Federal Guns on Cemetery Hill

This is where Union forces stood as they attacked Blountville on September 22, 1863, during a campaign to control the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad. On the day of the attack, the Confederates occupied Blountville while the Federal forces held the south bank of the Watauga River.

Union Colonel John W. Foster led his cavalry brigade across the river at 9 A.M., drove off pickets from Confederate Col. James E. Carter's 1st Tennessee Cavalry, and then occupied Cemetery Hill. Foster shelled Carter's positions in Blountville in front of you, then ordered a charge about sundown that pushed Carter's regiment from the town.

Foster reported that he suffered six killed and fourteen wounded. The next day, he occupied Carter's Depot as the Confederates withdrew.

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The cemetery here was created before 1824 on land that later belonged to the adjacent Blountville Presbyterian Church. Although churches typically had their own burying grounds, the local Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist churches, which stood near here, all shared this cemetery.

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Blountville from Cemetery Hill — Copyright Anita B. Long (2002)
Blountville Presbyterian Church, which burned during the war. It was rebuilt later (shown with a red roof in the painting). Photograph ca. 1900 Courtesy Sullivan Co. Archives

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Show me all markers in:  Blountville, TN  |  Sullivan County  |  37617  |  Tennessee  |  United States of America

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