Site of Union Station skirmish
On the 1857 map of Shelby County, Union Depot appears about seven miles northeast of Raleigh on the Memphis & Ohio Railroad line, at the intersection of Stage Road.
The Memphis & Ohio Railroad (M&O, also known as the Memphis, Clarksville & Louisville railroad – MC&L) was charted in 1852 and opened in 1859. The M&O extended through Arlington, Brownsville, Humboldt, and Milan in West Tennessee up through north middle Tennessee (Clarksville) all the way to Louisville (Kentucky), and eventually Cincinnati (Ohio).
Its line was heavily damaged during the Civil War, and in 1865, the MC&L went into receivership and was bought by the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company (L&N).
The named Union Depot is derived from the “Union occupation” during the Civil War to protect its interests in keeping troop and supply movement lines open from the north to the steamboat port of Memphis.
The Union had taken occupation of the Memphis on June 6, 1862, because its importance as a rail and river center, and eventually a hospital center for wounded soldiers. Memphis became instrumental in Gen. Sherman’s “March To The Sea” and Gen. Grant’s planning of the Battle of Vicksburg.
