Historical Marker
The Harrison House
Franklin, Williamson County · Tennessee
John Carter was twenty-six when he died in the Harrison house, and he had been a general for about five months. A Georgia-born lawyer, he studied at the University of Virginia, taught at Cumberland University in Lebanon, and entered the war as a captain in the 38th Tennessee Infantry, rising to colonel and, in July 1864, brigadier general. He was mortally wounded at Franklin and died on December 10, about three miles south of the battlefield. His father is recorded in the 1850 census as holding 52 enslaved people. Carter is buried in Rose Hill Cemetery in Columbia.
What the plaque says
"The Harrison House" The Civil War touched this house. Here, Sept. 2, 1864, the mortally wounded Brig. Gen. John H. Kelly, CSA, was brought here after the affair between his cavalry division and Federals under Brig. Gen. James D. Brownlow. He was buried in the garden, in 1866 reinterred in Mobile. Here Gen. Hood held his last staff conference before committing his army to the Battle of Franklin, Nov. 30, 1864. Here the wounded Brig. Gen. John C. Carter was brought after the battle. He died Dec. 10, 1864, and was buried in Columbia, 16 mi. south.
Where it stands
35.88156, -86.88025 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- Carnton — 1.9 miThe McGavock farm in Franklin, worked by 44 enslaved people in 1860, that became the largest field hospital of the Battle of Franklin.
- Fort Negley — 19 miThe largest inland stone fort of the Civil War, built in 1862 on St. Cloud Hill by more than 2,700 conscripted Black laborers, hundreds of whom died.
- National Museum of African American Music — 20 miA downtown Nashville museum, opened in 2021, tracing gospel, blues, jazz, rhythm and blues and hip-hop through Black history from 1619 to 2016.
- Ryman Auditorium — 20 miThe 1892 brick tabernacle in downtown Nashville that was the Grand Ole Opry's home from 1943 to 1974, now a National Historic Landmark and working concert hall.