Military

The Carnton Plantation is a historic house museum located in Franklin. Randal McGavock (1768-1843), builder of Carnton, emigrated from Virginia in 1796 and settled in Nashville. He was involved in local and state politics and eventually served as mayor of…

William Carroll served as Tennessee's governor for all but two years between 1821 and 1835. He was a prominent figure in the state's early Democratic Party, and his career symbolized the era's popular protest against established political interests. Carroll was…

Located in historic Franklin, the Carter House was built in 1828 and completed in 1830 by Fountain Branch Carter. The Carter property included a farm of 288 acres, where Carter, a gentleman farmer, raised cotton, corn, wheat, and rye. He…

General Clifton B. Cates, nineteenth commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, was born in Tiptonville on August 31, 1893. After graduating from the University of Tennessee, he joined the marines as a second lieutenant in 1917. During World War I…

Hiram S. Chamberlain, a founder of the modern iron industry in the South, was born in Franklin, Ohio, on August 6, 1835, to Vermont natives Leander and Susanna Chamberlain. The fourth of eight children, Chamberlain attended the Eclectic Institute (later…

Confederate General Benjamin F. Cheatham was born on a plantation near Nashville on October 20, 1820. His maternal ancestors included James Robertson, the founder of Nashville. Cheatham served in the Mexican War as a captain in the First Tennessee Regiment…

The battle of Chickamauga (September 19-20, 1863) developed from the struggle to control the strategic railroad town of Chattanooga, the gateway to the Deep South, the seizure of which President Abraham Lincoln viewed as comparable to the capture of Richmond.…

Sometimes called the Memphis, or Millington, Ordnance Plant, this huge explosives manufactory had its origin in 1940, when the Anglo-French Purchasing Board formed the Tennessee Powder Company to produce munitions for the Allied war effort. After the French surrendered, the…

In 1861, as the nation divided, so did Tennessee. In the state's three grand divisions, Confederates and Unionists fought their own political war to determine which way Tennessee would go as the Confederate States of America took form in neighboring…

Reflecting the divided allegiances of Tennesseans during that great struggle, a number of memorials throughout the state, both Union and Confederate, honor participants in the Civil War. Despite some exceptions, most monuments are found in one of three localities: on…

Tennessee's strategic location made it a prime target of the Union armies during the Civil War. It was, in fact, the only Confederate state that came entirely under Union control before the war ended. The invasion of Tennessee began early…

Major general in the Army of Tennessee, Patrick R. Cleburne was born on St. Patrick's Day in County Cork, Ireland, and immigrated to the United States in 1849. Cleburne settled in Helena, Arkansas, where he rose in social position and…

William Cocke was a distinguished Revolutionary War veteran, experienced legislator, Sevier faction partisan, one of Tennessee's first two U.S. senators, and the first Tennessee jurist to be impeached and removed from office. After serving as a captain in the Fincastle,…

The Civil War touched almost every place in Tennessee, and towns like Collierville, located on the historic Memphis-Charleston railroad line in Shelby County, have their own Civil War stories to tell. Conflict came to the doorsteps of Collierville residents once…

In 1921 the Tennessee General Assembly enacted a law "to provide for those colored men who served as servants and cooks in the Confederate Army." Senator Edgar Jones Graham of Hickman County proposed the bill, which entitled former slaves to…

Columbia’s most significant combat role occurred November 24 through 29, 1864, during Confederate General John Bell Hood’s campaign to capture Nashville. On a main route between the state capital and the Deep South, Columbia was important in the struggle for…

In January 1889 the Frank Cheatham Bivouac of the Association of Confederate Soldiers forwarded a bill to the Tennessee General Assembly to establish a home for indigent and disabled Confederate veterans on the grounds of the Hermitage. The general assembly…

During the Civil War many of Tennessee's 275,000 slaves abandoned farms and towns in anticipation of the approach of the Union army. In the summer of 1862, as the army of General Ulysses S. Grant entered the heavily slaveholding territory…

In 1854 Robert Cravens, a leading industrialist in Chattanooga, purchased a thousand acres of land on the side of Lookout Mountain, where he maintained an orchard and built several cabins as a summer retreat for his family. Two years later…

The hard-fought Creek War of 1813 and 1814, also known as the First Creek War, actually began in the spring of 1812, when a party of Creek warriors returning from a visit to the British in Canada attacked a small…