Tennessee

Tennessee’s Civil War Heritage Trail

A State Divided: The Civil War Years in Tennessee

A Brief History by Carole Bucy

Tennessee was a rural state of rolling hills and abundant farmland when the Civil War began in 1861. It was a state of rivers, named for the river that divided the state into three distinct areas and defied nature by flowing South and then North before emptying into the Ohio River. Like the river, fiercely independent of geological rules, the pioneers who crossed the mountains and settled Tennessee were independent, self-reliant and unrestrained. As the sixteenth state admitted to the Union, Tennessee had already given the nation two Presidents. Tennesseeans took fierce pride in their identity as volunteers and had fought for the United States in every American war. Those Tennessee volunteers who fought side by side now found themselves on opposite sides as the War split not only the nation, but the state as well.

Tennesseans could not envision what the next four years would bring to their state and its people. No one could foresee the tremendous loss of life among its people and the complete devastation of Tennessee’s peaceful countryside. No one could anticipate that there would be no one from the Mississippi River in the West to the Appalachian Mountains in the East who would be untouched by the War.

Before the War was over, Tennesseans fought Tennesseans, neighbors fought neighbors, family members fought their kin, and many Tennesseans died for causes in which they deeply believed. Tennessee lost many Confederate soldiers and at the same time, the state had the highest percentage of Federal casualties of any state. Sons of every state in the Union lost their lives on Tennessee soil. More than 450 battles or engagements took place in Tennessee during the Civil War. As appalling as the number of official battles or skirmishes was, throughout most of the war, Tennessee was in a state of siege. No number can accurately tell how many encounters really took place within Tennessee’s borders. Statistics cannot begin to describe the complete devastation from the cotton plantations of West Tennessee across the rolling hills of Middle Tennessee to the mountains on the eastern border.

Troops from both armies raided the hills and valleys in search of food and provisions for their soldiers. With almost every able-bodied man away from home serving one army or the other, women and children were left alone on family farms and mountain cabins with little or no protection as they struggled to survive. For four years, the armies of the Union and the Confederacy crossed and recrossed the state. No county escaped the devastation and no family was untouched by the death and destruction. The wounds left by the war on the landscape of Tennessee created a scar that would not be healed by merely an armistice. There were those less visible scars on the hearts and souls of Tennesseans that would be carried by subsequent generations of young men and women regardless of their sentiments during the war.

During the presidency of Andrew Jackson, Tennesseeans provided early leadership in the national abolition movement with the nation’s first abolitionist newspaper, The Emancipator, published at Jonesboro in the 1820’s. Tennesseans participated in the colonization of Liberia, but the cost of freeing slaves and then sending them to Africa made colonization difficult. Tennessee had a higher percentage of free African-Americans than other Southern states. Concentrated in the cities of Knoxville, Nashville, and Memphis, these free African-Americans worked at various occupations and owned some property at the time of the war.

In the presidential election of 1860, Tennessee supported neither the Republican Abraham Lincoln nor the two Democratic candidates, but chose instead to give its electoral votes to a favorite son, John Bell of the Constitutional Union Party. Bell’s platform was simple: keep the Union together. This was the prevailing sentiment in Tennessee. When it was announced that Abraham Lincoln had won the election, Tennessee did not immediately join South Carolina in leaving the Union. John Bell urged the state to see what happened before taking action and even went to Washington to meet with Lincoln to urge the President not to use military force to restore the Union.

As talk of dissolving the Union spread, the threatened invasion of homeland rather than slavery was the primary justification for secession in Tennessee. By 1860 slaves made up only 8 percent of Tennessee’s total population. Most of these slaves worked on farms and plantations. Few farmers in East Tennessee owned slaves, but the numbers of slaves increased nearer the Mississippi River. Middle Tennessee’s iron manufacturers owned large numbers of slaves which provided the labor for iron furnaces. In West Tennessee, where cotton was the primary crop, 40 percent of the total population were slaves.

Two months before the first conflict of the war, the electorate of Tennessee (only white males were eligible to vote) voted not to hold a convention to deal with the question of secession. Tennessee would not leave the Union merely to follow its neighboring Southern states. Franklin County, the county most determined to leave the Union, then voted to secede from Tennessee and petitioned the state of Alabama to annex it.

After the attack on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, and President Abraham Lincoln’s subsequent call for troops from those states still in the Union to subdue the Southern rebellion, public sentiment in Tennessee shifted in support of its Southern neighbors. Many, however, still hoped Tennessee could remain neutral. They condemned both the coercion from the Union and the secession of other states and saw Tennessee as “the peacemaker between the states of the South and the general government.” Others, however, felt that Tennessee could not abandon its neighbors. “We must not see our Southern brothers butchered,” wrote Felix Zollicoffer, editor of the Nashville Banner. When the second referendum was held, Tennessee voted to secede and became the eleventh and final state to leave the Union.

Tennessee’s Governor, Isham G. Harris, a states’ rights Democrat who supported the Confederacy, understood that Tennessee was not united on secession. Harris had already entered a military league with the Confederate States but had not been able to convince the citizens of the state to secede. A special session of the state legislature then passed an act to submit for referendum a Declaration of Independence for Tennessee. The Declaration carefully avoided using the word “secession” since Tennessee regarded the vote as a measure to reassert Tennessee’s sovereignty and declare her independence from the U. S. The state would be independent without joining the Confederacy, but it was a foregone conclusion that independence was the first step toward joining the Confederacy.

United States Senator Andrew Johnson, a former Tennessee Governor and a Democrat, toured east Tennessee and urged citizens to reject secession. In spite of the fact that more people in East voted in opposition to secession than those in West Tennessee voting in favor of leaving the Union, on June 8, 1861, the voters passed the Declaration and left the Union. The shifting sentiments in Middle Tennessee made the difference in the vote. In August, the Tennessee General Assembly ratified the Confederate Constitution and became the eleventh state in the Confederacy. Although Tennessee became a Confederate state, no Tennessean served in any position of leadership in Jefferson Davis’s government.

After secession, there remained much support across Tennessee for the Union. East Tennessee had overwhelmingly voted to remain in the Union and then attempted to secede from Tennessee. Middle Tennessee was more evenly divided in its loyalties while West Tennessee supported secession. Still, within the grand divisions of the state, there was division. Pockets of pro-Union sentiment could be found along the Tennessee River in West Tennessee. Unionists and secessionists lived side by side throughout Tennessee.

Many of those living in East Tennessee opposed the institution of slavery, but believed that each state had a right to leave the Union. Nine days after the referendum, 26 dissenting counties met in Greeneville and voted to petition the legislature to allow them for form a separate state. The General Assembly received the Greeneville petition, but never acted on it. Knoxville newspaper editor, William G. Brownlow, a former circuit riding preacher became the leader of the Tennessee Unionists, but fled the state when the Confederates took Knoxville. In Washington, D. C. the Tennessee members of Congress withdrew from their houses with the exception of Senator Andrew Johnson. He remained in his seat in the Senate after Tennessee’s secession without a state to represent.

Tennessee was now an independent state, but Governor Harris immediately began preparations for war by recruiting an army. “Tennessee will not furnish a single man for purposes of coercion, but 50,000, if necessary, for the defense of our rights and those of our Southern brothers,” he wrote. The legislature ordered each county court to appoint and raise a home guard to protect against the threat of invasion. Young men from the Mississippi River to the Appalachian Mountains lined up at county courthouses to enlist amid much excitement. Prominent individuals in local communities raised a company from a particular county. These companies combined with neighboring companies to form regiments.

These soldiers became the Army of Tennessee which along with General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, became one of the Confederacy’s two great armies. Tennesseans tried to recruit Kentuckians who wanted to join the Confederacy in defiance of Kentucky’s neutrality. Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Memphis businessman and successful slave trader, put up posters in Memphis calling for anyone who wanted to kill Yankees to come ride with him. Like other Confederate officers, Forrest used his own money to equip his cavalry unit. Training camps were established across the state for soldiers recruited in local communities and young men left farms and towns for the first time. Tennessee was going to war. Many of those young men who enlisted had never been further from home than the next county. Many never returned home.

No one could anticipate that the war would not end until 1865. Both sides thought that the war could not last longer than three months. Before the war was over, young men from as far as Maine and California would come to Tennessee while Tennessee’s own sons would see action from Texas to Pennsylvania. By the time the war was over, Tennessee had sent 186,652 to fight for the Confederacy and 31,092 to fight for the Union. Equally essential to both armies, the rest of the state’s population that remained at home supported the war effort and tried to survive.

Tennessee was an overwhelmingly agricultural state in 1861. The state had only had one federal installation, a U. S. Navy Yard in Memphis which had closed in 1857. There were no factories providing supplies and equipment for troops so industrial development began in Tennessee’s towns to supply the tools of war necessary to defend the state. Mexican War muskets found in storage in the state capitol basement were issued to Confederate soldiers. Unfortunately for the soldiers who were given these weapons, some were flintlocks which would not fire if wet. The Nashville Plow Works converted its operations from the manufacturing of farm implements to swords thus reversing the Biblical verse of “swords into plowshares.” Much support for the Confederacy would come from the women on the farms. Caroline Meriwether Goodlett converted her tobacco barns near Clarksville into sewing rooms where Nashville women gathered to make uniforms for Confederate soldiers. Women worked the fields when their husbands and fathers left the farms for war and canned farm produce to feed the troops.

President Lincoln saw Tennessee as “the keystone of the Southern arch” with its indispensable railroad, telegraph and river arteries leading into the Deep South. Railroads and telegraph lines became the indispensable weapons of modern warfare in 1861. Rich in natural resources such as saltpeter, lead, and copper, both armies needed to control the state. The rich farm land of Tennessee could produce corn, hogs, and cattle to feed an army. Tennessee was critical to the Union strategy to gain the Mississippi River Valley and seize the Nashville-Atlanta corridor. Nashville became the central storehouse for the Confederate armies with factories producing artillery and necessities for soldiers. The Confederacy’s most important gunpowder mill was on the Cumberland River near Nashville.

A primary problem for the Confederacy was the defense of Tennessee. The Tennessee-Kentucky border stretching from the Mississippi River through the Cumberland Gap to the mountains of Virginia became the front. The front line was too long and there were not enough troops available to fortify every critical point along the Kentucky-Tennessee border. The Confederate leaders believed that Lincoln would attempt to invade the deep South states of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi by coming through Tennessee’s river and railroad system. Major General Leonidas Polk, a West Point graduate from middle Tennessee who had become an Episcopal priest, was sent to Tennessee by Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, and began preparations to defend the Mississippi River. The Confederates began construction of a chain of five forts along Tennessee’s Mississippi River border to shield the river and Memphis, Tennessee’s largest city, from Federal invasion.

Confederate leadership believed the Federal forces would not attempt an invasion of the deep South through Kentucky. Plans were made to build fortifications along the border at the Tennessee River and the Cumberland River, but the work on these projects was sporadic throughout the summer of 1861. Fort Henry was built on the Tennessee River at the Kentucky border and a few miles away Fort Donelson was begun near Dover to protect the Cumberland River and Tennessee’s state capitol, Nashville. Located on low ground that regularly flooded, Fort Henry was finally completed on the Tennessee River as a five-sided earth work with cannon mounted behind the earthen walls. Fort Donelson was in a better position to be defended. Earth works forts such as Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, however, became obsolete with the coming of the ironclad gunboat, a new weapon of the Civil War.

Kentucky’s neutrality collapsed when large numbers of Federal troops were stationed in Kentucky in preparation for the invasion of the Southern heartland. Many in Tennessee believed that Kentucky had been bound to the Union against the will of its people.

General Albert Sidney Johnston replaced General Polk as commander of all Confederate troops west of the Alleghenies. Johnston immediately began to prepare for the defense of Tennessee by fortifying strategic points on the Mississippi River, the Tennessee River, the Cumberland River, and the Cumberland Gap. Johnston knew that he did not have enough troops to adequately protect the long border. By mid-September when Federal troops began pouring into Kentucky, Johnston attempted to defend the Northern border of Tennessee at once from the Mississippi River to Virginia.

As soon as Tennessee seceded, there was a rash of guerrilla activity in East Tennessee. President Lincoln approved of a daring plan to destroy key wooden railroad bridges south of the Virginia border in Tennessee to cut Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Atlanta off from the Confederacy. East Tennessee Unionists led by a Presbyterian minister carried out the plan and began burning bridges.

When word of the bridge burning spread, Confederate General Felix Zollicoffer was sent to Knoxville to impose martial law in late 1861. Arms of the East Tennessee Unionists were seized by Confederate soldiers before they could organize. To retaliate, Federal supporters organized bushwhacking societies to harass Confederate sympathizers and troops. At the other end of the state, Confederate guerrillas and vigilantes did the same. The horror of true civil war descended upon the state of Tennessee. Two bitter enemies now each lived side by side with no boundaries to separate them. Hatred swept Tennessee. Each believed in the righteousness of its cause and each was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice of life for the cause in which he believed.

Early in 1862, Federal troops on both ends of the front, the Tennessee-Kentucky border, began to probe across the line. Confederate strategists continued to believe the Union would army would attempt test the defense of the line by coming down the Mississippi River in the West and coming through the Cumberland Gap in the East. The first encounter along this line occurred just over the border north of the Cumberland Gap in Kentucky. General Zollicoffer was sent from Knoxville to the Cumberland Gap to keep the Federal troops out of East Tennessee. Zollicoffer exceeded his orders and crossed the flooded Cumberland River hoping to surprise Union troops before they received reinforcements from Louisville. At daybreak on January 19, the two armies met in the fog and rain. Many of the Confederates were armed with old flintlock rifles which would not fire in the rain. Zollicoffer who was very near-sighted, rode into the Federal lines and was shot. The Rebel troops were routed and fled back across the border into the Cumberland Mountains.

Federal troops stationed in Cairo, Illinois and Paducah, Kentucky under the command of General Henry W. Halleck prepared for an invasion of Tennessee. Halleck realized that the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers gave easy access to the heartland of the Confederacy. Whoever controlled these rivers could control commercial and military movements throughout much of the South. When Halleck realized the strength of the Confederates holding Columbus on the Mississippi as well as Bowling Green, Kentucky, he decided to enter Tennessee by coming up the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers with a joint army-naval attack on Fort Henry on the Tennessee and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland. The Confederates had 11,000 men at Columbus and General Halleck believed that it could not be taken without “great loss of life.”

Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston now had his headquarters in Edgefield, across the Cumberland River from Nashville. He believed Nashville should be fortified but was unable to get a fort built near Nashville prior to the attack on Fort Henry. By this time, there were few laborers left in Nashville to do the work on such a structure.

As the plan for invasion evolved, Federal gunboats under the command of Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote would come up the rivers into Tennessee while General Ulysses S. Grant’s troops would attack the forts by land.

Union General Ulysses S. Grant was sent to Kentucky with 17,000 troops, seven gunboats and orders to take the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. The gunboats were a new weapon which made defense of forts designed like Forts Henry and Donelson almost impossible. A typical gunboat was a small floating fort equipped with rifled cannons and iron armour. The gunboats enabled Union cannon shells to be fired over the defensive fortifications deep into Confederate strongholds.

On February 6, 1862, Foote’s gunboats opened fire on Fort Henry under Confederate General Lloyd Tilghman as Grant’s army approached from its position downstream. When the attack began, heavy rains had already flooded the fort and the Confederate soldiers inside the fort were standing in two feet of cold water. As Grant’s troops approached from both sides of the river, the fort was bombarded by the gunboats. Realizing the situation was desperate, Tilghman knew that he did not have enough soldiers to withstand the barrage of fire from the gunboats. He evacuated as many of his troops from Fort Henry to nearby Fort Donelson as he could and then surrendered to General Grant.

Grant’s troops secured Fort Henry and then marched the twelve miles to Fort Donelson. Foote took his gunboats all the way up the river to Florence, Alabama before returning downstream to the Ohio to enter the Cumberland River. Foote’s maneuvers showed the weaknesses of the Confederate’s defense of the rivers. The Tennessee River was now open all the way into Alabama.

When word of the surrender of Fort Henry reached General Johnston in Nashville, he sent reinforcements to Fort Donelson. The Confederate location at Fort Donelson made its defense more realistic. Grant’s men marched to Fort Donelson and encircled the outerworks of the fort as the Union gunboats moved into position on the Cumberland River.

When the Federal gunboats attacked, strategically located Confederate guns fired back and forced Foote to retreat. For two days, Confederate Generals John Floyd, Gideon Pillow, and Simon Buckner beat off gunboat attacks and then wagered a counter-attack on Grant. Grant received reinforcements to strengthen his position, but the Confederates were able to hold their positions and clear the route to Nashville.

When it appeared that Grant’s army was going to retreat, the Confederate generals at Fort Donelson hesitated and ordered their troops to return to their entrenchments. It appeared that the Confederate attack had been successful, but the generals wavered and retreated back into the garrison. This enabled Grant to organize his own attack and close the road to Nashville.

Fear overcame the Confederate generals and they began to formulate plans to surrender after mounting a reasonably capable and aggressive defense of the fort. Generals John Floyd and Gideon Pillow then turned over command to General Simon Buckner and escaped. Buckner was left to surrender Fort Donelson. Confederate Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest, also stationed at Fort Donelson, managed to escape saying, “I didn’t come here for the purpose of surrendering my command.”

When Buckner sent word to Grant to ask for terms, Grant replied, “No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted.” On February 16, General Buckner surrendered 12,000 Confederates to his West Point classmate General Grant, who received the nickname, “Unconditional Surrender” Grant. These Confederate soldiers including General Buckner became prisoners of war. The fall of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson was the first major victory for the Federal army and the first major defeats for the Confederates who had been victorious in Virginia. General Ulysses S. Grant became a national hero.

General Grant and the Federal army were now only 75 miles away from the rich Confederate storehouse of Tennessee’s capitol. The Federal army occupied the town of Clarksville and word spread that the Federal army was swiftly moving into Tennessee. Panic swept Nashville when word arrived that Union General Don Carlos Buell was now moving 50,000 troops from Bowling Green, Kentucky to Nashville to join Grant’s troops coming up the Cumberland River. Confederate Commander Johnston knew that he could not protect the city and immediately began plans to withdraw to Mississippi. Johnston realized that with Nashville unfortified the Federal forces would now overrun a large section of Tennessee. Governor Harris abandoned the capitol building and moved the center of state government to Memphis.

In the midst of this chaos, Colonel Forrest arrived in Nashville two days after Fort Donelson’s surrender. Forrest took charge of salvaging military provisions and supplies stockpiled in Nashville’s storehouses as the city prepared to be overrun by the Union army. As Buell and Federal troops arrived at Edgefield, the remaining Confederates burned the suspension bridge over the Cumberland River which connected Edgefield to Nashville and fled the city for Mississippi.

The Federal army now controlled Nashville. Troops were garrisoned inside the recently completed capitol building and President Lincoln sent Tennessee’s Senator Andrew Johnson to Nashville as military governor of the state to establish federal authority over the city and state. When Johnson arrived, he tried to convince Tennesseans to return to the Union.

Nashville was an occupied city from February, 1862 until the end of the War. When Nashville Mayor Cheatham and the city council refused to take an oath of allegiance to the Union, they were imprisoned. Schools, churches, and homes were pressed into service by the Federal forces. Clergymen were jailed because of their “Confederate sermons” and the people of Nashville referred to Johnson, a former Democratic governor of Tennessee, as “Johnson the Tyrant.” Johnson tried to restore civil government, but had not been able to do so when he returned to Washington in 1865 to become Vice President.

After the Confederates lost control of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, they abandoned their position at Columbus, Kentucky on the Mississippi and retreated to Fort Pillow just above Memphis. Johnston moved his troops from Nashville to Corinth, Mississippi where he hoped to protect the railroad lines there leading from the Deep South to Virginia.

In March, 1862, the Confederate Congress passed the Conscription Law which required every male citizen between the ages of 18 and 35 living in the Confederacy to serve in the Confederate army. Many East Tennesseans who continued to support the Union refused to enlist and sought refuge in Kentucky.

At Corinth, Mississippi, General Johnston joined Generals P. G. T. Beauregard and Major General Braxton Bragg and reorganized his forces to launch an offensive against General Grant. Grant quickly followed, moving a force of 40,000 troops from Nashville to Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River in West Tennessee just 30 miles from Corinth. Grant planned to wait for reinforcements and then attack Corinth. Knowing that Grant would soon receive reinforcements from General Buell and then march to Corinth, the Confederate generals planned a surprise attack on General Grant before he moved further into the heartland of the South. Johnston wanted to regain the offensive and destroy Grant’s Army of the Tennessee before he could move into Mississippi. When plans for the attack were finalized, General Johnston promised his men that they would water their horses that night in the Tennessee River.

Planned for April 4, the Confederate attack was delayed at the army moved out of Corinth. When Beauregard realized the delay had cost his army the element of surprise, he advised Commander Johnston to withdraw back to Corinth. Johnston, however, refused to change his plan. The Confederate army attacked the Federal camps at Pittsburg Landing on April 6 and nevertheless achieved a complete surprise since Federal Brigadier General William Tecumseh Sherman who had now joined Grant had ignored reports of Confederate troops in the area. Since Grant did not anticipate an attack, he drilled his men, many of whom had not yet seen combat, but made no plans to fortify his position. Grant was twelve miles away at his headquarters in Savannah, Tennessee when the attack began.

The Confederate troops decisively moved forward during the morning hours as many Federal soldiers retreated toward the Tennessee River. Fighting on the grounds of the Shiloh Church, the Confederates clearly had the advantage over the Federal troops. By afternoon, however, the Federal forces finally held the Confederates advance and established a line in an area the Confederates called the “Hornet’s Nest,” a protected enclave at the end of an old wagon road, since it seemed that they had stirred up a hornet’s nest of Federal soldiers. The Confederates charged the Hornet’s Nest repeatedly without success throughout the afternoon until their artillery concentration enabled Confederate infantrymen to push forward and surround the Federal soldiers. As the afternoon wore on, confusion took over as Confederates lost valuable time and troops taking the Hornet’s Nest.

While riding in to supervise the attack on the river side of the battlefield, General Johnston was struck below his right knee by a musket ball and bled to death from an arterial wound. Now General Beauregard became the commander of the Confederate troops. Even though the Federal Forces hoisted a white flag at sunset at the Hornet’s Nest, the Federal troops there had managed to slow the Rebel troops attack so that General Grant could establish a new battle line.

Although the taking of the Hornet’s Nest was a victory for the Confederates, Federal troops holding the line there gave General Grant time to organize a defense and establish a final defensive line nearer the river. He established a line of 53 guns on the bluffs around Pittsburg Landing to protect the surviving Federal troops. As the day ended, Federal reinforcements from Nashville began to arrive. General Buell’s army crossed the river with infantry and artillery reinforcements while Federal gunboats protected the line.

When the battle began the next morning the tide had turned. The Federal troops now consisted of the combined armies of Grant and Buell which numbered over 55,000 men. Unaware that Buell’s army had arrived, Beauregard planned to continue his attack until he drove Grant’s army into the river. Although the Confederates continued to fight throughout the day of April 7, they were badly outnumbered and by late afternoon, General Beauregard ordered a retreat back to Corinth. This was the bloodiest engagement of American history to date.

The following day, Grant sent Sherman south to try to catch the retreating Confederates, but when Sherman encountered the Confederates rear guard under Colonel Forrest, Sherman abandoned the pursuit.

With much of the Confederate strength now away from the Mississippi River, the Federal army began its attacks on the forts along the river. Memphis began preparations for its defense. A warehouse was converted into an armory and fortifications began along the river. Memphis’s factories turned to war production with the Memphis Arsenal employing more than 200 women who produced 75,000 rounds of handgun ammunition a day.

Memphis women responded to the demands of the war by organizing benevolent societies and forming hospitals to care for the sick and the wounded as they began to be brought in from the Battle of Shiloh. The Confederacy, however, did little to help the citizens of Memphis build up their defenses. As the perimeter began to fall into Federal hands, Confederate General Braxton Bragg placed the city under martial law.

After sustaining heavy Confederate losses, Island Number Ten, a strong fortification built at the Kentucky border, was surrendered to the Federal forces on April 7, the same day of the Confederate retreat from Shiloh. Only Fort Pillow, 60 miles above Memphis now served as an obstacle between the Union invaders and Memphis. Within two months, the entire chain of Confederate forts along Tennessee’s Mississippi River border was surrendered or abandoned. Fort Pillow, Fort Harris and Fort Randolph were abandoned in early June and the Union prepared to take Memphis, now serving as Tennessee’s capitol. As summer approached, it became apparent that the Confederate army would not be able to make a serious attempt to defend the city.

Some in Memphis threatened to burn the city rather than turn it over to the Federal troops. An effort was made to try to rouse the Memphis citizens themselves to provide their own defense, but they waited for relief from the Confederate army and navy. As the Federal gunboats approached the city, many private citizens and Confederate troops began to flee South. The departing army salvaged what supplies it could quickly load and carry. Thousands of barrels of molasses were poured down the riverbank, and all the cotton at the waterfront, some 300,000 bales, was set on fire. The Confederacy had two ironclads under construction in the harbor; the one nearly completed was towed South while the second was burned.

As the Federal fleet of five ironclad, 19 rams and various auxiliary ships rounded the bend in the river above Memphis, the citizens of Memphis assembled on the bluffs to watch the battle. The city was truly defenseless and the Federal troops demanded the surrender of the city. The only fighting that occurred was on the river. The Confederate ships left in Memphis were destroyed as only one Confederate ship escaped to Vicksburg. After two hours of river combat, the mayor of Memphis surrendered the city and the United States flag was raised over the Memphis post office. Now the Federal army controlled Middle and West Tennessee and the only point held by the Confederates that remained between Memphis and the port of New Orleans was Vicksburg, Mississippi. Ironically, the only major city now held by the Confederates in Tennessee was Knoxville, home of large numbers of Unionists.

With the Confederates suffering so many losses and retreating even further into Mississippi, President Davis removed General Beauregard from command of the Army of Tennessee and replaced him with General Braxton Bragg. After the fall of Memphis, the main portion of the Army of Tennessee relocated to Chattanooga. Since the Federal army had completed its objective of gaining the Mississippi Valley, Federal troops under the command of General Buell began to move east to capture Chattanooga. General Grant would remain in West Tennessee and Mississippi to continue the siege of Vicksburg, the only remaining Confederate holding on the Mississippi River.

While some African-American slaves accompanied the Confederate army as servants and cooks, most stayed at work on the farms and plantations where they lived. They realized, however, that the departure of so many of the male slave owners weakened their owners’ control over them and many slaves gradually began to leave home with the Federal occupation of West Tennessee. As Federal control was established over the state, larger numbers of African- Americans began to appear at Federal camps. When faced with overwhelming numbers, Federal officials created a statewide system of camps to care for the African-Americans. Even before the Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Lincoln, slaves were considered “contraband” and given protection if they reached Federal lines. After the occupation of Memphis, large numbers of African-American refugees poured into the city from the surrounding countryside which generally was controlled by the Rebels. They went to work building Federal fortifications in Memphis.

Many African-American men joined the Federal army despite the opposition of Andrew Johnson and other military leaders. Johnson wanted to employ able-bodied black men as civilian laborers rather than soldiers. Eventually more than 20,000 African Americans from Tennessee enlisted in the Federal army when recruiting stations were established across the state. African Americans made up 40 percent of the Tennessee Federal volunteers. These soldiers served with distinction despite discrimination and a death rate that was twice as high as that of the white troops.

Far from the battlefields of Tennessee, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862 stating that all slaves in the states in open rebellion against the Union would be free on January 1, 1863. Lincoln hoped to use emancipation to bring the seceding states back into the Union. He offered gradual or voluntary emancipation to those states not at war with the United States on January 1, 1863, but stated that all slaves in states remaining at war would be free on January 1 without compensation to their owners. Since Tennessee’s capitol was occupied by Federal forces, Lincoln considered Tennessee to still be a part of the Union.

Andrew Johnson, Tennessee’s military governor, still hoped that Tennessee would return to the Union and continued to try to establish a legitimate state government. Tennessee Unionists, however, were divided between the extreme radicals like William Brownlow, and the more conservative Union supporters. This division prevented Johnson from establishing a legitimate state government. For this reason, President Lincoln, exempted Tennessee when he issued the Proclamation by merely omitting the state’s name in the document. Lincoln hoped to make Tennessee a model for restoration to the Union. Lincoln wrote to Johnson saying, “All Tennessee is now clear of insurrectionists. You need not be reminded that it is the nick of time for reinaugurating a loyal state government. Not a moment should be lost....I see that you have declared in favor of emancipation in Tennessee, for which may God bless you. Get emancipation into your new state government constitution and there will be no such word as fail for your case. The raising of colored troops, I think, will greatly help every way.”

Throughout the summer of 1862, Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest and Brigadier General John Hunt Morgan raided Federal troops demolishing lines of communication and supply lines for the Federal army. Forrest captured Murfreesboro on the Stones River near Nashville while Morgan destroyed a large section of railroad track in Gallatin. These raids were costly for the Federal army and halted Federal General Buell’s offensive to Chattanooga as well as other Federal movement in the state.

President Lincoln replaced General Buell with General William Rosecrans when Buell did not move to push the Confederates out of Kentucky and East Tennessee. Rosecrans quickly ordered Federal troops relocated from Bowling Green, Kentucky to Nashville to strengthen defenses. Federal troops took possession of Gallatin on November 9 and ran Morgan’s cavalry out of the area. Military Governor Andrew Johnson requested that Nashville be fortified to provide defense of the major pikes, the highways leading into the city. Work began on large forts on the tops of four of Nashville’s prominent hills. Nashville became one of the most heavily fortified cities in the country.

Confederate Commander Bragg’s plans included an invasion of Kentucky, but after a loss at Perryville, Kentucky in October, 1862, Bragg retreated back to Knoxville, still occupied by the Confederates. He then moved into middle Tennessee at Murfreesboro. Rosecrans came to Nashville where the Federal army continued to amass large stockpiles of equipment and supplies in anticipation of another encounter with the Army of Tennessee under General Bragg. The Federal army did not want to give Bragg the opportunity to take Nashville and regain control of the railroads from the city. The Federal forces also began construction of earth works in the towns surrounding Nashville as a second line of defense around the city.

Bragg’s army now faced great deprivation with hunger and disease causing much suffering among Confederate troops. By this time, many in the Army of Tennessee had lost confidence in General Bragg. Bragg wanted to amass a large force at Murfreesboro and retake Nashville. President Davis visited Bragg’s troops at Murfreesboro on December 10, but ignored advice to concentrate forces in Tennessee to disrupt Federal supplies lines to the Deep South.

After the visit to Murfreesboro, Davis further weakened Bragg’s army by ordering men from middle Tennessee to Vicksburg. Although guerrilla encounters and cavalry raids continued, it appeared that both armies would now wait out the winter before attacking again. General Nathan Bedford Forrest raided Grant’s communications centers in West Tennessee and captured numerous Federal garrisons while destroying railroad bridges, communication lines, and supply depots. In an effort to end the raids, the Federal army planned to trap Forrest before he returned to Murfreesboro. Two Federal regiments managed to surprise Forrest and surround his artillery and cavalry at Parker’s Crossroads on December 31. When Forrest was informed that he was surrounded by the two Federal brigades, he ordered, “Charge them both ways!” Although Forrest had been surprised, he managed to withdraw from the battlefield and cross the Tennessee River.

General Bragg positioned his troops at strategic points along the Stones River at Murfreesboro where he could attack Rosecrans on the roads leading out of Nashville: Murfreesboro Pike, Lebanon Pike, Nolensville Pike, or Franklin Pike. Late in December, Rosecrans moved his troops out of Nashville and began to advance toward Bragg’s troops at Murfreesboro at a time deliberately chosen because Forrest and Morgan were away on raids. He planned to defeat Bragg’s army and then march on to Chattanooga.

When General Bragg learned of the Federal army’s movements, he prepared for battle and established his line along the Stones River. During the night of December 29, Confederate General Wheeler made devastating raids against Rosecrans’ army and destroyed most of their supplies for the forthcoming battle.

With the two armies encamped a few miles from each other in anticipation of the battle, during the evening hours of December 30, soldiers from one army began to sing as their band played. The opposing army responded with its own tune and soon familiar tunes such as “Hail Columbia” “Bonnie Blue Flag,” “Dixie,” and “Yankee Doodle,” could be heard among the rolling hills. When one of the bands began to play “Home Sweet Home,” the two armies began to sing together, a moment of unity before they fought each other on the battlefield.

The next day, December 31, 1862, the battle began as the Confederates charged the Federal troops sending them into the dense cedar thickets that covered the battlefield. It was said that the noise was so intense that many Confederate soldiers stopped to place cotton in their ears.

Federal forces were driven back, but their line finally held at the Nashville Pike, the road leading to Nashville. General Rosecrans ordered his troops to “contest every inch of ground” even though Bragg believed that Rosecrans would withdraw on New Year’s Day. There was no fighting that day as Bragg assumed Rosecrans was returning to Nashville. When Bragg found the Federal army still in its position on the Nashville Pike on January 2, he renewed his attack and drove the Federals back until the Confederate advance was halted by massive Union artillery fire. Casualties were high in both armies and the battle ended with both sides claiming victory.

Both armies remained in place until the night of January 3, when General Bragg withdrew from the field and retreated to Tullahoma and Shelbyville. Bragg had learned that Rosecrans had received reinforcements and realized at the end of the day’s fighting that his men were no match for the superior artillery of the Federal army. Although the outcome of the battle was by no means a defeat for the Confederacy, Bragg’s withdrawal left Rosecrans with Murfreesboro.

Rosecrans immediately occupied and fortified the city which he used as his headquarters for the first half of 1863. Rosecrans reorganized his army and built a secondary supply depot at Murfreesboro. The Federal forces now controlled a major food-producing section of the state; they built the largest enclosed earthen fortification constructed during the War around its supply base at Murfreesboro and a similar structure at Franklin. The Federal army planned to this base to launch an offensive to capture the Confederate rail center at Chattanooga and further disrupt the transport of supplies in the South, from the Murfreesboro base.

Conditions across the state continued to deteriorate as the war wore on. Deprivation and hunger were widespread among the civilians as well as the troops. Shortages of food became acute as farms went uncultivated and stored foodstuffs were confiscated to feed troops of both armies. In towns occupied by one army or the other, prices soared and supplies diminished. Smuggling across the lines became common.

Nancy Cox of Jackson County drove her oxen 75 miles to Kentucky to bring back salt, a necessity for curing meat. Parched rye, acorns, okra, and even corn meal was substituted for coffee. There were no medicines available in most of the rural parts of the state. Women served as the primary providers of medical care for their families as well as the wounded soldiers in their particular areas.

Throughout the Spring and Summer of 1863, the cavalry raids continued. Nathan Bedford Forrest continued to surprise Federal positions at Trenton, Humboldt, Union City and other points in West Tennessee. His activities destroyed large stores of Federal supplies and railroad lines. Guerrilla warfare continued in middle Tennessee and the Cumberland Plateau area as both armies scoured the state raiding farms and villages in search of food for their troops. Bushwhackers and incessant guerrilla activity completely disrupted all social and economic life across the state. Before the war was over there were no fence posts left in many counties since the posts served as a ready and available source for firewood. Survival became the way of life. Shoes were taken off dead soldiers and dead horses. The deadliest enemy of all was not the opposing armies, but instead was disease. Some estimate that disease killed three Confederates for every soldier killed on the battlefield. The only medicines available were whiskey, vinegar, or turpentine; sterilization of medical instruments was unknown.

After the Confederate retreat to Tullahoma and Shelbyville, General Rosecrans waited until the summer of 1863 before he again renewed his pursuit. Rosecrans ignored advice to consolidate Federal forces at Chattanooga and remained in Murfreesboro until June, 1863. Bragg established a 70-mile defensive line along the Duck River covering three passes through the Highland Rim. Federal troops attacked the Confederate positions at Hoover’s Gap, Liberty Gap, and Guy’s Gap before taking Shelbyville on June 27 and Manchester on June 28. After the Federal army came through Hoover’s Gap and captured Manchester, General Bragg again retreated. Bragg moved his troops to Chattanooga and then into north Georgia.

Rosecrans pursued Bragg knowing that the battle for Chattanooga would eventually take place since control of Chattanooga would provide access to Atlanta. In spite of being outnumbered three to one, the Confederates planned a bold attack to prevent Rosecrans from taking Chattanooga. On September 18, 1863, the battle began on the banks of Chickamauga Creek just over the Georgia line ten miles from Chattanooga. Jefferson Davis sent Major General James Longstreet and Major General John Bell Hood with soldiers from the Virginia campaigns to reinforce Bragg’s troops. The superior position of the Confederate army enabled them to defeat Rosecrans’ troops. By the end of the day on September 20, Rosecrans panicked and fled to Chattanooga leaving Federal General George Thomas, later to be called “The Rock of Chickamauga,” to prevent a complete massacre of the remaining Union troops.

Sam Davis from Smyrna, Tennessee enlisted in the Confederate army at the age of nineteen as a Coleman Scout. In November, 1863, Davis was captured at Pulaski behind enemy lines with documents describing Federal troops in middle Tennessee. Davis was taking this information to General Bragg who besieged Chattanooga. Although Davis was offered a pardon to divulge the source of his information, he refused and was hanged on November 21, 1863. “If I had a thousand lives to live I would give them all gladly rather than betray a friend,” Davis told his executioners.

Dewitt Smith Jobe, another member of the Coleman Scouts, was captured in Williamson County in 1864 and swallowed his dispatches. When Jobe refused to reveal the contents of the documents, he was dragged to death behind a galloping horse.

When the Federal forces withdrew to Chattanooga after the Battle of Chickamauga, General Bragg laid siege to the city to starve the Union into surrendering rather than moving quickly against Rosecrans’s army. By this time, there was much discontent among the Confederate troops who felt that Bragg had allowed Rosecrans to achieve his goal of controlling Chattanooga. A visit from President Jefferson Davis did not improve the morale of the Confederate troops.

Bragg established an incomplete line from Missionary Ridge to Lookout Mountain but waited to attack. Major General Grant was ordered to leave Vicksburg. After meeting in Louisville with Major General Henry Halleck, Grant replaced Rosecrans with Major General George H. Thomas and then joined Thomas at Chattanooga The Federal army planned to attack Bragg’s army and lift the siege.

Grant moved quickly by attacking the Confederate army on November 23. Dense fog covered the mountains around the city and the Battle of Chattanooga became known as the “Battle above the Clouds.” Grant was successful in routing Confederate positions on Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge and the Confederate army fled to Georgia.

After the Confederate defeat at Chattanooga, General Bragg asked to be removed as commander of the Army of Tennessee and was replaced with General Joseph E. Johnston who was well-liked and respected by those under his command. General John Bell Hood, one of General Robert E. Lee’s Virginia generals, then relieved Johnston during the Atlanta campaign as the Army of Tennessee left the Tennessee theater to fight in Georgia.

In March, 1863, Federal troops under General Ambrose Burnside from Cincinnati moved into East Tennessee from Kentucky while General Rosecrans pursued Bragg’s army in middle Tennessee. Burnside liberated Knoxville and then forced the Confederates holding the Cumberland Gap to surrender on September 7, 1863. Burnside ignored requests to reinforce Rosecrans at Chickamauga and remained in Knoxville to prevent the Confederates from retaking the city. President Lincoln took a personal interest in the welfare of Unionists living in East Tennessee and believed their security was at stake.

After the Confederate victory at Chickamauga, Confederate General James Longstreet moved troops from Chattanooga to Knoxville by train in an attempt to dislodge Union General Burnside from the area and prevent him from coming to the aid of Rosecrans in Chattanooga. Burnside positioned his forces at Fort Sanders on the western side of the city which was protected by heavy earth works. When Longsteet attacked the fort on November 29, his troops were defeated in a short battle. Burnside pursued the Confederates into East Tennessee, but then returned to Knoxville for the remainder of the winter. Most of East Tennessee was now restored to the Union. In the spring, Longstreet took his troops from East Tennessee back to Virginia.

Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest was relieved of his duties with the Army of Tennessee after protesting Bragg’s orders to turn his entire command over to Wheeler. Forrest left Tennessee and went to Mississippi late in the fall of 1863 to raise additional forces. With these new troops as well as some of his own men, he continued his raids into Kentucky and West Tennessee. Forrest attacked Fort Pillow on the Mississippi River in April, 1864. When the Federal troops stationed at Fort Pillow refused to surrender, Forrest’s troops stormed the fort and a bloodbath resulted. Many members of the United States Colored Infantry who were stationed at Fort Pillow were slaughtered inside the fort.

Forrest launched three missions into Memphis to release Confederate prisoners, capture Federal generals, and draw the strong Federal forces out of Northern Mississippi to Memphis. He only succeeded in drawing the federal army out of Mississippi, but received much support from Confederate sympathizers in Memphis.

While enroute to rejoin Lieutenant General Hood’s forces in Alabama, Forrest’s troops destroyed Union supplies and gunboats on the Tennessee River at Johnsonville, a major quartermaster depot of the Federal army. There his troops destroyed four Federal gunboats, eleven steamers, and fifteen barges, with quartermaster stores estimated from 75,000 to 120,000 tons. Forrest and his troops then joined General Hood in Alabama where Hood finalized his bold strategy to retake Tennessee’s capitol.

In spite of the fact that Tennessee was no longer a part of the Union, Tennesseans took great interest in the Election of 1864. Still pursuing his goal of restoring the Union, President Lincoln asked Andrew Johnson, a Democrat from Tennessee, to run for Vice-President. Lincoln believed that this Union ticket made up of a Northern Republican and a Southern Democrat would set an example for the nation on reunification. The Lincoln-Johnson ticket carried Tennessee, but Congress refused to recognize Tennessee’s votes since Tennessee was still fighting for the Confederacy. Lincoln won by a narrow margin and Tennessee Unionists met to take specific steps to restore Tennessee’s statehood. Johnson’s election as Vice President enabled William G. Brownlow to return to Tennessee as Governor.

After the Battle of Chattanooga, General Grant was promoted to Supreme Commander of the Federal Army and left Tennessee to pursue Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Federal General Sherman moved toward Atlanta where General John Bell Hood replaced General Joe Johnston in command of the Army of Tennessee. After four unsuccessful attacks which caused high Confederate losses, General Hood was forced to abandon Atlanta and retreat into Alabama. Hood devised an ambitious plan to cut off General Sherman’s supply lines in Tennessee and starve the Federal troops into surrender. He planned to take Nashville where he could resupply his troops; he then would move northward to Louisville and Cincinnati before joining General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia for the Confederates grand assault on Washington, D. C. Jefferson Davis openly discussed Hood’s plans. When Davis’s speeches appeared in newspapers, Sherman became aware of Hood’s strategy. Sherman briefly pursued Hood, but decided to send General John M. Schofield after Hood while he returned to Atlanta to begin his march to the sea.

Hood moved the Army of Tennessee from Alabama into Middle Tennessee on November 21, 1864. When Hood learned that General Schofield’s army was only 30 miles away at Pulaski, Hood devised a plan to prevent Schofield from joining Federal troops in Nashville. Schofield, however, managed to move his entire force past General Hood’s army encamped at Spring Hill during the night while the Confederates slept. By this time, many believed that Hood’s judgment was impaired by his own wounds which had forced him to have a leg amputated in Virginia and left him without the use of his right arm.

The Federal troops entrenched themselves behind hastily constructed earth works on the south side of Franklin at a bend on the Harpeth River. Hood followed when he learned of Schofield’s new position and threw his army at the Federal troops with a direct frontal assault in the afternoon of November 30. In a battle lasting less than six hours, more than 6000 Confederates including 12 generals were killed or severely wounded.

General Scofield withdrew his army to the safety of Nashville rather than counterattacking the Confederates and destroying Hood’s army at Franklin. Schofield joined General George Thomas who commanded large numbers of Federal troops garrisoned around the city. Nashville, which had been occupied for three years, was one of the most heavily fortified cities in North America. Nashville served as the Federal communication, transportation, and supply center for activities west of the Appalachians. Hood consolidated his forces after giving his troops only one day to care for the wounded and bury the dead from the Battle of Franklin. He then pursued Schofield and laid siege to Nashville. He planned to draw the Federal army out of their positions.

Thomas was urged to attack before Hood had an opportunity to fortify his troops, but on December 8, a severe ice storm hit Nashville, preventing any movement by either army for a week. When General Thomas felt that his troops were ready, he attacked Hood’s positions on the hills south of Nashville on December 15 in a dense fog. The United States Colored Infantry carried out diversionary maneuvers throughout the day with great loss of life. After a day of fighting, General Hood moved his line back to reestablish a shorter defensive front. On the second day, General Thomas launched a renewed attack in the afternoon which quickly overran the Confederate defenses. The Army of Tennessee retreated southward with the Federals in pursuit. After ten days of skirmishes and encounters with Forrest’s cavalry, the Federal forces abandoned the pursuit and allowed the Confederates to cross the Tennessee River into Mississippi. This retreat marked the end of major Civil War activity in Tennessee.

After the Battle of Nashville and the defeat of the Army of Tennessee, Tennessee Unionists met in Nashville to work toward readmission to the Union. At that meeting, Unionists ratified a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery in Tennessee and established qualifications for voters.

The Battle of Nashville was the last significant encounter between Federal and Confederate armies in Tennessee. The remainder of the Army of Tennessee joined Confederate troops in North Carolina where they eventually surrendered to General Sherman on April 26, 1865, a week after the assassination of President Lincoln. On May 9, 1865, General Forrest’s Cavalry Corps finally surrendered, the last Confederate unit to surrender east of the Mississippi. Soldiers from both armies began to return home.

Andrew Johnson, a Tennessean, was inaugurated as President on April 15, 1865 after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Within two months, he declared the rebellion in Tennessee over and began efforts to have the state readmitted into the Union. Johnson encountered much opposition in Congress to Tennessee’s readmission, but on July 24, 1866, Tennessee, the last state to secede, was the first state to be readmitted to the Union. Tennessee escaped military occupation and radical reconstruction which followed in the other states of the Confederacy.

The war was finally over, but the wounds that were left on the state and its people would take another generation to heal. During the four years of the war, there had been moments of glory for both sides on Tennessee soil. Both armies had also suffered devestating defeats. Both sides had fought bravely for causes in which they believed. Both sides suffered great losses and the lives of many were sacrificed.

Frustrated Confederates returned home to a state government controlled by William G. Brownlow. His ruthlessness created much frustration for the disenfranchised Confederates who had no political power in the state over the next five years. Disenfranchised ex-Confederates formed the Ku Klux Klan to retaliate against freed African-Americans who could now vote. When Brownlow resigned as Governor to become a U. S. Senator, Nathan Bedford Forrest tried in vain to disband the Klan believing that the Klan had accomplished its mission. The election fo 1870 marked the end of Reconstruction in Tennessee. The voting rights of ex-Confederates were restored and the state adopted a new constitution. Reconstruction was over, but it would take years for the differences to be put aside so that all could work together to rebuild Tennessee.

In the years that followed the Civil War, children and grandchildren were told the stories of the Great War, of brave young men dying for a cause, of women struggling to protect their families, of slaves becoming free. All that had gone on in Tennessee during those years was remembered by those families on both sides of the conflict who had sacrificed, suffered, and lost. Those memories provided comfort to some of those who remained when the Civil War was over and became a source of pride as the years provided distance from the reality of the tragedy of the war.

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Many of the Civil War Battle sites in Tennessee are identified by two names, usually a town or geographical feature. Confederates generally identified sites by the nearest town (Murfreesboro, Chattanooga, etc.), while Federals identifed sites by the principal natural feature of the battlefield (Stones River, Lookout Mountain, etc.).

abatis: rows of felled trees with smaller branches removed and the remaining branches sharpened to create an oabstacle to an advancing enemy.

banquette: a step at the base of a defensive wall on which a soldier could stand and fire over the wall.

bastion: a projection from a main work containing two faces and two flanks that provide flanking fire to the front of the main work.

bivouac: to sleep in the open; hastily made shelter of plants or branches when tents or other shelter not available.

blockhouse: loke a stockade, blockhouse, with a term readapted for use during the Civil War to describe a wooded redoubt. In Tennessee they were usually constructed of vertical tembers with a flat timbered roof, covered with dirt and capped with sloping board and batten. The walls contained loopholed to fire through.

brevet: rank that has been granted as an honor. During the Civil War, many officers were given ranks higher than their regular rank for heroism.

earthworks: defensive structure dug into the ground usually four to five feet deep in which soldiers stand and fire during battle (sometimes referred to as a breastwork); often hastily contructed.

feinting: a vigorous attack laundhed by a detachment against a secondary part of the enemy’s line which serves as a distraction to lure enemy troops away from point of the primary assault.

flanking maneuver: military battle procedure where troops are sent around the left or right side of the enemy’s position.

fort: large enclosed earthworks, which were sometimes supported by outerworks and inner works such as blockhouses. During the Civil War, the term fort was loosely applied to other important positions, especially isolated redoubts. Forts Henry, Donelson, and Defiance were designed to Confederates to protect major river routes in middle Tennessee. Those built by the Federal troops were intended to protect major supply depots and transportation routes, including railroad lines such as Fortress Rosecrans and Fort Negley.

palisade: pointed stakes placed in the ground at an angle facing the enemy. The stakes were 6 to 8 inches in diameter and 6 to 10 feet long, and they were usually placed in front of a ditch as an obstacle.

parapet: a wall behind which troops stand to defend a fortified position, often used with earthworks.

picket: the advance guard for a large force considered to be the most hazardous work of infantrymen in the field.

pike: name used widely in middle Tennessee for the roads running between two towns derived from the early-day turnpikes which were toll roads.

rams: wooden, fast, unarmoured, well-constructed ships without cannondesigned by Charles Ellet simply to ram and sink the enemy ships.

redoubt: an earthwork that is enclosed on all sides. The overall configuration may be square, polygonal, or circular. In Tennessee, redoubts were often relatively small detached works used to fortify hilltops or strengthen main lines.

rear guard: a military detachment responsible for protecting a retreating main force from pursuit by the enemy.

redan: a V-shpaed earthwork, open at the rear, the opeing beinr referred to as the gorge.

redoubt: a type of earthwork that is enclosed on all sides, often detached works used to fortify hilltops or strengthen main lines.

stockade: relatively simple enclosures that were usually square or cross-shaped in design.

*Sources: Smith, Samuel D, Prouty, Fred M., and Nance, Benjamin. A Survey of Civil War Period Military Sites in Middle Tennessee. Nashville, Tennessee Department of Conservation, 1990.

Faust, Patricia, ed. Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War. New York, Harper and Row, Publishers, 1986.

company: a unit of 50-100 soldiers commanded by a captain usually recruited in Tennessee at a county seat. Generally, ten companies made up a regiment. Many Tennessee companies had colorful local names such as the Maury Grays.

regiment: military unit of 10 or more companies usually made up of men from the same area of the state. The Union organized 2,144 infantry regiments, 61 of heavy artillery, 272 of cavalry, 13 of engineers, 9 light infantry battalions, and 432 artillery batteries. The Confederates raised 642 infantry regiments, 137 of cavalry, 16 of artillery, and 227 batteries.

brigade: an infantry or cavalry unit generally made up of 4-6 regiments consisting of approximately 4000 men led by a brigadier general.

division: military unit of three or four brigades and approximately 12,000 men. Union divisions were commanded by a brigadier or major general while Confederate divisions were led by ajor generals.

corps: military unit of two to four divisions which includes all arms of service. a Major general commanded each of the 43 corps that were established in the Union army. Each corps was designated by a number, I to XXV. Confederate corps were commanded by lieutenant generals and designated by numbers duplicated in the East and the West, but oftern referred to by the name of their commander.

army: largest operational organizations usually named for the departments in which they were found, department in turn being named, in the Union, for rivers and in the Confederacy for states or regions. There were 16 Union armies and 23 Confederate armies.

department: the basic geogrphical and political division of Northern and Southern territory. Federals often named their departments after rivers: e. g., the Department of the Cumberland while Confederate departments were usually named for states or territories; e. g., Tennessee.