Stokes' Atrocity

The Upper Cumberland's war was fought by irregulars as much as armies. Champ Ferguson, the Confederate guerrilla whose company the six dead men had joined, claimed more than a hundred killings of Union soldiers and pro-Union civilians. Union authorities hanged him on October 20, 1865, after a military commission tried him for fifty-three murders; he was one of only three men executed for war crimes in the conflict. Colonel Stokes's March 1864 killings near Monterey, at the home of William Alexander Officer, belong to the same cycle of reprisal, which left civilians harassed by both sides.

What the plaque says

Stokes' Atrocity Side 1: Four miles north of this site, the atrocity occurred during the War Between the States. On March 12, 1864, Federal Col. William B. Stokes and approximately 200 soldiers of the 5th Tenn. Volunteer Cavalry (Union) surrounded the homes of a southern sympathizer and shot six unarmed Confederate soldiers. These soldiers, led by 2nd Lt. Robert S. Davis, included members from Terry's 8th Texas Cavalry Regiment and one Alabama cavalryman. They became separated from their original outfit and had recently joined forces with Captain Champ Ferguson's independent cavalry company. Side 2: Days earlier the Confederates had routed Col. Stoke's command in skirmish at Dug Hill on the Calfkiller River. Shortly after the shooting at the house, Lt. Davis — the only Confederate wounded and not killed outright — was taken into the yard, tied to a cedar gatepost and his body riddled with bullets. His last words were "you ought not to do this, I have never done anything but my sworn duty."

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Muddy Pond Mennonite Community — 9.6 mi
  A Mennonite farming community in Overton County near Monterey, known for sorghum syrup pressed and boiled each fall and for the farm stores along its roads.
• Cookeville Depot Museum — 13 mi
  The 1909 Tennessee Central Railroad depot in Cookeville's west side, now a museum with a model of the town in 1955 and a steam engine in the yard.
• Cummins Falls State Park — 18 mi
  A 75-foot waterfall and swimming hole on the Blackburn Fork, saved from a housing development in 2011 and opened as Tennessee's 54th state park.
• Burgess Falls State Park — 20 mi
  A day-use park on the Falling Water River, where a short trail passes three smaller falls on its way to a drop of more than 130 feet into a limestone gorge.

More markers nearby

• Standing Stone — 0.3 mi
• Mount Granger — 7.1 mi
• Cherokee Oak — 8.9 mi
• White Plains — 10 mi