Tennessee Documentary History,
1796-1850
WARS
AND MILITARY
The people of Tennessee have never shied away from a fight.
It should not be
surprising then that warfare contributed much to the state’s
history from the
Revolutionary
era to the 1850s. The “Volunteer” spirit, for
which Tennesseans
have
become renowned, owes much of its mystique to a prevalent
willingness,
even eagerness, to take up arms against such foes as the
American Indians, the
British,
and the Mexicans. The principal military organization in
Tennessee
during
these years was the volunteer militia. Under the state constitution,
all
able-bodied males of age were subject to service in a common
militia, one
designed
for statewide defense and slave patrols. The volunteer militia,
however, was more select in its personnel (usually planters
and yeoman
farmers),
trained regularly, and often provided its own equipment.
During the
colonial
period, the militia typically acted as an extension of the
British
Army
in the Empire’s numerous conflicts with the French
and their Indian
allies.
The most significant engagements involving Tennessee volunteers—then
still part of North Carolina—took place during the
so-called Cherokee War
(1759-1761),
a savage contest whose fighting centered around Fort Loudon
in
East
Tennessee. With the coming of the Revolution, however, Tennesseans
no
longer
fought under British aegis but soon came into their own
as a martial people.
Revolutionary/Early
Statehood Period
In July 1776, the thirteen American colonies declared their
independence from
Great Britain, thereby legitimating a rebellion that had
already commenced the
year
before. Far removed from the main theaters of conventional
fighting,
Tennessee
avoided most of the Revolution’s hardships. Everything
changed in
1780, however, when British troops, in conjunction with
their Tory allies,
attempted
to subdue the southern colonies. Part of this ambitious
British
undertaking
involved the subjugation of the mountain communities in
western
North
Carolina and East Tennessee, a task assigned to Tory commander
Patrick
Ferguson.
Tennessee militiamen joined their Virginia and North Carolina
brethren
in defeating this incursion. Leading the Tennesseans were
colonels
Isaac
Shelby and John Sevier. At the battle of Kings Mountain
(7 October),
the
Patriot coalition encircled and destroyed Ferguson’s
command. The
Tennessee
contingent engaged in the hardest fighting of the day, with
Shelby
and
Sevier emerging as their region’s first genuine military
heroes.
Despite
the glory of Kings Mountain, the Revolutionary War for most
Tennesseans
witnessed a continuation of the ongoing struggle against
the
Cherokees
and Creeks. In such conflicts as Lord Dunmore’s War
(1774), where
Shelby
and Sevier first demonstrated their fighting prowess, and
sporadic
engagements
in the late 1770s with Dragging Canoe, leader of the combative
Chickamaugas,
white Tennesseans strove to expand and pacify their homeland.
Beginning
in 1787, John Sevier and other Tennessee leaders conducted
what they
hoped
would be the final campaign to suppress the Indians. But
warfare
persisted
until the mid-1790s, when a series of treaties, combined
with the
U.S. Army’s military successes in the Ohio Territory,
helped stabilize
Indian-white
relations all along the American frontier. Under these peaceful
circumstances,
Tennessee entered the Union in 1796.
War
of 1812
In June 1812, Congress declared war on Great Britain, citing
as principal
causes
both the British disruption of U.S. maritime trade and their
interference
with westward expansion. The war proved popular in Tennessee,
where
so-called War Hawks, such as Felix Grundy, had been clamoring
for a
showdown
with Britain since 1807. Tennesseans embraced the war for
three
closely
related reasons: 1) it allowed them to display their militant
sense of
patriotism;
2) it afforded them the opportunity to expand into what
would
eventually
become the states of Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida;
3) it
facilitated
their efforts to eliminate what they considered to be an
Indian
menace
to the south, namely the Creek Nation, a tribe the British
were
allegedly
inciting to go on the war path.
In
pursuing these goals, Governor William Blount instructed
major generals
Andrew
Jackson and John Cocke to raise militia forces from Middle
and East
Tennessee
respectively. For these two men, the war began in awkward
fashion.
Toward the end of 1812, Jackson sought to capture New Orleans
while Cocke
tried
to organize a military expedition into Florida, a territory
nominally
under
Spanish control. The U.S. War Department, however, abruptly
terminated
these
operations, leaving Jackson especially irate at this instance
of Federal
intervention.
The
year 1813, however, brought some real combat. After Creek
Indians, at
the
behest of British authorities, wiped out an American settlement
at Fort
Mims
in southern Alabama, Governor Blount, without asking permission
from the
president,
authorized General Jackson to invade the Creek Nation. Though
still
recovering from a would received in a duel, Jackson immediately
took to
the
saddle determined to destroy the Creeks, whom white Tennesseans
referred
to
as “Red Sticks.” In the autumn of 1813, he marched
into Alabama at the
head
of 3,500 militiamen. The Tennesseans showed no quarter.
On 3 November,
a
contingent under General John Coffee surprised a Creek village
at
Tallushatchee,
killing nearly 200 Indians, including women and children.
Similarly,
at Talladega on 9 November, Jackson himself attacked the
Creeks,
inflicting
more than 300 casualties. These two battles, combined with
a
smaller,
separate military success by John Cocke in eastern Alabama,
left
Jackson
poised to complete his destruction of the Creek Nation.
Logistical
problems,
however, plagued his advance south, a difficulty that gradually
undermined
the morale of the militiamen, many of whom left as their
enlistments
expired. For Jackson, decisive victory would not come until
his
officers raised fresh volunteer militia companies with which
to resume the
campaign
against the Creek. The following year, at Horseshoe Bend
(27 March),
a
force of about 2,000 Tennessee militiamen virtually annihilated
a Creek war
party
of nine hundred “Red Sticks.
The
battle of Horshoe Bend broke the Creek Nation. Jackson returned
to
Tennessee
a hero and soon received a commission in the U.S. Army as
a major
general.
Ordered to thwart British activities along the Gulf Coast,
Jackson
and
his capable Tennessee lieutenants, including Coffee and
William Carroll,
first
seized Pensacola (7 November 1814) and then bloodily repulsed
a strong
British
force at the much heralded battle of New Orleans (8 January
1815).
The
victory was one with minimal strategic benefit—the
war officially ended
two
weeks before—but enormous symbolic power—Tennesseans
had “saved” the young
American
Republic.
Warfare
with Mexico
During the ante-bellum years, the hard hand of war never
touched the
Volunteer
State, but Tennesseans did take their fighting ways to some
unlikely
places.
Many participated in the Seminole Wars in Florida in 1817-1819
and
again
in 1830s. Some followed Davy Crockett to a romantic death
at the Alamo
in
1836. But the most prominent combat arena for Tennessee
volunteers was
Mexico.
In 1846, the United States under President James K. Polk
went to war
with
Mexico over territorial disputes that stemmed in part from
American
notions
of Manifest Destiny. When Governor Aaron V. Brown asked
for 2,500 men
to
fill his state’s quota for national recruits, more
than 30,000 volunteers
answered
the call, an outpouring that earned Tennessee its proud
nickname. In
all,
Tennessee organized six regiments for service in the Mexican
War: five
infantry
and one cavalry. Interestingly, the units reflected the
political
landscape
of Tennessee during those years; Democrats and Whigs were
more or
less
equally represented in the ranks as individual companies.
The
First and Second Tennessee Infantry Regiments and the cavalry
regiment
saw
the most action of any Tennessee unit during the war. As
part of General
Zachary
Taylor’s offensive into northern Mexico in 1846, they
participated in
the
capture of Monterrey in September. The First Tennessee under
Colonel
William
Campbell especially distinguished itself in a difficult
assault on the
Mexican
fortification known as “El Diablo.” In 1847,
the Tennessee regiments
were
reorganized into the Tennessee Brigade, a new formation
under the command
of
Major General Gideon J. Pillow, a planter from Maury County
and friend of
President
Polk. During the initial phases of General Winfield Scott’s
advance
on
Mexico City, this force helped secure Vera Cruz (mid-March)
and then
performed
gallantly at the battle of Cerro Gordo (18 April). Soon
after, the
Tennessee
Brigade returned home, having lost nearly 1,600 men to combat
and
disease.
The Third, Fourth, and Fifth Tennessee Infantry Regiments
arrived as
replacements
following the capture of Mexico City in September 1847.
Aside
from
a few skirmishes with Mexican bandits, these units saw little
military
action,
and instead merely augmented the U.S. Army of occupation.
With the
ratification
of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, the president withdrew
all
U.S.
forces from Mexico. Thus ended another phase of Tennessee’s
martial
volunteerism.
Going into the 1850s, the state enjoyed a well-earned
reputation
for war fighting. It was a reputation that would soon face
its
ultimate challenge with the Civil War.
Contributed
by Ben H. Severance, Ph.D.
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