Attack on the Railroad

ATTACK ON THE MEMPHIS & CHARLESTON RAILROAD – (Union University -2745 Hacks Cross Road)  On June 22, 1962, the first train out of Federally-occupied Memphis was derailed and attacked along a curve in the Memphis & Charleston Railroad line at Hacks Cross Road and Poplar Pike.  The train was carrying troops and supplies to Gen. Wm. T. Sherman’s headquarters at Lafayette (Rossville).  The derailment was apparently the work of local civilians, operating as partisans and mounting a guerrilla war against the new occupation.  Thus began Germantown’s immersion in a theater of guerrilla warfare for the duration of the war.