The island is gone, which makes this an odd battlefield to visit. Island No. 10 was the tenth in a chain of islands in the Mississippi below Cairo, Illinois, and in 1861 Confederate forces under Leonidas Polk fortified it near the Kentucky line. A state marker stands at the corner of Highway 22 and New Markham Road, a few miles north of Tiptonville; the river has eroded the island out of existence. In March 1862 seven Union gunboats under Andrew Foote shelled the defenses for three weeks. High water, the bombardment and gunboats running past the batteries forced a surrender on April 7, 1862. About 7,000 Confederates had held the island, and over six thousand were captured in the swamps near Tiptonville as they tried to escape.
The loss opened the river and ended Confederate control of northwest Tennessee for the rest of the war. It also cleared the way for the occupation of Memphis that June. Swamp and lake country lay behind the island, so the only dry approach ran along the river levee through Tiptonville.
Tiptonville's own record has a darker page. Contemporary newspapers reported that in March 1901 a mob of white townsmen lynched Ike Fitzgerald, a Black man, and that a fire three days later burned about thirty buildings, including every store on the main street.
The closest stops worth working into your route
Roadside plaques and monuments within a short detour