From the beginning of the war, the Union army protected the L&N Railroad, which became a vital supply line for Federal troops in Tennessee after Nashville was taken, while the Confederacy sought to disrupt it as early and often as possible. By December 1862, the Union had built six stockades between Elizabethtown and Sheperdsville, including Big Run trestle and Sulphur Fork trestle on Muldraugh Hill, Lebanon Junction, Belmont, Bardstown Junction, and Sheperdsville, but these infantry-manned defenses proved inadequate against forces with artillery. In March 1863, the Union proposed strengthening the Sheperdsville stockade with an artillery and infantry parapet, rifle pits linked with abattis or entanglements, and artillery. The fort was only partially finished in July 1863 when Morgan attacked and burned the stockade at Bardstown Junction. During that raid, Major Israel N. Stiles, commander of Union troops in the area, ordered his men at Belmont and Bardstown Junction to Sheperdsville because he believed the unfinished earthwork and its single cannon offered more protection than the stockades. Fort DeWolf was then improved and given more artillery, and it was never again threatened by Confederate forces. Named for Lieut. William DeWolf of the 3rd US Artillery, who was killed at Williamsburg, Virginia, the completed fort stood across the Salt River south of Sheperdsville and was armed with three 12-pounder light artillery pieces. The L&N passed directly through the fort, with a barracks between the fort and the river, a brick water tank along the railroad, and a line of inclined palisades between the river and the fort to protect the barracks and prevent an attack from flanking the fort.