Henry Watterson

Watterson opposed secession, served in the Confederate army only reluctantly and briefly, and spent the war moving between newspapers, among them the Nashville Banner and the Chattanooga Rebel. In September 1865 he returned to Nashville, married Rebecca Ewing and became editor and part owner of the Banner, where he began a campaign he called the New Departure, urging national reconciliation. He carried it to Louisville in 1868. A disagreement with the Courier-Journal's owner, Robert Bingham, over the League of Nations ended his long tenure there, and he died in Florida in 1921.

What the plaque says

Henry Watterson Born in Washington, Feb. 16, 1840, where his father, Harvey Magee Watterson, was in Congress, he spent most of his boyhood in a house 100 ft. W. Subsequently Confederate soldier, journalist and political leader, he founded the Louisville Courier-Journal in 1868 and was its editor in chief until 1918. He died in 1921.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Old Stone Fort State Archaeological Park — 12 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.
• Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration — 15 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.
• Stones River National Battlefield — 20 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.
• Jack Daniel Distillery — 25 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.

More markers nearby

• Army of the Cumberland, June 24-26, 1863 (Hoover's Gap) — 4.2 mi
• The Webb School — 6.6 mi
• Strolling Jim — 8.7 mi
• Wartrace — 8.8 mi