Department of Environment & Conservation
Jim Fyke, Commissioner

Tennessee Historical Commission

Prologue to War

"Some of them will no more walk the paths of earth or be seen in the haunts of men. Some when they walk now march after the drum, with a sword or musket in the ranks of the Confederate army under the new flag…Others march under the glorious old Stars and Stripes, and they who were once united in the strongest bonds of friendship are now ready to kill each other, only waiting for the word from their leaders. God pity the poor soldiers, and forgive those who have caused all this." - Amanda McDowell Burns, Sparta, 1862

On the eve of the great catastrophe that engulfed the nation in 1861, Tennessee stood at the center of national affairs. Home  of two presidents and a tradition of Jacksonian nationalism, Tennessee had earned the nickname "Volunteer   State" in the forefront of America's wars of expansion.  It was the second most populous state in the South  and furnished more soldiers for the Confederacy than any other state except Virginia. Tennessee also furnished more men for the Union cause than all the other Southern states put together. Considered the "breadbasket" for the Lower South, Tennessee in 1860 ranked near the top in the output of key farm commodities like corn and hogs. The state also possessed a significant portion of the South's manufacturing capacity in the form of ironworks, munitions factories, gunpowder mills, and copper mines. Through Tennessee ran the South's main east-west rail lines as well as the western Confederacy's principal north-south line. The heart of commerce and trade in the Upper South, Tennessee held enormous strategic importance because of her economic resources.

(picture above) Raford and Benjamin Ammons, 1st TN Heavy Artillery

Below are sketches included in a letter to Louisa Brigham, Stewart County, TN, 1863
The state's slave population had increased at a faster rate than the general populace, going from 22.1% of the state's inhabitants in 1840 to 24.8% in 1860. The value of slave property rose considerably in the decade before the war, although the ownership of slaves remained fairly concentrated. Tennessee's pro-secession governor, Isham Harris, believed slavery to be essential to her citizens’ "wealth, prosperity and domestic happiness." Calling for a vote on secession, he announced that the time had come "either to abandon or to fortify and maintain [the institution of slavery]." Political considerations dictated a leading role for Tennessee in the coming conflict. After first refusing to secede in a February referendum, Tennessee in June, 1861, became the last state to join the Confederacy.

Like Kentucky, another border state, Tennessee seemed "winnable" to President Lincoln on a political level, and he was determined to lend support to the large numbers of Unionists in East Tennessee.

Geographically, Tennessee represented a crucial border between North and South. Three major western rivers—the Mississippi, Tennessee, and Cumberland—pointed southward across Tennessee, and the Louisville and Nashville Railroad ran straight to the state capital. If not properly defended, all four routes offered avenues for military invasion of the South. With its 300-mile east-to-west border, Tennessee clearly was the path through which Federal invasion would come. Once the state declared for secession, the North pursued an aggressive military policy to retake and hold Tennessee. The state was, in Lincoln's words, the "keystone of the Southern arch," and controlling it became a paramount aim of Union strategy. The Mississippi River bisected the Confederacy, while the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers flowed through its heartland. Union commanders in the West hoped to control these waterways and thereby split the Confederacy. By late 1861, Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant, Major General Henry Halleck, and Commodore Andrew H. Foote were planning a riverborne invasion of Tennessee. At St. Louis, they busied engineer James Eads with building armored gunboats to send against the Confederate river defenses. By January 1862, Grant's amphibious force and Foote's gunboats were steaming south from Paducah on the Tennessee River.

Confederate leaders were no less determined to hold the line across Tennessee. Major General Albert Sidney Johnston, Confederate commander in the West, prepared a thin line of defense stretching from the Mississippi River to the Appalachian ranges. He ordered his generals and.engineers to fortify the bluffs above Memphis as well as a pair of forts guarding the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers. Johnston wanted to push his line north into Kentucky, but that state remained loyal to the Union and provided a haven for Federal troops. Nearly all his strongholds were in Tennessee, which now became the military frontline of the Confederacy. Many factors combined to make Tennessee the prime battleground of the Civil War's western theater.

Sketch of artillery casement at Fort Negley, Nashville

"Our duty is clearly and unequivocally to repel by force and to make every sacrifice rather than submit to an administration that tramples down every barrier raised by our Forefathers for the protection of personal, social, and public rights."

James Otey, Episcopal Bishop, Knoxville, Tennessee