The Battle of Egypt Station (December 28, 1864) was an engagement in Mississippi that took place during a successful Union cavalry raid during the American Civil War.

A 3,500-man Union cavalry division under Brigadier General Benjamin Grierson defeated Confederate troops led by Franklin Gardner and Samuel J. Gholson.

Moving south while wrecking bridges and track along the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, the Union raiders encountered the Confederate defenders at Egypt Station.

Some of the men captured by Grierson's raiders proved to be former Union soldiers who volunteered to fight for the Confederacy rather than languish in prison camps.

When John Bell Hood's army retreated into northern Mississippi after the Battle of Nashville, it was unable to obtain supplies because Grierson's raiders had damaged the railroad so badly.

[2] At Franklin on December 17, the retreating Confederates managed to destroy the bridges, but James H. Wilson's Union cavalrymen forded the Harpeth River to capture 2,000 enemy soldiers too badly wounded to be moved.

[4] After bitter rearguard actions conducted by Nathan Bedford Forrest, the survivors of Hood's army crossed the Tennessee River on December 28 and passed out of the reach of Thomas and Wilson.

Grierson reported having 3,500 men, including 11 cavalry regiments organized into three brigades led by Colonels Kargé, Edward Francis Winslow, and Embury D. Osband.

[7] However, historian Frederick H. Dyer stated that Battery "K", 2nd Illinois Light Artillery Regiment accompanied the raid and fought at Egypt Station.

[8] When the Union column reached a point 3 mi (4.8 km) west of Moscow, Tennessee, it veered to the southeast and passed through Lamar, Mississippi before arriving at Ripley.

The 10th Missouri Cavalry Regiment left the column and cut the telegraph lines at LaGrange and Grand Junction, Tennessee and rejoined Grierson's division before it reached Ripley.

Since civilians encountered had expressed complete surprise at the Union raiders' presence, Grierson detached Kargé's brigade and authorized that officer to attack Verona on the night of December 25.

Getting information from deserters that the reinforcements would not arrive until 11:00 am, Grierson determined to attack the Confederate force at Egypt Station on the morning of December 28.

[11] Kargé's brigade marched at 7:00 am that morning, brushed aside the Confederate cavalry, and encountered a defense line about 0.5 mi (0.8 km) north of Egypt Station.

[12] During the action, two trains of reinforcements under Major General Franklin Gardner appeared from the south, but these were stopped and prevented from joining the battle.

[15] From Winona, a detachment from the 4th Iowa Cavalry Regiment moved to Bankston where it destroyed the cloth and shoe factories making equipment for Confederate soldiers.

A detachment of 300 horsemen from Winslow's brigade under Colonel John W. Noble of the 3rd Iowa Cavalry Regiment went north from Winona toward Grenada, wrecking the railroad and Confederate facilities.

Grierson claimed to have destroyed four running locomotives, 10 locomotives under repair, 95 railroad cars, 300 army wagons, two caissons, 20,000 ft (6,096 m) of bridges and trestles, 10 mi (16 km) of railroad track, 20 mi (32 km) of telegraph poles and wire, 30 warehouses of military stores, seven depots, 500 bales of cotton, 700 hogs, and various other Confederate property.