By late in 1863, the Union army occupying West Tennessee strongly defended the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, which ran eastward from Memphis through Moscow. Federal infantry, including the U.S. Colored Troops of the 2nd West Tennessee Infantry, manned a nearby fort. It guarded a large wooden railroad bridge and a plank wagon bridge that both spanned the Wolf River one-half mile to your left. Union guards in rifle pits there protected State Line Road (today's Highway 57). At midday on December 4, Union Col. Edward Hatch's cavalry brigade passed by here heading west from a week-long patrol.
