Skirmish at Wartrace

The Confederate side of this April 1862 fight left its own record. Lt. Col. James Starnes's report, relayed by Maj. Gen. E. Kirby Smith on April 28, says his Eighth Tennessee Cavalry struck a Union camp it put at 600 men and pulled out after a short engagement. Starnes lost three men killed and eight wounded and could not count Union casualties because the defenders fought from tents. Kirby Smith wrote that the surprise alarmed the Union side and halted trains on the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad for some time. The report dates the attack to the 10th.

What the plaque says

Skirmish at Wartrace In April 1862, Major James M. Shanklin with 197 men of the 42nd Indiana infantry camped on the west bank of Wartrace Creek, near the end of Bridgeview Street, to secure the supply line of the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad by guarding two bridges north and south of Wartrace. Early on the morning of April 11, 1862, Colonel James W. Starnes of the 8th Tennessee Cavalry Battalion with 200 Confederates attacked the camp. Several men, on both sides, were killed and wounded.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration — 6.7 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.
• Old Stone Fort State Archaeological Park — 13 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.
• Jack Daniel Distillery — 17 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 — 21 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.

More markers nearby

• Strolling Jim — steps away
• Wartrace — 0.2 mi
• The Webb School — 4.3 mi
• Prentice Cooper — 7.2 mi