John Porter McCown

McCown commanded a division at Murfreesboro and soon found himself at odds with his army's commander. He was one of the senior generals who signed a petition asking Jefferson Davis to replace Braxton Bragg, and Bragg later called him his worst division commander. In March 1863 a court-martial found him guilty of disobeying orders at Murfreesboro and suspended him for six months. After the war he taught school in Knoxville, farmed in Arkansas and settled in Little Rock in 1870. Sources give his death in January 1879 as the 2nd or the 22nd.

What the plaque says

John Porter McCown Born 1/4 mi. SE, Aug. 19 1815. Graduate USMA, 1840. Brevetted captain at Cerro Gordo, Mexican War. Resigned 1861 for the Confederacy; rose to rank of major general. Commanded at New Madrid, Madrid Bend, Island No. 10 and later East Tenn. Dept. Commanded division at Murfreesboro. After war, teacher and surveyor in Sevier Co. Died at Little Rock, Ark., Jan.2, 1879.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Newfound Gap — 19 mi
  The lowest drivable pass through the Smokies, at 5,046 feet on the Tennessee and North Carolina line, where Roosevelt dedicated the park in 1940 and Kuwohi's Cherokee name was restored in 2024.
• Beck Cultural Exchange Center — 20 mi
  Knoxville's Black history museum and archive, opened in 1975 in the 1912 Dandridge Avenue house the community bought for $22,500.
• Blount Mansion — 21 mi
  The 1792 frame house of William Blount, governor of the Southwest Territory, Knoxville's only National Historic Landmark, where the people he enslaved are named.
• Cades Cove — 22 mi
  A Smokies valley ringed by mountains, once the Cherokee hunting ground of Tsiyahi and later a farming community of 685 people, kept by the park after its families were bought out.

More markers nearby

• The McMahan Indian Mound — 0.3 mi
• Isaac Dockery — 0.6 mi
• New Salem Baptist Church — 0.7 mi
• Lewis C. Buckner — 1.7 mi