Civil War Franklin: Women's Experience

Carrie Winder McGavock was born in 1829 at Ducros Plantation near Thibodaux, Louisiana, and married John McGavock in 1848. She brought an enslaved girl, Mariah Reddick, to Carnton as a wedding present. After the battle she nursed wounded Confederates in the house. In spring 1866 the family reburied 1,481 Confederate soldiers and one civilian, Marcellus Cuppett, in a cemetery beside Carnton, and she kept the ground for 41 years until she died in 1905. She cared for the dying, and the household she ran rested on slavery.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Carnton — steps away
  The McGavock farm in Franklin, worked by 44 enslaved people in 1860, that became the largest field hospital of the Battle of Franklin.
• Fort Negley — 17 mi
  The largest inland stone fort of the Civil War, built in 1862 on St. Cloud Hill by more than 2,700 conscripted Black laborers, hundreds of whom died.
• National Museum of African American Music — 18 mi
  A downtown Nashville museum, opened in 2021, tracing gospel, blues, jazz, rhythm and blues and hip-hop through Black history from 1619 to 2016.
• Ryman Auditorium — 18 mi
  The 1892 brick tabernacle in downtown Nashville that was the Grand Ole Opry's home from 1943 to 1974, now a National Historic Landmark and working concert hall.

More markers nearby

• Civil War Franklin: The African-American Experience — steps away
• Battle of Franklin, Eastern Flank: McGavock Slaves and the Civil War — steps away
• Battle Ground Academy — 1.1 mi
• Carter House — 1.2 mi