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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, 1 st TN Heavy Artillery
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Above and below, sketches in letter
to Louisa Brigham, Stewart County, TN, 1863
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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.
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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.
Prologue
| Invasion by River | Fight
for West Tennessee | Contest for MiddleTennessee
| East Tennessee's Mountain War | Hood's Tennessee Campaign | Epilogue
| Civil War Discovery Trail | Civil
War Timeline | Tennessee's Civil War Heritage
Trail - A clickable map
A Path Divided
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