The eighth Battle of Selma historic marker was erected Thursday at the intersection of Broad Street and the Old Alabama and Mississippi Railroad track.

The marker describes the taking of the Confederate’s last fortification in Selma.

With the Confederates’ army arsenal destroyed by fire, the only line of defense the South had left was the Alabama and Mississippi Railroad Track at the depot, which was located on what is now Broad Street. Union troops zeroed in on the depot and took siege of it.

“The Union forces attacked Selma on April 2,” April 1865 Society, Inc. President James Hammonds said. “They went to the outer works and they breached the outer works at around Summerfield Road. Selma was in the process of building an inner works because the outer works had to be manned by 20,000 troops. They were bringing an interior line in and building it.”

Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest used Major Joseph Hardie’s troops and the railroad tracks as a second line of defense, after soldiers of the seventh Pennsylvania Calvary captured the depot.

“At that point, all the organized resistance collapsed,” Hammonds said. “When the depot fell, it meant the entire interior line of defense was gone.”

An excerpt from the marker details Hardie’s surrender after Union troops stormed the battlefield, after the makeshift line of defense gave in.

His account of the ordeal mentioned how Union soldiers poured in and broke down all lines of defense for the Confederates. Hardie surrendered, and was taken to Watts Hall, which is now Sturdivant Hall, as a prisoner.

The fall of the depot will be reenacted at the Battle of Selma

Reenactment event start April 23. Hammonds said there will be a building on the site called the Alabama and Mississippi Depot.

Every year, he said the April 1865 Society and others have tried to make the reenactment more reflective of the history learned from the markers and research.

The 150th Anniversary of the Battle of Selma will be on April 23-26.