Hurst's Raid at Barretville

Fielding Hurst was a slaveholding Unionist, one of West Tennessee's stranger figures. Born in Claiborne County in 1810, he moved to McNairy County about 1834 and ran a plantation worked by several enslaved families. He stayed loyal in 1861 and was jailed in Nashville. Andrew Johnson then commissioned him to raise a cavalry regiment, the 6th Tennessee (U.S.), which earned a reputation for harsh tactics. Hurst resigned in December 1864, sat in the state senate in 1865 and died near Rose Creek in 1882, reportedly in poverty.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Pillow State Historic Park — 19 mi
  A National Historic Landmark on the Chickasaw Bluffs where, on April 12, 1864, Confederate troops massacred Black Union soldiers who were trying to surrender.
• Hampson Archeological Museum State Park — 21 mi
  A free state museum on the town square in Wilson that holds the Nodena collection, one of the best Late Mississippian pottery collections known, from a palisaded village on the Mississippi occupied from A.D. 1400 to 1650.
• Sun Studio — 22 mi
  The small Union Avenue room where Sam Phillips recorded Rocket 88, Howlin' Wolf, Elvis Presley and the Million Dollar Quartet, now a National Historic Landmark.
• Elmwood Cemetery — 23 mi
  Memphis's oldest active cemetery, a rural garden cemetery of about 1,500 trees opened in 1852, with Black civic leaders, yellow fever victims and the city's whole history in its lots.

More markers nearby

• Bobby Blue Bland (1930-2013) — steps away
• Paul W. Barrett — steps away
• Randolph — 5.1 mi
• Civilians Lined the Bluffs — 9.6 mi