Military

During the Civil War, Union forces in Tennessee were part of several different federal armies, primarily the Army of the Cumberland, the Army of the Ohio, and the Army of the Tennessee. An army from the early Department of the…

The United States Christian Commission, a project of the Young Men's Christian Association, sent almost five thousand volunteers to the battlefields and military hospitals of the Civil War. Their purpose was to care for the spiritual and physical needs of…

The United States Colored Troops (U.S.C.T.) in Tennessee experienced every facet of war between 1863 and 1865. In the spring of 1863 General Lorenzo Thomas was appointed Commissioner for the Organization of Colored Troops for the Union army in Tennessee.…

Confederate soldier and spy Loreta Janeta Velazquez was born in Cuba, raised in New Orleans, and lived in Memphis at various times during the Civil War. As a young girl Velazquez developed an admiration for Joan of Arc and expressed…

William Walker was a leading filibuster in Latin America in the 1850s. He was born May 8, 1824, in Nashville and died in 1860 before a firing squad in Central America. His strange, brief career earned him the sobriquet "Grey-Eyed…

When the United States declared war on Great Britain in June 1812, Tennesseans proudly proclaimed their readiness to preserve the honor and dignity of their country. It seemed unlikely that landlocked Tennessee would be concerned about British violations of maritime…

Last Beloved Woman of the Cherokees, Nancy Ward was born in 1738 at Chota and given the name Nanye-hi, which signified "One who goes about," a name taken from Nunne-hi, the legendary name of the Spirit People of Cherokee mythology.…

P. V. H. Weems, internationally known air navigator, was born March 29, 1889, at Turbine, the son of Joseph Burch and May Elizabeth Rye Weems. He attended Walnut Grove Country School in Montgomery County and Branham and Hughes School in…

James Edward “Ed” Westcott, Oak Ridge’s official photographer during the Manhattan Project in the 1940s, was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on January 20, 1922. Ed Westcott’s photography is featured in nearly every book, magazine, documentary, and newspaper article about the…

Confederate cavalry commander Joe Wheeler rose from lieutenant to major general in the Army of Tennessee in less than two years. He is best known for daring raids behind Union lines in Middle Tennessee that were sensationalized at the time…

Union general and postwar industrialist John T. Wilder was born in Hunter County, New York, to Reuben and Mary Merritt Wilder. As a young man, ca. 1848, he moved to Ohio and worked as an apprentice engineer. In the late…

The site of Wiley Memorial United Methodist Church, formerly Wiley Memorial Methodist Episcopal, at 500 Lookout Street has been significant throughout the history of Chattanooga. The site served as the center of community life for Ross's Landing before the name…

James Winchester, pioneer, entrepreneur, military commander, and founder of Memphis, was born in Westminster, Maryland, and served in Maryland regiments during the American Revolution. He was wounded and captured in a raid on Staten Island in mid-1777 and imprisoned until…

During the interlude marked by the end of the depression of the 1890s and the entry of the United States into the First World War in 1917, Tennesseans as well as other Americans entered the twentieth century. Embracing reformism at…

World War II marks a watershed period for both the United States and for the history of Tennessee. As one of the victors and the sole possessor of the atomic bomb, America emerged as the modern world's superpower. But Tennessee…

The unassuming building at Oak Ridge numbered X-10 housed the Graphite Reactor, the oldest nuclear reactor in the world. The Graphite Reactor was the world's first powerful nuclear reactor which transformed uranium 238 into plutonium 239. The X-10 facilities also…

Congressional Medal of Honor winner and hero of World War I, Alvin C. York was born in Pall Mall. The oldest of eleven children in a family of subsistence farmers, York was a semiskilled laborer when he was drafted into…

Confederate Brigadier General Felix K. Zollicoffer attempted to pacify Unionists in East Tennessee in 1861 before meeting defeat and death at the battle of Mill Springs in Kentucky. Born in Maury County and educated at Jackson College, he became a…