Battle of Red Banks

The fight was one stop in George Kirk's winter raid through western North Carolina, southwest Virginia and East Tennessee, and Kirk's men were Southern Unionists. Colonel Kirk led about 960 troopers of the Third North Carolina Mounted Infantry against some 400 Confederates of the 64th North Carolina Infantry under Colonel James Keith. Seventy-three Confederates died and thirty-two were captured. After the clash the column pushed on toward Knoxville. The Union side reported three men wounded.

What the plaque says

Battle of Red Banks On December 29, 1864, the Third Regiment of North Carolina Mounted Infantry, under Colonel George W.Kirk, engaged about 400 Confederate Infantry and Cavalry under Lt. Colonel James A.Keith at Red Banks of the Nolichucky. Seventy three Confederates were killed and 32 officers and privates were captured. The Union forces sustained only three wounded men.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Unicoi County Heritage Museum and the Erwin Rail Yard — 4.3 mi
  A museum in the old fish hatchery superintendent's house in Erwin, a Clinchfield railroad town where the elephant Mary was hanged in 1916 and Black residents were driven out in 1918.
• Jonesborough Historic District — 12 mi
  Tennessee's oldest town, chartered in 1779, where Elihu Embree printed The Emancipator in 1820 and a hay wagon by the courthouse started the National Storytelling Festival in 1973.
• Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park — 19 mi
  A shoal on the Watauga River where the Transylvania Company bought about 20 million acres from the Cherokee in March 1775, Dragging Canoe refused, and the Overmountain Men mustered in 1780.
• Roan Mountain and Carvers Gap — 19 mi
  The saddle on the Tennessee-North Carolina line where the Appalachian Trail crosses the Roan Highlands' grass balds, with Catawba rhododendron gardens, rare spruce-fir forest and the site of the Cloudland Hotel.

More markers nearby

• Unicoi County / Town of Erwin — 2.3 mi
• Blue Ridge Pottery — 2.3 mi
• Keystone Pottery — 5.4 mi
• Jacob Brown — 6.1 mi