Lovejoy's Station was a Civil War engagement fought in Georgia, 1864. It was a Confederate victory.
While Confederate Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler was absent raiding Union supply lines from North Georgia to East Tennessee, Maj. Gen. William Sherman, unconcerned, sent Judson Kilpatrick to raid Rebel supply lines. Leaving on August 18, Kilpatrick hit the Atlanta & West Point Railroad that evening, tearing up a small area of tracks. Next, Kilpatrick headed for Lovejoy's Station on the Macon & Western Railroad. In transit, on the 19th, Kilpatrick's men hit the Jonesborough supply depot on the Macon & Western Railroad, burning great amounts of supplies. On the 20th, they reached Lovejoy's Station and began their destruction. Rebel infantry (Cleburne's Division) appeared and the raiders were forced to fight into the night, finally fleeing to prevent encirclement. Although Kilpatrick had destroyed supplies and track at Lovejoy's Station, the railroad line was back in operation in two days.
On August 20, 1864, opposing forces clashed at Lovejoy's Station in Clayton County, Georgia, an engagement of the American Civil War.
With Joseph Wheeler and his Confederate cavalry away tearing up Union supply routes between North Georgia and East Tennessee, William Sherman felt little alarm and dispatched Judson Kilpatrick on a counter raid against the railroads feeding the Rebel army. Kilpatrick's column set out on August 18 and struck the Atlanta & West Point Railroad that same evening, ripping up a modest stretch of rail.
From there Kilpatrick turned his men toward Lovejoy's Station, aiming for the Macon & Western line. Along the way, on the 19th, his troopers descended on the Confederate supply depot at Jonesborough, also situated on the Macon & Western, and put a vast quantity of stores to the torch.
The following day, August 20, Kilpatrick's horsemen arrived at Lovejoy's Station and set about wrecking the rail line there. Their work was interrupted when Cleburne's Division of Confederate infantry showed up, pulling the raiders into combat that dragged on past nightfall until they broke off and rode away to escape being surrounded. Kilpatrick had managed to wreck both supplies and track at the station, yet within a mere two days the Confederates had the railroad running again.
By this point neither army had gained a decisive advantage. The Union forces held roughly half of Atlanta under siege while the Confederate garrison held firm inside its earthworks, and accounts from the time describe the fighting on August 20 as running without pause all the way from Lovejoy's Station to Walnut Creek.
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