Battle of Lebanon

The fight reached into the town's windows. In the May 1862 clash, Confederate sympathizers in Lebanon fired on Union cavalry as it came through, and the running battle stretched about fifteen miles. Two Union colonels, Frank Wolford and Green Clay Smith, were wounded. Confederates who had barricaded themselves in buildings gave up only when General Ebenezer Dumont threatened to burn the town. Prisoner counts vary, with one reference giving about 150. Lebanon kept its buildings, and Morgan's raiders were back to hit Hartsville that December.

What the plaque says

Battle of Lebanon Near dawn on May 5, 1862, Colonel John Hunt Morgan's 800 Confederate Cavalry camped around the Public Square and at Cumberland University on South College Street, were attacked by General Ebenezer Dumont's Federal Cavalry of 600 as they advanced from Murfreesboro in a torrential rain. After an hour and a half of charges and countercharges, Morgan and most of his men withdrew on the Rome and Trousdale Ferry Pikes pursued by the Federals. Barricaded in Odd Fellows Hall on West Main Street, 60 to 70 of Morgan's men fired upon the Federals. Later these Confederates surrendered when Dumont threatened to burn the town. During the attack, the Federal losses amounted to 10 killed, 21 wounded, and 5 missing. The Confederate losses amounted to 60 killed and an unknown number of wounded and missing.

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.
• Andrew Jackson's Hermitage — 18 mi
  Andrew Jackson's cotton plantation east of Nashville, where visitors can walk to the quarters, Alfred's Cabin and the Enslaved Cemetery as well as the mansion.
• Stones River National Battlefield — 24 mi
  The Murfreesboro battlefield of December 1862, with a national cemetery built by Black soldiers, a Trail of Tears route and the story of the freedmen's settlement called Cemetery.
• Red Boiling Springs — 33 mi
  A Macon County spa town built around red sulphur springs, with five kinds of mineral water, red-painted pumps and the surviving hotels of a resort that once held more than a dozen.

More markers nearby

• Wilson County Courthouses — steps away
• Lebanon Post Office — steps away
• Pickett Chapel / Civil Rights — steps away
• Robert Looney Caruthers — 0.2 mi