War on the Plateau

War on the Plateau. Raids in Van Buren County. The Civil War first touched Van Buren County in 1861 when Confederates under James Randals began mining Big Bone Cave's saltpeter deposits. By 1863, 4,017 pounds of nitre, essential to the manufacture of gunpowder, had been produced., During Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg's Kentucky campaign in September 1862, 2nd Lt. Carrol H. Clark and Sgt. Darius Clark of the 16th Tennessee Infantry wrote in their diaries for Sept. 1: "We marched all night and on the second day we struck Cane Creek near the mouth in Van Burian (Buren) County and camped at the Bija Crane Place. The distance we marched that night was 20 miles." Later that month, Confederate Col. Joseph Wheeler reported a "slight skirmish" at the farm of Mrs. John Fleming, a widow, where the Spencer-to-Dunlap road crossed Harrison Road., Union occupation brought new challenges. In November 1863, a member of the 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry reported about a firefight with Confederate Capt. George Carter's partisans: "On arriving at a point a fourth of a mile from [Spencer at 1 a.m.] we put our horses to a full gallop and charged into and thro the town and all around it but without finding the enemy as expected. One of our guides, whose brother was murdered by Carter, smashed the door of [Carter's] house, ordered out his wife and set the house on fire, but Capt [Adam] Kramer had the fire extinguished, an action of our men did not approve.", In August 1864, Union commanders allowed Spencer's Burritt College to reopen for two sessions but then closed it to use the main building as barracks and the dormitories as stables., (Captions) , Left: Leaching pit used in saltpeter mining - Courtesy Mick Offield , Center: Burritt College during the Civil War - Courtesy Hoyte Cook , Right: Detail, map, C. Meister, "Chattanooga, Tennessee to Sparta, Tennessee, August 1862" - Courtesy Duke University Library