The Great Valley of Tennessee, the Southern Appalachian breadbasket, stretched from Bristol to Chattanooga and, with its major turnpikes and railroads, was strategically vital to both North and South during the Civil War. In Blountville, much of the town was destroyed in a bloody battle on September 22, 1863. Confederate Gen. Alfred E. Jackson, a native of Jonesborough, controlled the town until late in September 1864. To the south at Limestone, in September 1863, Jackson defeated the 100th Ohio Infantry for control of the railroad. Greeneville was the center of Tennessee Unionism and the home of President Andrew Johnson, and the Battle of Blue Springs occurred nearby in 1863. A year later, a downtown firefight there killed Confederate Gen. John Hunt Morgan. Bulls Gap was a key railroad junction where Confederate Gen. John C. Breckenridge pushed Union Gen. Alvan C. Gillem’s forces back toward Knoxville in November 1863. To the west in Russellville, Gen. James Longstreet’s corps made winter camp in 1863-1864, and his headquarters there has been restored.