Tennessee Records

In 1862, with the outcome of the Civil War far from sure, leaders on both sides began to pinpoint places vital for their army’s success. For both Union and Confederate forces, Tennessee was a prize. Drawing on contemporary sources such as memoirs and official correspondence, this book details the struggle for control of Tennessee during 1862 and 1863. It follows troop movements through some of1the worst battles, including Shiloh, Stone’s River and Chickamauga. The Union victory at the battle of Chattanooga—which brought Tennessee definitively under Union control—and its consequences for both sides are discussed in detail.

During World War II, Axis prisoners of war received arguably better treatment in the U.S. than anywhere else. Bound by the Geneva Convention but also hoping for reciprocal treatment of American POWs, the U.S. sought to humanely house and employ 425,000 Axis prisoners, many in rural communities in the South. This is the first book-length examination of Tennessee's role in the POW program, and how the influx of prisoners affected communities. Towns like Tullahoma transformed into military metropolises. Memphis received millions in defense spending. Paris had a secret barrage balloon base. The wooded Crossville camp housed German and Italian officers. Prisoners worked tobacco, lumber and cotton across the state. Some threatened escape or worse. When the program ended, more than 25,000 POWs lived and worked in Tennessee.

Once again, Louise Littleton Davis has produced from her store of knowledge and understanding of Tennessee history a collection of engrossing stories about the people and events that went into the making of that great state. This book spans two centuries, from pre-Revolutionary days into the 1800s. The reader will now meet many more of early Tennessee's colorful characters, often in unexpected places. Pious and profane, noble and notorious, all of these historical figures emerge as real men and women who worked, fought, and prayed a young state into being. Accounts of incredible land deals dramatize the tragedy of American Indians pushed west by the white man's greed. Tribute is paid to John Ross, the most notable of all Cherokee chiefs, whose lifelong struggle for the rights of the Indians ended with the infamous "Trail of Tears," a death march for many of the 17,000 Cherokees forced by U.S. Army troops to walk from Tennessee to Oklahoma. Frontier criminal justice, shocking by today's standards, reveals a rugged society that considered horse thievery worse than murder and administered punishment accordingly. The strict, often harsh, religious structure that ruled frontier communities is reflected in accounts of church trials concerning many matters now handled by civil courts. Tennessee was not without its dissidents, however. Colonel Thomas Butler defied an Army order to trim his ponytail locks. Ironically, the hero of the Revolutionary War found that his appeals for support to Washington met the same resistance as did the Cherokees' pleas for their land.

Trained as a physician and ordained an Episcopal priest, Charles Todd Quintard (1824--1898) was a remarkable man by the standard of any generation. Born, raised, and educated in the North, he migrated to the South to pursue a medical career but was inspired by the bishop of Tennessee to serve the church. When Tennessee seceded from the Union in May 1861, Quintard joined the Confederate 1st Tennessee Infantry Regiment as its chaplain and during the maelstrom of the Civil War kept a diary of his experiences. He later penned a memoir, which was published posthumously in 1905. Sam Davis Elliott combines a previously unpublished portion of the diary with Quintard's memoir in Doctor Quintard, Chaplain C.S.A. and Second Bishop of Tennessee. Quintard offers an unusual perspective and insightful observations gained from ministering to soldiers and civilians as both a priest and a physician. With thoughtful editing and annotating, Quintard's writings provide a valuable window into the high command of the Army of Tennessee at some of its more critical junctures and substantial detail of the last eight months of the war in Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. Quintard was present during the early fighting in Virginia, marched into Kentucky with Braxton Bragg, attended to the wounded at Murfreesboro and Chickamauga, witnessed two Confederate retreats from Middle Tennessee, and watched the Federal armies overrun the Deep South in the spring of 1865. He met such diverse personages as Robert E. Lee and Federal Major General James H. Wilson; prayed with Bragg, Leonidas Polk, and John Bell Hood; shared a bed once with Nathan Bedford Forrest; and performed the sad duty of conducting the funerals of Patrick Cleburne and others killed at Franklin, Tennessee. Throughout his military service, he organized hospitals and relief efforts, filled in as a parish priest, and served as chaplain at large of the Army of Tennessee. After the war, Quintard became the prime mover in the revival of Leonidas Polk's dream of an Episcopal Church--sponsored University of the South, and in 1865 he was consecrated bishop of Tennessee, a position he held until his death. These interesting and lively war-year remembrances of one of the Confederacy's most exceptional characters shed new light on the little-known western theater's military, civilian, and religious fronts.

"This book includes fourteen essays on Tennessee's experience during World War I. The essays introduce a range of entry points to the conflict from typical soldier stories - including Birdwell's own essay on Alvin York - to politics, agribusiness, African Americans, and present-day recollections"--