The Battle of Collierville

Sherman needed Collierville                                             Tom Bailey Jr.
July 5, 2007

The Commercial Appeal, Memphis TN.

He has a place in the pantheon of U.S. military leaders.

His crushing use of force helped get Lincoln re-elected and shorten the Civil War.

He gave us the March to the Sea and the burning of Atlanta.

But would William Tecumseh Sherman have lived to become a Civil War luminary if it weren't for that little fort that protected him in Collierville?

The town, still trying to discover where exactly the fortification was, hopes a new clue will help solve the mystery.

After all, the fort played a big role in Sherman and his men repelling a ferocious Rebel attack in the fall of 1863.

Sherman and his staff were riding by train from Memphis to Corinth.

About noon, they had passed the Collierville depot a half-mile back when the train stopped.

Federal pickets reported a mass of Rebs coming at them.

Sherman ordered the train to back up to the Collierville depot so they could use the fort and a small redoubt next to the depot.

The assault by about 1,500 Confederates was so fierce that the train caught fire.

The Rebels even "got" Sherman's favorite mare, Dolly.

Like so many of his military decisions, the move to the fort worked.

His troops returned fire until reinforcements arrived from Memphis. The Rebs shrank back into the woods.

The site of the fort that saved the man who helped Lincoln and Grant save the Union would be a significant find.

The fort could be re-created with an interpretive center, with tourists swarming to it like those Confederates once did.

But Collierville's got to find it, first.

Historians and archaeologists haven't been able to discover any traces despite a wonderful clue from the man himself.

In his memoirs, Sherman describes what happened that day.

"The depot building was of brick, and had been punctured with loopholes. To its east, about two hundred yards, was a small square earthwork or fort, into which were put a part of the regulars along with the company of the Sixty-sixth Indiana already there."

Catch that? "...To (the depot's) east, about two hundred yards."

Sherman all but draws a map.

Simply go to the depot in Town Square, step off 200 paces to the east, and there's where the fort was.

Trouble is, today's depot isn't where the Civil War depot was.

And nobody seems to know where the old one stood.

But this spring, Fred Prouty discovered another clue.

He's program director of the Tennessee Wars Commission, which promotes and helps preserve sites in the state related to the French and Indian War, American Revolution, War of 1812, U.S.-Mexican War and the Civil War.

Using the Library of Congress archives, Prouty found a cryptic Civil War map of Collierville. The roads are unnamed, but the map shows a fort, depot and stockade.

"What we were hoping for was a map that might show where the original depot was in Collierville because it was moved after the war," Prouty said.

By itself, the hand-drawn map does not reveal the site of the old depot.

But the new drawing does show more of the town's streets than previous maps did.

"I think we will be able to match those roads up," Prouty said.

But much more research will have to be conducted.

The new map shows where different U.S. regiments were stationed. For example, Sherman's memoir mentions the 66th Indiana.

Researchers could go to the archives of those states and look for any maps and soldier diaries that describe Collierville, Prouty said.

If the fort site is found, the possibilities are great.

"If it's in a good spot, the town could re-create that fort," Prouty said.

"Something that would interpret the fort and give you an idea of the size of it...

"If we also were to find the original depot site we could interpret that, if it's not too close to the (Norfolk Southern) railroad line."

If the site's not developed, the state could help the town buy the property at fair market value, said Diana Dubois, a town planner who's working on the project.

The state is developing a Civil War trail, and the fort would make Collierville an even bigger part of it.

"Everybody's ears are perked up," Dubois said.

The state now has 62 points of interests on the Tennessee Civil War Heritage Trail.

Memphis area sites include places like the Hunt Phelan Home, Mississippi River Museum at Mud Island, Elmwood Cemetery and Memphis National Cemetery.

The site of Germantown's small fort is not on the trail, but should be, Prouty said.

Unlike the missing Collierville fort, Germantown's "had been pretty much researched years ago," he said.

Even if Collierville never finds the exact spot the fort stood, Collierville can still recreate one, Town Administrator James Lewellen said.

"The thought process was to continue the research and ultimately have a better end product.

"We'd have a better written history and better documentation of everything that took place in the Civil War."

The town could recreate a

fort even if "that might not be the official place," Lewellen said.

"With the history we do have we can say that somewhere along this area between here and wherever was the fort."

-- Tom Bailey Jr.: 529-2388

A Rebel's view

Here's what Confederate Private John Johnson of the 7th Tennessee Regiment wrote in his diary about the attack in Collierville on Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman and his troops:

"The Memphis and Charleston Railroad was protected by a garrison of Federal soldiers, and well fortified. We made an attack on this place early on the morning of the 11th of October, 1863... We must have had 1,500 men in this affair...

"Just before our arrival a train of cars came in from Memphis, having on board Gen. Wm. Sherman, his escort, and their horses... When his train reached the depot he left the cars and took refuge in the fort.

"We advanced up to the railroad and most of the regiment was behind the train and protected by it, and fired under the cars at the fort, which was a little way beyond, being near the left of our line, and near the rear of the train.

"The firing from the fort became very scathing and finding myself isolated I ran back and got behind the railroad track...

"We had quite a hot battle here and quite a number were killed and wounded, but we could not dislodge the enemy who were strongly entrenched."