Artifacts Four

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Nathan Bedford Forrest is the only man in history to enter military service as a Private and surrender as a Lt. General. In addition, all of General Forrest's bodyguards were black soldiers. Called the "Forgotten Confederates"; conservative estimates point to 60,000 Black soldiers who fought for the Confederacy. Abolitionist Frederick Douglass used their example to encourage the Union Army's formation of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment. Black Confederates in Tennessee were receiving military pensions for their service as late as the 1920's.

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Free African Americans listed in the
1850 & 1860 Madison County, Tennessee Census

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One of the worst rail disasters in U.S. History occured Sept. 26, 1904 in New Market, Tennessee. Two Southern Railroad trains collided head-on at close to 70 miles per hour. Over 60 people were killed in the accident.

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Tennessee's only Nobel Prize winner is Cordell Hull.As Secretary of State for President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Hull forged international peace agreements that earned him the title, "Founding father of the United Nations."

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Tennessee is the only state to have existed
under seven different names and governments:

The Watauga Sett Association 1769-1777
The Washington District 1777-1780
The Cumberland Compact 1780-1784
The State of Franklin 1784-1788
The Government South of the Holston and
French Broad Rivers 1788-1790
Territory South of the Ohio River 1790-1796
The State of Tennessee 1796-

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Columbia, Tennessee native James K. Polk was the first "dark-horse candidate" in U.S. history to win the Presidency. During his term, he helped form the U.S. Naval Academy, the Smithsonian Institution, and stretch America's boundary to the Pacific Ocean. Polk was also the first Governor of Tennessee to have a college education.

Click here for a copy of the land grant awarded by
TN Governor, James K. Polk to Ennis Hooper for his service in the TN Mounted Militia.

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In 1861, Tennessee Governor Isham Harris signed into law a bill that quote, "allows all men of color" to join the Confederate Army of Tennessee. Within the month, over 1,000 Black Tennesseans joined General R. E. Lee's Virginia campaigns.

Photo courtesy Library of Congress

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Picture of Sewanee Tigers 1899 football team. The team beat five of the South and Southwest's best teams without a single point being scored against them. Sewanee closed its season undefeated.

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The first European to explore Tennessee was Hernando De Soto in 1540. Because of the Mobilian Trade Language used by the native guides, De Soto mistakenly assumed the Appalachee tribe in Florida was the native culture of the Southeast and named the Appalachian Mountains after the tribe.