West Point, Battle of, West Point, Ga., 1865

The Battle of West Point was fought on April 16, 1865, in Harris and Troup counties, Georgia, during the American Civil War. It was part of the Union campaign through Alabama and Georgia, known as Wilson's Raid, in the final full month of the Civil War. The rail junction of West Point was one of the two Chattahoochee River crossings, which General James H. Wilson planned to destroy after capturing Montgomery, Alabama. Dividing his army, he detailed Colonel Oscar Hugh La Grange to attack West Point, while he himself moved downriver to instigate the Battle of Columbus, to take that important Confederate manufacturing center. West Point was fortified by the earthwork of Fort Tyler, commanded by Confederate Brig. Gen. Robert C. Tyler, for whom it was named. Union artillery and dismounted cavalry, armed with Spencer repeater-carbines, soon forced the garrison to surrender, Tyler being shot dead by a sniper, and becoming the last Confederate General killed. On hearing of the victory at Columbus, Union troops were free to burn the bridge and the railroad stock. It was one of the last battles of the war.