When the Union army outflanked Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg’s army at Tullahoma in June 1863, Bragg ordered a retreat south. On July 2, Confederate units arrived in Cowan. Bragg considered forming a defensive perimeter along the Cumberland Plateau to maintain possession of the Cumberland Mountain Tunnel, since whoever controlled the tunnel controlled the vital Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad, but the pace of the Union advance convinced him to keep moving to Chattanooga. He also considered blowing up the tunnel, but there were not enough explosives available. Confederate Gens. Nathan Bedford Forrest and Joseph Wheeler provided rearguard defense throughout the Tullahoma Campaign. According to local tradition, as the last Confederate cavalry unit passed through Cowan on July 3, an elderly woman stepped from the Franklin Hotel and shouted at a passing cavalryman, “You big cowardly rascal, why don’t you turn and fight like a cur? I wish old Forrest was here. He’d make you fight.” The cavalryman was Forrest. The Union army controlled Franklin County for the rest of the war, and a garrison occupied Cowan with the sole mission of protecting the railroad and the Cumberland Mountain Tunnel. The nearby mountains provided sanctuary for bands of guerrillas, some supporting the Confederacy and others merely gangs of robbers. Union troops skirmished constantly with them for the duration of the war, making civil life in Cowan almost impossible.