Military

This important munitions facility was created in October 1945 by the combination of the Wolf Creek Ordnance Plant and the Milan Ordnance Depot. The combined physical plant of the two installations includes 88 miles of railroad track and 231 miles…

Confederate spy and, later, Memphis philanthropist, Virginia Bethel Moon was a student at an Ohio girls' school when the Civil War began. After initial resistance, school officials finally acquiesced to her demands and allowed her to leave school and join…

William Moore was born in a fortified blockhouse on the Green River in Kentucky to early immigrants William Moore Sr. and Olivia Free. William Moore came to Lincoln County, Tennessee, around 1806. He first married Nancy Holman, by whom he…

Confederate cavalry commander John Hunt Morgan was born in Huntsville, Alabama, on June 1, 1825. Educated at Transylvania University, he fought in the Mexican War as a first lieutenant in the Kentucky Mounted Volunteers and saw action at the battle…

The engagement at Mossy Creek resulted from a Federal advance of over six thousand soldiers from Strawberry Plains on December 18, 1863, to pressure the Confederate army of Lieut. Gen. James Longstreet following its repulse at Knoxville. On December 22,…

After U.S. Brigadier General James Negley’s June 7-8 attacks on the Confederate forces at Chattanooga, U.S. Major General Don Carlos Buell moved his Army of the Ohio from Corinth, Mississippi, toward Chattanooga to reinforce Negley. The Confederate response was to…

The battle of Nashville, fought December 15-16, 1864, continued the destruction of the Confederate Army of Tennessee that had begun when it suffered devastating casualties at Franklin. After that engagement, army commander John Bell Hood faced limited options. A withdrawal…

The Department of Veterans Affairs maintains 114 National Cemeteries in thirty-eight states and Puerto Rico (as well as thirty-three "soldiers' lots" and monument sites). Five cemeteries are in Tennessee: Chattanooga National Cemetery, Mountain Home National Cemetery, Knoxville National Cemetery, Nashville…

Robert R. Neyland, renowned football coach at the University of Tennessee, was born February 17, 1892, in Greeneville, Texas, the son of attorney Robert R. Neyland and Pauline Lewis Neyland. After high school graduation, he entered Burleson Junior College in…

As an army engineer, Kenneth D. Nichols had the responsibility for the design, construction, and operation of the three huge Oak Ridge plants needed for the production of U-235 and a semiworks to produce the first gram of plutonium, the…

Over the years, "the Government" had come to East Tennessee in many forms, varying from the Civil War Confederacy to the Tennessee Valley Authority of the 1930s, but the most dramatic and least public incursion followed quickly on the heels…

Established during World War II by the Manhattan District, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) occupied the X-10 site on the fifty-six-thousand-acre reservation between Clinch River and Black Oak Ridge purchased by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1942. Initially…

The Oaklands Historic House Museum is located in Murfreesboro. The Italianate-style mansion was the centerpiece of a 1,500-acre plantation established by the Maney family. Initially a 274-acre land grant to Ezekial White for his Revolutionary War service, the property was…

A prominent eighteenth-century Overhill Cherokee civil and military leader, Oconastota resided at Chota on the Little Tennessee River in present-day Monroe County. He was born around 1710. By the 1740s he had acquired the title Great Warrior of Chota. His…

The town of Old Hickory is a planned industrial complex and community in Davidson County that dates to January 29, 1918, when the DuPont corporation and the federal government agreed to build a massive factory and town along Hadley's Bend…

With America's declaration of war on April 6, 1917, a general mobilization of U.S. Armed Forces was ordered. War Department General Order #95 on July 18, 1917, created a National Guard division, designated the Thirtieth Division, to be filled by…

The term Overhill Cherokee refers to the settlements of the eighteenth-century Cherokee people found in eastern Tennessee. The name Overhill is generally derived from the geographic location of the Cherokees and the need to travel over the mountains from South…

The Overmountain Men were those pioneers who settled on the western side of the Appalachian Mountains during the second half of the eighteenth century. The first group to venture into the region were adventurers, traders, and long hunters--temporary residents who…

Mary McKeehan Patton, pioneer gunpowder manufacturer, was born in England in 1751 and immigrated with her family to Pennsylvania in the late 1760s. McKeehan served an apprenticeship, possibly under her father, David McKeehan, and learned the art of gunpowder making.…

Gideon J. Pillow, politician and general, was born in Williamson County and raised in Maury and Giles Counties. He received a classical education at local academies and graduated from the University of Nashville in 1827. He then read law and…