Lynchburg

Lynchburg. The Heart of Moore County. , Lynchburg was a mere crossroads village in 1861, but the war and the years that followed it transformed this place. By the end of April 1861, six weeks before Tennesseans formally voted to secede, local men had formed Co. E (Lynchburg Rangers), 1st Tennessee Volunteer Infantry (Provisional). Col. Peter Turney, a secessionist firebrand in neighboring Franklin County, led the regiment. The company's captains were local men: Dr. Ezekiel Y. Salmon, Thomas H. Mann, William P. Tolley, and Owen J. Bailey. Salmon's brick dwelling at 295 Main Street became their meeting place., By May, the Lynchburg Rangers were in Virginia, where they stayed for most of the war as part of the Tennessee Brigade, Army of Northern Virginia. They participated in almost every major battle from Manassas to Antietam to Cold Harbor, including Pickett's Charge in the Battle of Gettysburg., Those who survived and returned to Lynchburg in 1865 found it greatly changed. The Tullahoma Campaign had left many local farms in shambles. In 1863, a landowner had given emancipated slaves, all were free when the war ended, land for the Elm Street Church of Christ. By 1867, postwar recovery was underway. Salmon built a fine Greek Revival addition to his brick dwelling, which became the Grand Central Hotel, later Mary Bobo's Boardinghouse. In 1871, the legislature created Moore County, and Lynchburg became the county seat in 1873. Wartime and Reconstruction traumas faded with improving conditions personified by local resident Jack Daniels, whose distillery soon produced the Tennessee whiskey now known worldwide.