Learn about the soldiers from Confederate-aligned Tennessee and the largely Union-won battles there

In the Civil War years of 1861 to 1865, the state of Tennessee was at the center of the storm. Sharing more borders with other states than any other state in the union, Tennessee was a strategic jewel that commanded approaches into Virginia, the Carolinas, the deep south and even the northern heartland. More than 1,000 battles were fought in Tennessee, second only to the state of Virginia throughout the entire war.

More than 100,000 Confederate soldiers signed up from the state and more than 50,000 union soldiers, more than any other Confederate state. The state fell quickly to attacks largely coordinated by Ulysses S. Grant. The state capital of Nashville was the first Confederate capital to fall into union hands.

The Union Army controlled a good portion of the state for most of the war. Emblematic of it's divided loyalties, Tennessee was the last state to leave and the first state to rejoin the Union. The Confederates and the union men came together and mostly, reconciled after the war. Confederate memoirist, Sam Watkins, who served in the first Tennessee Confederate Volunteer Infantry, remembered that he raised all his little rebels to know that we are one and undivided. I'm Sam Smith, I worked for the Civil War trust, and I am a Tennessee native.