Railroad Town

Railroad Town. A Series of Occupations. McMinnville's location at the end of the Manchester and McMinnville Railroad shaped the town's Civil War experiences. Strategically important industries here included pork and mule breeding, fruit and apple brandy production, a textile mill, and saltpeter works at nearby caves. During the war, the opposing sides occupied McMinnville, which changed hands at least five times., Confederate Col. Nathan Bedford Forrest bivouacked at the Rock Martin farm about seven miles northeast of town and passed through here during his July 13, 1862, attack on Murfreesboro. Union Gen. William Nelson's troops occupied McMinnville on August 3, 1862, but then withdrew near the year's end to take part in the Battle of Stone's River. Returning in April 1863, the Federals built fourteen forts and blockhouses and set up a hospital in the Cumberland Female College. Foragers requisitioned supplies from unwilling townspeople and restricted their freedom of movement. Confederate raiders retaliated by burning the railroad depot, cotton mills on the Barren Fork River, and almost every railroad bridge and station between McMinnville and Tullahoma., Confederate Gen. John Hunt Morgan stayed at Dr. John B. Armstrong's McMinnville home during a lapse in the Union occupation before his 1863 Kentucky and Ohio raids. On October 3, 1863, Gen. Joseph Wheeler's cavalry attacked McMinnville and forced the small Federal garrison to surrender. The Federals reoccupied the town from November 1863 to September 1865. Until the end of the war, Union commanders here tried and failed repeatedly to capture such guerrilla leaders as Champ Ferguson and Dick McCann., "I found the town in a most deplorable condition. The rebels robbed the citizens of pretty much all they had. And after they left the First East Tennessee Cavalry were sent here, and from what I learn were a nuisance hardly inferior to the rebels." , , Col. Henry C. Gilbert, 19th Michigan Infantry, Oct. 28, 1863, "Every day, nay, every hour these graceless tramps of Yankees are stealing and prowling about the place, and corn, fruit, vegetables, and chickens disappear with marvelous celerity." , , Lucy Virginia French diary, Aug. 17, 1862, (Caption) , Lower right: Textile mill and railroad bridge, McMinnville, ca. 1902 Courtesy Heritage Alliance, Inc.