Civil War

Nashville General Hospital
No. 15, Division 1

May 9, 1865

Library Photograph Collection

American Civil War, 1861-1865

Tennessee may have been the most divided state in the Civil War, for its different regions and competing ideologies battled over whether to join other Southern states in seceding or to remain in the Union. The state was the last to join the Confederacy, despite the fact that many regions (most notably East Tennessee) remained enthusiastically supportive of the Union. From 1861 to 1865 the state was ravaged by the war as Confederate and Union forces fought over 3200 battles and skirmishes here. During the Tennessee Sesquicentennial Celebration (2011-2015), TSLA will feature one exhibit a year covering the events of the Civil War in Tennessee. Featured in the current exhibit are photographs, dating from May 1865 to the 1920s, of some of the war’s veterans.

Five Confederate veterans at a Tennessee reunion
Men pictured include Billy Nolen, Joe Couch, and Claudius Buchanan.

Six Confederate Veterans
This April 23, 1923, reunion may have been in New Orleans.

Confederate Veteran John B. Kennedy
Kennedy served the Confederacy as a private with Company A of the 3rd Tennessee Infantry Regiment. He was wounded at Chickamauga and at Jonesboro, Georgia. Kennedy was one of the six original organizers of the Ku Klux Klan on December 24, 1865, in the Pulaski law office of Major Thomas M. Jones, and he would be the last of the six founders to die.

Civil War Veterans
Reunion on January 24, 1922

Civil War Veterans
Reunion on August 11, 1923

Civil War Veterans in front of the Hermitage Hotel, Nashville
Reunion on July 23, 1925

Civil War Veterans in front of the Hermitage Hotel, Nashville
Reunion on July 23, 1925