A. I. Thornburg Heath

Heath was wounded in a battle that lasted barely an hour and a quarter. On December 7, 1862, Morgan pushed his men some forty miles over frozen ground to the Cumberland at Hartsville, where only about 1,300 of roughly 2,100 managed to cross the flooded river in time. They still surrounded and captured an estimated 1,800 to 2,000 Federals at a cost of 149 of their own. The Union commander, Colonel Absalom Moore, resigned, and Morgan was promoted to brigadier general.

What the plaque says

A. I. Thornburg Heath On September 1, 1862, A. I. Thornburg Heath joined Col. James D. Bennett's 9th Tennessee Cavalry (CSA) under the command of then Col. John Hunt Morgan. He was wounded and captured at the Battle of Hartsville, Tennessee, on December 7, 1862. Incarcerated in a Federal prison in Bowling Green, Kentucky, Heath led the escaped of 20 Confederates to southern lines. Continued: One and one-half miles northeast of here, prior to the War, Heath had established his blacksmith shop at Heath Springs beside Sulphur Fork Creek. Here he stablished his reputation as a rifle maker. Heath's wife, Martha Johnson (1848-1926), lost her father, 1st Lt. Richard E. Johnson (1821-1862) of the 20th Tennessee Infantry, Co. F, on January 19, 1862, at the Battle of Fishing Creek, Kentucky, where he, like his commander, Gen. Felix Zollicoffer, fell to Union fire.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Wynnewood State Historic Site — 13 mi
  A National Historic Landmark log inn at the Bledsoe's Lick springs, beside a Mississippian mound center and tied to the domestic slave trade.

More markers nearby

• Parker's Chapel "Old Taylor Field" — 4.5 mi
• Fountain Head — 6.3 mi
• Bishop William McKendree — 6.3 mi
• Richland — 6.6 mi