Difficult Times

Wayne County’s residents were divided in sentiment when the Civil War began. Although they had voted more than two to one to remain in the Union, many people in the northern portion of the county, including Waynesboro, had strong Confederate sympathies, and Waynesboro often served as a base for Confederate Col. Jacob Biffle’s 9th Tennessee Cavalry, which frequently skirmished with Federal forces. Services ceased at Cumberland Presbyterian Church after the war began, soldiers from both sides occupied the building at different times, and all of the records were lost. The first meeting after the Civil War was held in November 1866, when the church’s record keeper noted that for five years the congregation could not publicly worship and that only one elder and four members remained. Across North High Street stands the former home, built about 1854, of Union Col. William P. Kindrick, Jr., of the 2nd Tennessee Mounted Infantry. Kindrick was captured near Corinth, Mississippi, while organizing the 3rd West Tennessee Cavalry, was confined in Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia, escaped with 108 other Federal officers in February 1864, returned home to Waynesboro, and died the following month, after which he was buried in the family garden behind the house. The First Cumberland Presbyterian Church was constructed about 1840, and on October 10, 1854, the congregation and a group of Masons paraded to the site and laid the cornerstone for the present building, which was completed in 1855 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.

Waynesboro, Tennessee · United States