Fighting in Shelbyville

Bragg had fortified Shelbyville strongly that spring, and by June 27, 1863, the works were nearly empty. Leonidas Polk's infantry had already pulled back toward Tullahoma, leaving Joseph Wheeler's cavalry to cover the retreat. When David Stanley's troopers came up, Colonel Robert Minty personally led his Michigan horsemen, known as the Saber Brigade, in a mounted charge over the breastworks after the withdrawing Confederates. Minty's charge was the opening of the street fighting that carried Union cavalry to the Duck River. Lincoln later judged the flanking of Bragg at Shelbyville, Tullahoma and Chattanooga the most splendid strategy he knew.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration — 1.0 mi
  The Shelbyville show grounds where the Tennessee Walking Horse has been crowned world grand champion each late summer since 1939, and where the practice of soring is part of the story.
• Jack Daniel Distillery — 14 mi
  The oldest registered distillery in the United States, in a limestone hollow outside Lynchburg, where the tour now names Nathan Nearest Green, an enslaved man, as the first master distiller.
• Henry Horton State Park — 15 mi
  A Duck River park on Governor Henry Horton's former farm in Marshall County, with a mill ruin from 1845, kayak floats and the grave of a governor the House declined to impeach.
• Old Stone Fort State Archaeological Park — 20 mi
  A 2,000-year-old enclosure of piled stone and earth on the bluffs above the forks of the Duck River, built by Native people between about 80 and 550 A.D., with a museum and waterfall trails.

More markers nearby

• Henry Brevard Davidson — steps away
• Prentice Cooper — 0.4 mi
• Skirmish at Wartrace — 7.6 mi
• Wartrace — 7.7 mi