal troops while Federal forces used the railroad to move troops and supplies. Fearing Confederate raiders would cut the line, Gen. William T. Sherman wrote Gen. Henry W. Halleck on June 28, 1862, urging action against Germantown. Reports in Memphis newspapers varied, with some alleging widespread burning in town and others saying only one house, or none, was burned. The Germantown Presbyterian Church was spared after the Rev. Richard R. Evans persuaded a Federal officer to save it because both were Masons, and with the Masonic Hall it was preserved and used as a hospital, commissary, and stable, while the Baptist and Methodist churches were burned. Pvt. Henry C. Bear of the 116th Illinois Infantry wrote on December 16, 1862, that a house in Germantown had been burned, and by 1863 a diarist wrote that houses had been burned and others deserted and used as soldiers' barracks. Confederate supporters continued fighting until the end, and the last engagement in Tennessee took place about six miles outside Germantown on April 18, 1865, nine days after Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered in Virginia. Germantown Presbyterian Church, the town's oldest public building, was organized on March 24, 1838, by the Rev. A.G. McNutt and seven charter members; its Greek Revival-style frame church dates to 1851, its bell tower was added in 1867, and after the Rev. Evans guided the congregation for 53 years through the yellow fever epidemic of the 1870's, economic downturns, and rebuilding, the church was rotated to face east in 1950 and continues to serve as a chapel.