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In last week’s edition, I promised stories of neighboring communities, the Civil War and early leadership. While researching different stories and characters in McKenzie’s history, I found myself focused on the Civil War. I could not stop myself from delving deeper and deeper into the various stories.
Though McKenzie was not a fully incorporated municipality at the time, it was starting to take shape during the War Between the States. Without going into the buildup of the Civil War, it is important to know that Tennessee was a state of divided loyalties. The area of McKenzie and its smaller communities were pro-Confederate while the Town of Huntingdon was Union. Thus began one of the earliest divides between the two territories.
Tennessee was the last state to seceded from the Union on June 8, 1861. Governor Isham Harris lead the charge for Tennessee to join the Confederacy. Numerous battles were fought across the state; though Carroll County and McKenzie failed to produce a battle, they served as a pathway for troops.
McKenzie’s most noted Civil War event dates back to Christmas day 1862. In this event, Confederate Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest was following the Nashville and Northwestern Railroad to Dresden. Forrest learned of Union troops surrounding his location and preventing him from moving to the Tennessee River. With plans to outmaneuver the Union, he mobilized his forces to McKenzie Station on Christmas afternoon.
Virtually surrounded, Forrest moved his men towards Huntingdon and then McLemoresville. With 10,000 Union troops moving from Huntingdon, Forrest and his men slinked their way towards Lexington. On December 31, 1862 Forrest and Union forces collided at Parker’s Crossroads. Forrest would make his way through the skirmish crossing the Tennessee River on New Year’s Day.
The most interesting figure in McKenzie’s Civil War era history is a young lady by the name of Joseph Anna Hawkins (Cole). Born May 3, 1848, Annie was born in McKenzie. She was one of eleven children born to Richard Cole and Martha Smith.
The Cole Family settled in the McKenzie area around 1830 near present day Carroll Lake. Richard moved closer to town constructing a home what became Reynolds Street.
During the Civil War, Richard was commissioned a captain in the State Militia. A sympathizer of the Confederacy, the Cole home was visited regularly by Confederate troops including General Forrest.
In Annie Cole’s writings about the war entitled War Leaflets she writes, “ One day when General Forrest’s command was passing and the men and boys were cheering and singing all along the line, a brave handsome little fellow, not yet out of his teens, was riding in the rear and singing in a sweet melodious voice...
We school girls had never seen anything so pretty and romantic, of course, cheered and waved at him with, our whole soul. Those were days of romance and excitement with a succession of welcomes and farewells in which we younger girls in our way shared with the older ones.
Every time a new regiment or company of soldiers came in, we would claim a new sweetheart.
It was a great pleasure and quite the thing for the rebel to make tiny confederate flags and present to the boys in gray. All the scraps of silk and ribbon were gathered and saved for the purpose. A party of girls get together and each make a bonnie flag for the soldier boy, the darling of her heart. We set our nicest stitches on them. and passed many a happy hour in joking and trying to find out who was to get each one’s flag. My confident and best friend, Bettie Snead, lived at Hico. She would come and stay for days at a time at our house. We were almost inseparable and it always happened that we would both claim the same soldier boy.”
As previously stated, McKenzie was a pathway for Confederate and Union troops alike.
Jason R. Martin
B.S. • M.A.Ed • MLS
Councilman, Ward II
Executive Chairman, McKenzie 150th Celebration
E: jmartin@mckenziebanner.com P: 731.352.3323