Military

The opening of hostilities between the Confederate States and the United States in the spring of 1861 found both belligerents woefully unprepared for the struggle ahead. Confederate strategists realized that the Mississippi River offered a broad avenue of invasion into…

Andrew Jackson was the seventh president of the United States, serving from 1829 to 1837. As war hero and the "savior of his country," he was one of a handful of Americans who dominated the first half of the nineteenth…

Born in a log cabin on December 29, 1808, in Raleigh, North Carolina, Andrew Johnson knew abject poverty and personal tragedy almost from the very beginning of his life. Jacob Johnson, Andrew's father, a landless and illiterate worker in Raleigh,…

Soon after the fall of Atlanta on September 2, 1864, Confederate Lieutenant General John Bell Hood began a westward flanking movement originally intended to cut the supply lines of Union General William T. Sherman and draw him north to Tennessee…

The first commander of Confederate forces in the Western Theater, Albert Sidney Johnston was born at Washington, Kentucky, on February 2, 1803. Johnston graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1826. While there, he developed a friendship with another…

Joseph E. Johnston, the most underrated Confederate commander in either theater of the Civil War and the only man to command armies in both, was born at Farmville, Virginia, in 1807. A classmate of Robert E. Lee at West Point,…

The eighteen-day siege of Knoxville from November 17 to December 4, 1863, stemmed from two interrelated causes. First, General Braxton Bragg, commander of the Army of Tennessee, desired to divert troops from the Federal army holding the city of Chattanooga.…

A planter-soldier for whom Fort Lauderdale, Florida, is named, William Lauderdale was born in Virginia between 1780 and 1785, the son of a prominent Sumner County family. Lauderdale first served as a lieutenant under Andrew Jackson in the Tennessee Volunteers…

This Nashville native rose to the navy's top ranks and received national honor after six years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, during which time he wrote "Oh Tennessee, My Tennessee," the official state poem. Lawrence excelled at…

Albert Miller Lea, a prominent chief engineer of the State of Tennessee, was born in Knoxville in 1805. Lea learned his engineering skills in the army. He entered West Point and graduated fifth in a class of thirty-three in 1831.…

Engineers who modify the fluvial landscape of Tennessee should feel strong ties to Stephen Harriman Long, who served as an army engineer at a time when the role of government in engineering projects had not yet been defined. In the…

One of the most controversial Confederate generals, Longstreet was born in Edgefield District, South Carolina, January 8, 1821, and reared in Georgia. After graduating near the bottom of his West Point class in 1842, "Old Pete" fought in Mexico, where…

Lookout Mountain has been important to the environmental, military, and tourism history of Tennessee. Point Lookout, the extremity overlooking the river valley at Moccasin Bend, has attracted tourists since antebellum days. The 1863 Civil War battle fought on its slope…

The Mabry-Hazen House is a key resource for Knoxville’s Civil War and Reconstruction history. The home was built around 1858 by Joseph Alexander Mabry Jr., one of Knoxville’s most influential citizens and largest slaveholders. Born in Knox County in 1826,…

Long hunter and early Middle Tennessee settler Kasper Mansker was born on an immigrant ship bound for the American colonies. Little is known about his German ancestry or his early life. Mankser married Elizabeth White of Berkeley County, Virginia, at…

Attorney and Civil War soldier, Tennessee Governor Albert S. Marks was born at Owensboro, Kentucky, on October 16, 1836, the son of Elisha S. Marks. He grew up on his father's farm in Daviess County. After the death of his…

Oceanographer and author Matthew F. Maury was born on January 14, 1806, in Fredericksburg, Virginia. His family moved to Williamson County, Tennessee, when he was five. Maury attended Harpeth Academy in Franklin and studied under Gideon Blackburn and James Otey,…

On June 1, 1976, Fran McKee became the first woman line officer in American history to be named a rear admiral in the United States Navy. Although McKee was born in Florence, Alabama, her family home was Maury County, Tennessee,…

Aviation at this facility, the largest inland naval base in the world, dates back to World War I, when the U.S. Army created Park Field as a training ground for air and ground crews. The navy's presence began in 1942…

In 1846 the United States went to war with Mexico as a result of a boundary dispute fueled by an American expansionist desire to control the entire North American continent. With an army of fewer than 9,000, a number wholly…