Thompson's Station: Revolution, Wilderness, and War

Thompson's Station traces its origins to the late seventeen hundreds, when the first settlers arrived in the Harpeth River Valley. By the Civil War it was a small but established farming community and railroad stop. On March fifth, eighteen sixty-three, it became a battlefield: Confederate generals Earl Van Dorn and Nathan Bedford Forrest surrounded a Union force under Colonel John Coburn, blocked his retreat, and forced the surrender of more than a thousand soldiers. A local seventeen-year-old named Alice Thompson reportedly raised the Confederate flag during the engagement.