Federal Occupation

The 1863 Union raid on Lenoir Station, now Lenoir City, changed the lives of the family that owned the 2,700-acre plantation here. Dr. Benjamin B. Lenoir was one of four brothers who owned the property. His wife was Henrietta Ramsey Lenoir and his father-in-law was Dr. J.G.M Ramsey, a leading Knoxville physician and historian.

On June 19, 1863, Henrietta Lenoir walked out of her house, the two-story white building beside the fire station in front of you, and encountered Union Col. William P. Sanders and his forces. At first, because of their dusty uniforms, she mistook them for Confederate and was shocked to discover that they were Federals. Dr. Ramsey later wrote that his daughter remove money from the safe in the family store, hid it within "several hanks of yarn ?(and then) quietly and deliberately passed out of the store—into and through the house and deposited the unseen treasure under a hedge in the garden."

At the end of the summer, other Union troops occupied the railroad line. Dr. Ramsey wrote that they stripped the plantation and "took possession of Dr. Lenoir's office (to the left of the house) and established in it their headquarters. ?The officers' tents were pitched in the yard and gardens around the house." The Lenoirs later drew up a document claiming $70,000 in losses of 3,000 bushels of corn, 600 bushels of wheat, 50,000 pounds of hay, 400 head of livestock, 40,000 feet of timber, and 130 cotton bales.

In addition, the Lenoir family suffered the deaths of two young sons. In the spring of 1864, Henrietta Lenoir bore another son but remained deeply depressed. She died on May 25, 1864, at age 30.

(captions)
Henrietta Ramsey Lenoir Courtesy Lenoir City Museum
Dr. Benjamin B. Lenoir, from The Centennial History of the Tennessee State Medical Association (1930)
Dr. Benjamin Lenoir House, ca. 1870, from Lenoir City Golden Jubilee: 1907-1957

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