Tennessee Historical Commission marker 2 E 27 at Franklin County Courthouse, Winchester, Tennessee-
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SECESSION
In this locality, on Feb. 24, 1861, occurred the mass meeting as a result of which Franklin County seceded from the State of Tennessee, at the same time petitioning the Confederate State of Alabama to annex it. The secession of Tennessee June 24, 1861, rendered further action needless. |
| History of Colonel Peter Turney Chapter #1927,
United Daughters of the Confederacy Winchester, Tennessee The first attempt to organize a UDC chapter in Winchester, Franklin County, Tennessee, was July 15, 1899, the chartering date of the Johnny Morgan Chapter UDC #318. Lucy Osborne Slaughter, wife of Confederate veteran Benjamin Gabriel Slaughter, Sr., was a leader in this early movement; however, no written history of the short-lived chapter has survived. Later that year the Kirby-Smith Chapter #327, Sewanee, became the second UDC chapter chartered in Franklin County. In September 1926, at the Methodist Church in Winchester, a meeting was held to discuss the organization of a UDC chapter for Winchester and the surrounding area. Miss Mary V. Alexander had run several articles in her newspaper, The Truth and Herald, asking all ladies who were interested and eligible to attend. Miss Alexander was chosen temporary chairman and Mrs. J.C. Hale temporary secretary. One week later, at a meeting in the Civitan Room of the Winchester Cumberland Presbyterian Church, the chapter was organized, officers elected and, after a vote, the name Peter Turney Chapter was chosen. Eighteen ladies were present with records entitling them to membership. Assisting in the organization of the new chapter were members of the Kirby-Smith Chapter from Sewanee and the Mary Latham Chapter from Memphis. Peter Turney was an outstanding native Tennessean and the son of a United States senator. He was born in Jasper in 1827 and moved to Winchester with his family before 1830. A short time before Tennessee seceded from the Union, Turney, eager to join the Confederate cause, organized the First Tennessee Infantry Regiment, which was mustered in at his home near Winchester on May 8, 1861. His regiment joined the Army of Virginia as part of General Stonewall Jackson’s command. Colonel Turney was wounded at the Battle of Fredericksburg in 1862, and his unit surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, April 9, 1865. After the War, Turney returned to his law practice in Winchester and went on to serve on the Tennessee Supreme Court. He was Chief Justice from 1886 to 1892, when he was inaugurated Governor of Tennessee and served two terms. He died at Wolf’s Crag, his home in Winchester, October 19, 1903, and was buried in Winchester City Cemetery. On March 23, 1927, the Peter Turney Chapter received a charter listing 45 members. The chapter had the distinction of having as two of these charter members Colonel Turney’s daughters, Misses Aletha and Teresa Turney. The first officers were Miss Emily Moseley, president; Miss Teresa Turney, vice-president; Miss Clara Norton, recording secretary; Miss Alice Lynch, treasurer; Mrs. James R. Norton, historian; Miss Mary V. Alexander, assistant historian; and Miss Lena Austell, registrar. The Peter Turney Chapter donated $500 in 1928 to help finance the building of Confederate Memorial Hall, a girls’ dormitory at Peabody College in Nashville. During the 1930s, the chapter placed a military marker at Colonel Turney’s grave in Winchester City Cemetery. At the chapter’s October meeting in 1935 Colonel Turney’s daughter Teresa suggested, and the members approved, that the chapter name be changed to Colonel Peter Turney . Also that year, government stones, simply engraved "A Confederate Soldier," were ordered to mark the graves of the unknown Confederate soldiers buried in Winchester City Cemetery. From the 1940s to the present, the chapter has placed numerous books in public libraries, purchased items for disabled veterans, contributed to charitable organizations, placed two monuments in Winchester City Cemetery in honor of Confederate veterans, placed government stones on unmarked graves of Confederate soldiers, given crosses of honor for military service to Confederate soldiers, their widows, and descendants of Confederate soldiers, recommended students for education scholarships, submitted historical articles and poems for publication, and sponsored essay contests in the local school system. The five words in the UDC motto, "think," "love," "pray," "dare," and "live," are the standard by which the Colonel Peter Turney Chapter members have endeavored and endured for 75 continuous years. - Joy Quandt Gallagher 2003 |
"Tennessee's first vote against secession was sixty thousand, as
the old Whig party, which had a great strength in Tennessee, was opposed
to it, but when her sister States seceded, Tennessee went with them, and
her best blood flowed freely in the cause." -Mary Polk Branch,
MEMOIRS OF A SOUTHERN WOMAN, 1912
Go
to the Resolutions for the Secession of Franklin County:
"3.
RESOLVED, That we hope that the Northern fanatics
have read the speeches of the Presidents- DAVIS and LINCOLN, (Made enroute
for their respective seats of government) and see the difference, and
from it learned a lesson of common sense, which will cause them to hush
their insane croaking about the ignorance of the Southern people..."
-Resolutions, Thos. Finch, Ch'n, J.F. Syler, N. Frizzell, Secretaries,
Winchester, Tennessee, 25 Feb. 1861
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"Secession belongs to a different
class of remedies. It is to be justified upon the basis that
the states are sovereign. There was a time when none denied
it. I hope the time may come again when a better comprehension
of the theory of our Government, and the inalienable rights of the
people of the States, will prevent any one from denying that each
State is a sovereign, and thus may reclaim the grants which it has
made to any agent whomsoever." -Jefferson Davis's Farewell
to the U.S. Senate, January 21,1861 "We feel that our cause is just and holy; we protest solemnly
in the face of mankind that we desire peace at any sacrifice save
that of honor and independence; we seek no conquest, no aggrandizement,
no concession of any kind from the States with which we were lately
confederated; all we ask is to be let alone; that those who never
held power over us shall not now attempt our subjugation by arms.
This we will, this we must, resist to the direst extremity".
- Jefferson Davis, "Message on Constitutional Ratification,"
April 29, 1861 (http://www.sewanee.edu/faculty/Willis/Civil_War/) |
Jefferson Davis Monument,
President of the Confederate States
of America, 1861 - 1865.
Soldier, Statesman, Patriot,
New Orleans, La.
President Jefferson Davis was once hosted by St. John's Episcopal Church, Montgomery, Alabama, which was the site of the November 23-28, 1857, second Board of Trustees meeting.
In stairwell of Cleveland Annex, Sewanee, Tennessee, Advent Semester, 2004- AT SAINT JOHN'S CHURCH |
Montgomery and Secession (from http://www.alabamamoments.state.al.us/sec13.html)-
Jan. 7, 1861: Secession convention commences in Montgomery. Jan. 11, 1861: Delegates vote (61-39) to secede, becoming the fourth state to do so. The Republic of Alabama is declared. Jan. 13, 1861: Second Regiment of Alabama Volunteers ordered to Pensacola. Feb. 4, 1861: Montgomery becomes provisional capital of the Confederate States of America (CSA). Feb. 8, 1861: Provisional Constitution of the CSA is adopted. Feb. 18, 1861: Jefferson Davis is inaugurated as provisional President of CSA on portico of state capitol building. Mar. 4, 1861: First National Confederate flag raised over capitol in Montgomery. Mar. 13, 1861: The Republic of Alabama formally joins the CSA. Apr. 11, 1861: CSA Secretary of War Leroy Pope Walker of Huntsville authorizes bombardment of Fort Sumter, South Carolina, by telegraph from Montgomery |
The Alabama Secession Convention created the opportunity for Franklin County to secede from Tennessee and join Alabama. A Baptist delegate to Convention, Thomas H. Watts, assisted in the creation of the Republic of Alabama in Montgomery.
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Thomas Hill Watts (1819-1892)- Colonel in the Confederate Army during the Civil War; Confederate Attorney General, 1862-63; Governor of Alabama, 1863-65. Baptist. Arrested by Union forces in Union Springs, Alabama, in May 1865, and imprisoned for a few weeks. Died in Montgomery, Montgomery County, Ala., September 16, 1892. Interment at Oakwood Cemetery, Montgomery, Ala. -http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/watts.html#RIL196GHQ Thomas H. Watts and the 17th Alabama Infantry Regiment- Vol. IV--(416)
Hon. J. R. Benjamin, acting secretary of war, Richmond, Va., September
19, 1861, mentions the "Seventeenth Alabama regiment, commanded
by Col. Thomas H. Watts, having been brigaded under Gen. L. P. Walker." |
While he was acting as Attorney General of the Confederate States of
America in 1862, Thomas H. Watts' own daughter was presented as the first
debutante of Montgomery in his home in 1862, beginning the Southern debutante
tradition in Montgomery, Alabama, the first capitol city of the Confederate
States of America, and the host city of the second Board of Trustees meeting
of THE UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH.
(http://www.montgomeryliving.com/MLM-debutanteshistory-index.htm)
Bishop-General Leonidas Polk and then Governor of Alabama Thomas H. Watts
were connected through their concerns for the defense of Alabama during
the Spring of 1864. Upon receiving word from Governor Watts that the enemy
was at Decatur and "inflicting great injury," Lieut.-Gen. Polk
ordered Gen. Loring to move his infantry division to Montevallo and Gen.
Lee's main body of cavalry to Tuscaloosa. (GENERAL LEONIDAS POLK,
C.S.A, The Fighting Bishop, Joseph Parks, 1962)
Col. Thomas Watts' former 17th Alabama went on to fight against Union General Sherman during his Campaign for Atlanta, May-July 1864, within Lieut.-Gen. Leonidas Polk's Army of Mississippi part of the Army of Tennessee, Cantey's Division, 2nd Brigade.
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