Fight continues to preserve Civil War sites
JEFFERSON CITY — Capt. E.J. Cannon fell to an enemy’s bullet within sight of the home he hadn’t seen in two years.
Today he’d barely be able to find the place where his men fought.
Years of development have almost obliterated every trace of the running battle Cannon, an officer of the Union Army’s 1st Tennessee Cavalry, and more than 8,000 other Union and Confederate soldiers fought four days after Christmas 1863 near the community then known as Mossy Creek.
“They fired their guns all day,” said Cleve Smith, a Jefferson County native and author of a book on the Battle of Mossy Creek. “This was the center of everything right here. And right here is what we’re going to lose.”
Smith can stand on the shoulder of Old Andrew Johnson Highway, which runs through the middle of the battlefield, and point out what’s gone. Carson-Newman College baseball players round third base at the spot where Union Capt. Eli Lilly and his artillery company spent nearly three hours trying to hold back the Confederate assault. An industrial park sits on the hill where Lilly’s men fell back just before Cannon and the other cavalrymen charged the advancing Confederate line and Union reinforcements arrived to turn the battle’s tide. A National Guard armory, a WalMart and a trucking center occupy most of what’s left.
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Today he’d barely be able to find the place where his men fought.
Years of development have almost obliterated every trace of the running battle Cannon, an officer of the Union Army’s 1st Tennessee Cavalry, and more than 8,000 other Union and Confederate soldiers fought four days after Christmas 1863 near the community then known as Mossy Creek.
“They fired their guns all day,” said Cleve Smith, a Jefferson County native and author of a book on the Battle of Mossy Creek. “This was the center of everything right here. And right here is what we’re going to lose.”
Smith can stand on the shoulder of Old Andrew Johnson Highway, which runs through the middle of the battlefield, and point out what’s gone. Carson-Newman College baseball players round third base at the spot where Union Capt. Eli Lilly and his artillery company spent nearly three hours trying to hold back the Confederate assault. An industrial park sits on the hill where Lilly’s men fell back just before Cannon and the other cavalrymen charged the advancing Confederate line and Union reinforcements arrived to turn the battle’s tide. A National Guard armory, a WalMart and a trucking center occupy most of what’s left.