As published by the Daily News Journal, Greg Tucker, July 19, 2012
One hundred and fifty years ago today the citizens of Murfreesboro were celebrating their deliverance from Yankee occupation. Their hero was Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest. In an early morning raid on July 13, 1862, Forrest and his mounted troops, using surprise and deceptive tactics, overwhelmed a superior Union force.
The Yankee surrender included 1,200 captured Union soldiers, munitions and supplies worth half a million dollars, sixty wagons, 175 horses, 300 mules and four cannons. Forrest also freed a number of leading citizens from Cannon and Rutherford counties held captive in the courthouse and facing possible imprisonment or execution as secessionist traitors.
Brigadier General Thomas Turpin Crittenden’s capture at Murfreesboro
effectively ended his military career.
T. T. Crittenden
Forrest’s raid on forces occupying Murfreesboro was a stunning victory for the Confederacy and an embarrassing defeat for the Union military. It was particularly humiliating for Brigadier General Thomas Turpin Crittenden, commander of the occupying Union forces.
Born in Alabama, Crittenden was a Mexican War veteran living in Indiana when he reentered the service as a Captain with the 6th Indiana Volunteers. After battles in western Virginia and Shiloh, he was promoted to Brigadier General on April 28, 1862. On July 12, 1862, Crittenden assumed command of all Union forces in and around Murfreesboro.
Although he was new on command and unfamiliar with the status of forces in the area, the July 13 surrender ended Crittenden’s military career. After four months as a Confederate prisoner of war, he was released and soon resigned from the military. His last years were in San Diego where he was engaged in real estate development.
Sophie
According to the writings of Andrew Lytle (1902-95), at least one prominent Rutherford County name was working
Major General Williams Haines Lytle was known as a warrior-poet with
Murfreesboro family ties.
both sides of the military conflict. Sophie DeShields Lytle was the young third wife of William Franklin Lytle, son of Revolutionary War Captain William Lytle. In 1862-63 William and the beautiful Sophie were living on the Lytle plantation just west of Murfreesboro.
The reoccupation of Murfreesboro following the Battle of Stones River brought to the area General William Haynes Lytle of Cincinnati, bachelor son of a prominent family and “poet of more than a local reputation.” Claiming kinship, the bachelor poet visited the Lytle home and introduced himself to William and Sophie. After this initial visit, the Union general arranged for protection for the Lytle property and became a daily visitor.
According to Lytle family lore, the visits were focused on the beautiful lady of the house. “One can only surmise, and yet one is impelled to think that she was more than cousinly polite,” wrote Andrew Lytle in “A Wake for the Living” (Crown Publishers, 1975). Sophie’s husband died in 1863 and the Lytle-to-Lytle romance blossomed. How it might have concluded will never be known, for the Cincinnati “cousin” was killed in action at Chickamauga.
During this period of courtship, one of Sophie’s stepsons, Frank Lytle, slipped through the Union lines and sent word to his family that he was in hiding and needed food and clothing. Sophie revealed to the Yankees the hiding place of her Confederate step son, and as a result was shunned by the rest of the Lytle family.
Undaunted by the loss of her suitor and her family status, Sophie became a regular visitor at the Yankee headquarters in Murfreesboro. Before war’s end, Sophie married one of General William S. Rosecrans’ staff officers. The new husband was Carter Bassett Harrison, grandson of President William Henry Harrison and brother of President Benjamin Harrison.
Military Academy
The Murfreesboro Military Academy announced on August 1, 1860, that it would “resume its conduct” on Monday, August 20. The “Principal of this Institution,” Captain William J. Davis, advised in the Murfreesboro News that the school would be “one of a high order.”
Academy advertising promised: “In the selection of text-books; in the requirements of daily recitations; in the enforcement of established rules; in the attention to moral, intellectual and physical development, to the soldierly habits of method, regularity, punctuality, etc., to the Drill and Gymnasium; no pains will be spared to make the school one of a high order of instruction for Southern youth.” French and Spanish were to be part of the “regular course” of study.
Enrollees were to pay $30 per session (two sessions per year) for “Academy” classes, or $20 per session for “Preparatory” classes. The “Academy Barracks” would open for students at 9 AM on August 20. A similar notice the following year located the academy in “the building opposite the Methodist Female College.” (Now the 400 block of North Maple Street.)
While running the military academy, Davis was also serving as Captain of the Breckinridge Old Guard, a local volunteer militia. The Guard was described in the Murfreesboro News in October 1860 as “one of the most finely uniformed and best drilled companies to be found in the State. It is composed of sober, orderly, genteel men…Its officers are gentlemen, skillful in the military art, and most of them are educated men.”
Prior to the Guards appearance at a function in Lebanon, however, the Rutherford militia was described in the Lebanon newspaper as a “company of worthless fellows commanded by a convict.” The Lebanon comment was dismissed by the Murfreesboro media as competitive slander motivated by “envy and malice.” The “convict” assertion was probably unfair, but it was at least apparent that Davis was trading on concerns and preparations for impending military conflict.
By 1862, the Murfreesboro Military Academy was closed, the Old Guard had disappeared, and Davis was serving the Confederacy as a captain in the First Regiment of the Regular South Carolina Infantry. It appears from correspondence, however, that he was having problems. On January 3, 1863, he wrote to his commanding general tendering a resignation and requesting a transfer to a unit “near Murfreesboro, my home” and “in which state I successfully conducted a military academy for several years.”
Davis concluded his letter stating: “The embarrassment of my present position in this regiment renders it necessary that this resignation be unconditional and immediate.” There is no record of Davis’ return home or any further success or embarrassment.
After the Tennessee Baptists moved Union University to Jackson, Tennessee in 1875, the property was used for several years as another Murfreesboro military academy. Advertising in the August 1880 Murfreesboro News announced a “Fall Term” on the Union campus. “For the purpose of imparting thorough instruction and inculcating good morals, military discipline has been introduced.” Capt. T. M. King served as “Commandant of Cadets.” The last military academy sessions in Murfreesboro apparently ended in the 1880’s.
Dry Goods
In the months beforeCivil War fighting reached Rutherford County, according to the store ledger of Shannon & Buchanan & Co., Dry Goods, local residents were stocking up on sewing supplies (material, needles, buttons, etc.), and leather goods (shoes, belts, hats, tack, and buggy whips). A lot of tobacco was also sold. A number of debit balances for pre-war purchases were left unpaid until several years after the end of hostilities. Some were never paid.
Hardtack
To prepare Civil War era hardtack, you need four cups of flour, one and one-half cups water and two teaspoons salt.
Knead all ingredients together until a stiff dough is formed. Roll out dough and cut in three or four inch squares. Poke four rows of four holes in each square. Bake in a hot oven for 30 minutes on each side. Let hardtack cool on cooling oven top until completely dry. (Although most Civil War soldiers ate plain hardtack, it was sometimes fried in lard, bacon grease, butter or melted sugar.)
Source: Private Recipe Collection at the Tennessee State Archives (circa 1861-65).
The Last Veteran
Rutherford County’s last surviving Confederate veteran, Frank Ross, died at the age of 
100 on October 14, 1943. He served as a kettle drummer with the 32nd Alabama Infantry and drummed the charges at the Battle of Stones River. Mustered out at Meridian, Mississippi, after four years of service, he was awarded the Southern Cross of Honor. In the last months of his life, he enjoyed spending time with soldiers on Tennessee maneuvers and comparing the modern army with his Civil War experience.
A special thanks for research assistance to Carol White, Mike Puckett, and Bart Uselton.
Greg Tucker can be reached at [email protected]