"The Hartsville Races"

Hartsville's older races were on horseback. Andrew Jackson often visited the town for them, and the Hartsville Jockey Club hosted races in 1836 with eighteen entries. Early accounts noted the town for two things, a quarry producing high-quality grist stones for Middle Tennessee's water-powered mills and the racetrack. By 1830 Hartsville had four stores and was the central marketplace for neighboring cotton farmers, with a landing south of town where steamboats stopped. The 1862 running fight came to a town already known for another kind of race.

What the plaque says

"The Hartsville Races" Attacking the Federal 39th, (DuMont's) Brigade from south & west, a task force of 1300 cavalry & infantry under Maj. Gen. John Hunt Morgan, in a running fight, killed, wounded, or captured 2200 men. Confederate losses were 125 killed or wounded. Morgan withdrew south with booty on prisoners, beating off pursuit from Castalian Springs.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Wynnewood State Historic Site — 8.3 mi
  A National Historic Landmark log inn at the Bledsoe's Lick springs, beside a Mississippian mound center and tied to the domestic slave trade.
• Red Boiling Springs — 20 mi
  A Macon County spa town built around red sulphur springs, with five kinds of mineral water, red-painted pumps and the surviving hotels of a resort that once held more than a dozen.
• Andrew Jackson's Hermitage — 28 mi
  Andrew Jackson's cotton plantation east of Nashville, where visitors can walk to the quarters, Alfred's Cabin and the Enslaved Cemetery as well as the mansion.

More markers nearby

• Captain William Alexander — 0.9 mi
• Battle of Hartsville December 7, 1862 — 1.5 mi
• The James DeBow Home — 2.8 mi
• Tilman Dixon — 6.6 mi