In 1860, Charlotte, the Dickson County seat, had 300 residents, and during the Civil War it became a center of military activity. On February 17, 1862, Confederate Col. Nathan Bedford Forrest came there to reequip his men and horses after escaping the surrender of Fort Donelson. Late in 1862 and early in 1863, local guerrillas used Charlotte as a base, while Col. Thomas G. Woodward’s band of partisans and Gen. Joseph Wheeler’s Confederate cavalry raided the Union transportation center at Harpeth River Shoals on the Cumberland River, 6 miles northeast. In 1863 and 1864, as Federal forces built the Nashville and Northeastern Railroad from Nashville to the Tennessee River, Charlotte served as a recruiting and staging area for attacks against these Union supply routes. To disrupt guerrilla networks there, elements of the 12th Tennessee Cavalry (US) occupied the town in 1863-1864. Maj. John Kirwine commandeered the Cumberland Presbyterian Church as a hospital, took over public buildings, and made the county courthouse his headquarters. The Federals declared martial law, arrested citizens suspected of supplying Confederates, destroyed crops, and confiscated livestock in order to break civilian support for Confederate guerrillas and protect Union transportation routes. In October 1863, Military Governor Andrew Johnson authorized “Union Guards” in Dickson County to stop “marauding gangs of Freebooters.” Combined with frequent patrols of the countryside, these measures eventually made the guerrillas and their attacks on railroad and river traffic ineffectual. After the Federal occupation ended, Union troops still frequently moved through the area, and no more large-scale guerrilla attacks originated in Charlotte.