The Burning of Hale's Mill

The man whose band burned the mill was tried afterward for war crimes. Samuel Champ Ferguson, born in Clinton County, Kentucky, was a farmer who became a slave owner in the 1850s and who organized a guerrilla company early in the war to attack civilians he believed supported the Union. He claimed to have killed more than one hundred Union soldiers and pro-Union civilians. After the war the U.S. military arrested him and tried him, and he was executed on October 20, 1865.

What the plaque says

The Burning of Hale's Mill Established in 1845 by New Hampshire native Dr. Johathan (or Johnathan) D. Hale and John F. Jouett, Hale's Mill was a grist mill and a sawmill on the Wolf River near Byrdstown. During the Civil War, Hale was loyal to the Union, and his example and influence contributed to the enlistment in the Union Army of numerous Overton County men. On September 15, 1862, Champ Ferguson's band, which included Confederate soldiers, burned the mill. Citizens deemed by a U. S. military commission to have been responsible for the mill's destruction were ordered to pay reparations. This incident illustrates the intense division of loyalty among Tennesseans during the war.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Cordell Hull Birthplace and Museum State Park — 3.8 mi
  A replica of the log cabin where the secretary of state and Nobel laureate was born in 1871, with a museum of his belongings, in Pickett County's hills.
• Sgt. Alvin C. York State Historic Park — 9.8 mi
  The Wolf River valley farm, gristmill and grave of Alvin York, the conscientious objector turned Medal of Honor soldier, now a National Historic Landmark district.
• Pickett CCC Memorial State Park — 18 mi
  A Civilian Conservation Corps park of sandstone buildings, natural bridges and rock shelters beside the Big South Fork, and an International Dark Sky Park.
• Standing Stone State Park — 19 mi
  A New Deal park on Mill Creek named for a vanished stone that Native peoples revered and railroad builders blasted, with a lake, 1930s cabins and a marbles championship.

More markers nearby

• "Tennessee Lead" — 5.6 mi
• Wolf River Cemetery — 10 mi
• Alvin C. York — 15 mi
• Albert Houston Roberts — 15 mi