As the prospect of war increased in 1861, residents of remote Scott County wished to be left alone rather than be forced to take sides, but after U.S. Senator Andrew Johnson denounced secession in a fiery speech at the courthouse in June, they voted against it. When Tennessee seceded, the county court passed a resolution to form the "Independent State of Scott." In September 1861, the war came home to 16-year-old county resident Julia Marcum (1844-1936) when a Confederate soldier forced his way into her house to search for her father, Hiram C. Marcum, a noted Unionist; Julia fought him off with an axe while losing an eye and a finger. She recovered enough to teach school for a time, but her wounds eventually rendered her incapable of working, and after petitioning Congress she received a military pension in 1885 for her actions. The county's residents endured frequent guerilla warfare: in December 1861, near the headwaters of Buffalo Creek, Confederates encountered Capt. Duncan's Home Guards in a skirmish in which four rebels were killed and several wounded with no Home Guard losses, and the Confederates captured Larkin Cross and Ransom Conover and hanged them in the apple orchard of the widow Angel. Later, Confederates routed the Home Guard at Huntsville but were defeated at Brimstone, and in August 1863 Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside and the Army of the Ohio essentially ended the Confederate threat there.