Winchester's Civil War Sites

Winchester's Civil War Sites. County Seceded before the State. When Tennessee failed to secede from the Union on February 9, 1861, Franklin County residents met here at the courthouse. They listened to attorney Peter Turney’s forceful speech offering resolutions in favor of secession and reportedly adopted them unanimously. Turney raised a company in Winchester and recruited companies from surrounding communities to form the 1st Tennessee Infantry, which he offered to the Confederate government before April 9. The regiment assembled here at Mary Sharp College, elected Turney colonel on April 27, and soon marched to Decherd to board a train for Virginia, and it subsequently fought in that state and at Gettysburg. On June 8, Tennessee followed Franklin County’s lead and left the Union, the last state to do so., During the war, the Oehmig house was used as a hospital for soldier with contagious diseases and called The Pest House. When the Union army occupied Winchester in 1863, several dwellings were seized for officers' quarters. The Federals used The Home Journal newspaper office on the Public Square, vacated by William J. Slatter who moved his presses to Georgia to publish The Army Bulletin. Confederate officers’ dwellings that survive today include Col. Tazewell Waller Newman’s house and the boyhood home of Gen. Alexander Peter Stewart., Winchester City Cemetery is the final resting place of Confederate Cols. Peter Turney and Albert Smith Marks, both also governors of Tennessee. Other veterans buried there include 100 Confederates and a few Federals. Soldiers who died in local houses after the Battles of Stones River and Chattanooga were buried in the city cemetery adjacent to John Wiley Templeton Confederate Memorial Cemetery., (captions) , (lower left) Mary Sharp College - Courtesy Library of Congress , (upper center) Peter Turney; Albert Smith Marks Courtesy Tennessee Department of State , (upper right) Franklin County Courthouse by Gustavus A. Perry (US) Courtesy Mike Lougee