07 October 2012

Affair At Travisville


Passed by an historical marker yesterday (Affair At Travisville) on a narrow and winding road in the motorhome and towing the car so we didn't stop even though it was intriguing.  Today we can virtually read the marker and find out what happened at Travisville.   This map (larger version here) from the Pickett County Civil War Heritage Committee shows Travisville in the center (#6).



According to this site:

"September 29th., 1861 marks the date of what has become known as the Affair at Travisville. Until the events of this day transpired, people locally had assured themselves that they were too far off the beaten paths to see any fighting. We would be safe from the pending conflict. Rationalizing that with no major roads or railways crossing through the area, why would an army come through this remote area? No one ever thought that it would be this close to home. This single event answered the questions in everyone’s mind of, if and when, the war would come to Tennessee. These first shots fired in aggression in 1861 would also mark of the first fatalities in the conflict suffered locally and within in the borders of the state."


A blogger at The Notorious Meddler lives near the site and has a "Report of Col. William A. Hoskins, Twelfth Kentucky Infantry, Camp at Albany, September 29, 1861," post about the skirmish.

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