Thompson’s Station

On March 5, 1863 Colonel John Coburn marched from Franklin with an infantry brigade and detachment of cavalry to rendezvous with Brig. Gen. Philip Sheridan at Spring Hill.  Four miles from Spring Hill, Coburn attacked two Confederate regiments. The attack was repelled, and Confederate Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn seized the initiative with the cavalry divisions of Brig. Gen. William Hicks Jackson, who dismounted and engaged frontally, while Brig. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest’s cavalry division swept around the left flank into the Union rear. After three attempts, Jackson carried the Union hilltop position while Forrest captured the enemy supply trains and blocked the enemy’s escape route to Nashville. The Union cavalry under Colonel Thomas Jefferson Jordan and an infantry regiment guarding the forage train escaped the trap, but the rest of Coburn’s brigade and a battery of artillery surrendered after they ran out of ammunition. Van Dorn turned east to attack Sheridan’s column approaching from Murfreesboro but the Union troops had turned back at the sound of the guns.  Union losses included 100 killed, 300 wounded, and 1,306 missing of which 1,221 were prisoners.