Finally, you have reached the Hartsville Cemetery, the final resting place for over 50 Confederate veterans. Among them is Colonel James Dearing Bennett, Commander of the famed 9th Tennessee Cavalry. After the battle, Winslow Hart (the son of James Hart) and other citizens buried both Union and Confederate casualties on a knoll at the rear of the cemetery. Some of the Union dead were later moved and returned to their homeland or reinterred at the National Cemetery in Nashville.

Thank you for completing the driving tour of the Battle of Hartsville. Safe travels.

Located some 400 yards from here at the river, Hart’s Ferry was started in 1798 by James Hart (from whom Hartsville was named). From here, Col. Morgan began his exit from Hartsville with all his captured goods, two pieces of artillery, ammunition, supplies, and wagons. Just as Morgan was getting the last of his men across the river, Union Col. John M. Harland arrived from Castalian Springs and opened fire but did not pursue them. One of his cannon shots barely missed Morgan and his staff, hitting a tree limb above them. The Union reinforcements destroyed three wagons in the river as the confederates made their exit from Hartsville. The Union losses were 58 killed, 204 wounded and 1,834 captured. The Confederate losses were 21 dead, 104 wounded and 14 missing in action. For his daring victory, John Hunt Morgan was promoted to brigadier general. The battle was considered Morgan’s greatest victory and is considered by many as the best executed and most successful Calvary raid of the Civil War.

(Go to the end of Herod Drive and turn around; go back to Cemetery Road and turn right)

The Union’s 2nd Indiana and Co. E. 11th Kentucky Cavalry camped and were positioned in this area to guard Hart’s Ferry. The entire Union Cavalry force moved up to this location to support the Infantry but participated very little in the battle. They suffered only three casualties, and most escaped capture.

(Drive to the curve in the road.)

Atop the hill to your left overlooking the battlefield, sits the beautiful home built by Peter Averitt, Sr., around 1834. During the battle, Peter’s son, Richard, and his family lived here. According to tradition, wounded Confederate soldiers were brought here to be cared for after the battle, and it was where Col. John M. Harlan pardoned them. There is a large bloodstain resembling a man’s face in the floor on the east side of the house. The house is on the National Register of Historic Places.

In the far distance to your right, a clear view in winter, sits the Union camp and battlefield. Across these ravines, some 4,000 men, both Union and Confederate soldiers, were making quick time to leave this area before Colonel Harlan arrived with thousands of Union reinforcements from Castalian Springs some nine miles away.

Time was of the essence following the Union’s surrender. Aware of Union reinforcements advancing from Castalian Springs, Morgan and his men loaded as many empty wagons as they could manage with confiscated Union supplies and they discarded their Austrian rifles and muskets in favor of the Springfield rifles that had belonged to the Union troops. Morgan then directed his men and prisoners to cross the ford known then as Walker’s Landing, now known as Taylor’s Landing, while he directed the wagons and cannons to cross a half mile up the river at Hart's Ferry. Imagine rushing from the battle field to cross this river for the second time in less than 12 hours – in chest-deep, icy water with a several inches snow on the ground, in the bitter cold, with 2 to 3 men on horseback. It was done with success. See Stop #16.

(Turn around and go 0.3 miles and turn right on Herod Road)

This is the site of the Union troop’s camp. The Union garrison of the 39th Brigade, 12th Division, under the command of Col. Joseph R. Scott, arrived here from Tompkinsville, Kentucky via the Goose Creek Valley on November 28, 1862, to relieve Col. John Marshall Harlan. Harlan, who later became an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, of the 10th Kentucky Infantry, commanding the Second Brigade, 1st Division, had been in Hartsville about two weeks.

Col. Scott’s forces consisted of the 104th Illinois Infantry, 106th and 108th Ohio Infantry, 2nd Indiana Cavalry, Co. E. 11th Calvary, totaling 2,400 men.

On December 2, Col. Absalom B. Moore of the 104th Illinois, and ranking officer, was directed by the federal commander to relieve Col. Scott who had been called to Nashville. Here at the Union camp site a large part of the fighting and surrender of the Union garrison took place, just seventy-five minutes after the battle began.

(Go to the end of this road.)

Here on the south side of the river on the elevated ground to the left, Confederate Major Robert G. Stoner set up his battery of two mountain howitzers. Knowing that these guns would not reach the Union camp, his job was to keep the Union troops wondering if they would. Afterwards, Stoner’s men forded the river several times, bringing a prisoner back across each trip. The back side of the bluff to the right was the camp of the Union army. The ridge ahead and to the left is Stop #7.

(Back across the river 0.6 mile, turn right on Cemetery Road and go 0.5 miles.)