Tellico Iron Works

Established in 1824 amid rich deposits of brown hematite, the Tellico Iron Company produced what was touted as “the finest grade of iron ore in the world.” In 1843, Elisha Johnson, former mayor of Rochester, N.Y., and his brother Ebenezer Johnson purchased the company. Throughout the Civil War, both sides depended on the iron industry for vital munitions, and after the war began the high quality of Johnson’s iron led the Confederacy to seize his company. Col. H.B. Latrobe supervised the works so that Johnson’s Union sympathies would not affect production. Early in December 1863, as Union Gen. William T. Sherman marched into East Tennessee to relieve Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside’s troops in Knoxville during Confederate James Longstreet’s siege, Sherman learned of the Confederacy’s use of the ironworks and went there with Gen. Morgan Smith and his troops. They established headquarters at the Johnson house on December 9-11. Johnson was accused of operating the ironworks to support the Confederate army, but Sherman presided over a trial in the house and acquitted him, perhaps because of Johnson’s Northern birth and sympathies. Johnson’s Union loyalties saved his house from destruction, but Union soldiers completely demolished the Tellico Iron Works before leaving for Chattanooga on December 12.

Tellico Plains, Tennessee · United States