Rock Castle

Rock Castle. Enduring the War. , The war years here at Rock Castle, located between the Cumberland River and the Nashville and Gallatin Turnpike, were typical of many other plantations in Middle Tennessee. In the 1790s, Gen. Daniel Smith established the plantation. Rock Castle was large and prosperous--98 slaves and 1,800 acres of land--when Tennessee voted for secession in 1861. The war did not bring any battles to the plantation's doorsteps, but it did bring change--significant change--to the families that lived there., During the war, Smith's grandson, Harry Smith, and his wife, Sallie, lived at Castle Rock when Union forces occupied the area early in 1862. In May, Sallie wrote in a letter to her mother that the Federals were "drawing the reins pretty tight" and had arrested several local residents. Many of the plantation's slaves left for freedom behind Union lines. In October 1863, Sallie Smith died not long after giving birth to her second daughter, Tabitha. Harry Smith stayed at the house, despite the continued loss of laborers. In 1864, the hand of war became even heavier. Smith wrote to his cousin Andrew Jackson Donelson that 500 soldiers and freedman were cutting timber on his uncle's property and he expected them at Rock Castle the following week., A year later the war was over and Harry Smith began rebuilding the plantation with the help of former slaves, now free tenants, working the land. He died in 1888 and is buried alongside his wife Sallie in the family cemetery., Captions: , Escaping slaves - Courtesy Library of Congress , Union foragers - Courtesy Library of Congress , Tenant farmer's house - Courtesy Historic Rock Castle Archives , In 1860, Rock Castle was valued at $72,000. After the Civil War, many of Harry Smith's former slaves continued working at Rock Castle as tenant farmers. The tenant farmer's house and former slave cabin show here were lost with the creation of Old Hickory lake., Sallie Smith - Courtesy Historic Rock Castle Archives , Sallie Sypert married Harry Smith in 1859 at the age of twenty-two. She bore two daughters during the Civil War--Nannie in 1861 and Tabitha in 1863. She died four months after Tabitha's birth.