Civil War in Polk County

The Unionists killed at Madden Branch on November 29, 1864, were recruits from Fannin County, Georgia, walking down the Ocoee toward Cleveland to join the 5th Tennessee Mounted Infantry (US). John P. Gatewood's guerrillas, wearing Union overcoats, coaxed them out of hiding and shot them. The dead included Thomas Bell, Harvey Brewster, James T. Hughes, James B. Nelson, Elijah Robinson and Wyatt J. Parton. Accounts differ on Peter Parris, who had organized the group: one lists him among the dead, another says he escaped with six wounds. Gatewood is said to have gone to Texas after the war.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Ocoee Whitewater Center — 13 mi
  The Forest Service site on the Ocoee River in Cherokee National Forest that hosted the 1996 Olympic canoe slalom, on a river that TVA dams and releases by schedule.
• Red Clay State Historic Park — 21 mi
  The last seat of the Cherokee Nation before removal, where eleven general councils met from 1832 to 1837, now a state park with a council house replica, a sacred spring and an eternal flame.
• Cherokee Trail of Tears State Park — 26 mi
  The Blythe Ferry landing at the mouth of the Hiwassee, where Cherokee and Muscogee people camped in 1838 to cross the Tennessee River, made a state park in June 2026.
• Rhea County Courthouse — 30 mi
  The 1891 Dayton courthouse where John T. Scopes was tried in July 1925 for teaching evolution, with the second-floor courtroom restored and a trial museum in the basement.

More markers nearby

• Nancy Ward — 1.6 mi
• Marr's Fort — 9.3 mi
• Charleston on the Hiwassee — 9.6 mi
• The Henegar House — 9.7 mi