150 Years | Tennessee Civil War Sesquicentennial

GREENEVILLE, Tenn. - The Appalachian Regional Commission will showcase the new Home Front Map-Guide to Appalachia in Greeneville. Developed to observe the 150th commemoration of the American Civil War and boost tourism in the Appalachian Region, the map-guide highlights the diversity of Appalachia's Civil War heritage attractions.

WHAT: Sesquicentennial Home Front Map-Guide to Appalachia  map rollout

WHEN: Begins 11 a.m. CST on Aug. 3

WHERE: Andrew Johnson Early Home, 101 North College St.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Susan Whitaker, Commissioner, Tennessee Department of Tourist Development and Chair of the Tennessee Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission will discuss the impact of Civil War tourism in Tennessee. Dr. Carroll Van West, Executive Director of the Center for Historic Preservation at MTSU, the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area, and Co-Chair of the Tennessee Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission will discuss the Civil War in Appalachia.

For more information on the Tennessee Civil War Sesquicentennial, please visit tncivilwar150.com. For more information about ARC and the Appalachian Region, please visit www.arc.gov.

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KINGSTON SPRINGS, Tenn. - The dedication ceremony of the Cheatham County Civil War trail marker will take place at 10 a.m. Aug. 13 at the South Cheatham Library.

Tennessee official state sanctioned Sesquicentennial Events sponsored by the Tennessee Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission and the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area includes a series of major signature conferences on battles, events, and stories of the Civil War.  These events are free and open to the public.  For more information visit tncivilwar150.com. 

Sept. 6-7, 2011     Tennessee Sesquicentennial Signature Event - "Civil War in the Borderlands"

Location:               Cookeville - Tennessee Tech University

April 4-5, 2012     Tennessee Sesquicentennial Signature Event - "Invasion by Rail and River"

Location:               Pickwick Landing State Park and Shiloh National Military Park

Tennessee Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission Inaugural Kickoff Signature Event
Jackson Hall, Tennessee Performing Arts Center
Nashville, TN
November 12, 2010

In 1861, as the nation divided, so did Tennessee. In the state's three grand divisions, Confederates and Unionists fought their own political war to determine which way Tennessee would go as the Confederate States of America took form in neighboring Alabama. West Tennesseans, led by Governor Isham G. Harris, overwhelmingly wished connection with the Confederacy, while in East Tennessee most residents remained fervidly loyal to the Union. In the state's middle section, the counties in the Central Basin leaned heavily toward secession, but those on the basin's rim were more ambivalent in their support, a discrepancy which led to divided communities and divided families and prepared the way for vicious neighbor-against-neighbor guerrilla conflict when the Civil War commenced.

Tennessee's strategic location made it a prime target of the Union armies during the Civil War. It was, in fact, the only Confederate state that came entirely under Union control before the war ended.

The invasion of Tennessee began early in 1862 when Federal land and naval forces under Ulysses S. Grant moved against Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River, both of which fell in February. Grant's forces proceeded to penetrate deep into the state along the Tennessee line; meanwhile, another Federal army under Don Carlos Buell captured Nashville (February 25) and Confederate forces abandoned Middle Tennessee. The governor, legislators, and other state officials fled from Nashville to Memphis, which was itself captured on June 6, 1862, by Union forces advancing down the Mississippi River. The Confederate state government thereupon ceased to exist.

Reflecting the divided allegiances of Tennesseans during that great struggle, a number of memorials throughout the state, both Union and Confederate, honor participants in the Civil War. Despite some exceptions, most monuments are found in one of three localities: on battlefields, in cemeteries, and on courthouse lawns or public squares. While building monuments continued well into the twentieth century, a majority were dedicated in a thirty-year span between 1885 and 1915.