Warren County initially voted against secession, but sentiment turned against Abraham Lincoln after the first shots were fired at Fort Sumter and he called for volunteers to suppress the insurrection. After a second vote in June 1861, the county chose overwhelmingly to leave the Union, and more than 2,000 men from Warren County enlisted in the Confederate army. At that time, the Caney Fork River and its tributaries powered numerous mills that formed the economic lifeblood of the prosperous Rock Island region. In 1861, Asa Faulkner dammed the Barren Fork River south of McMinnville and built the Woodman Cotton Mill, sending cotton to major markets on the new Manchester & McMinnville branch of the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad. War reached the area in the summer of 1862, when Confederate Col. Nathan B. Forrest gathered forces nearby before attacking Murfreesboro. In 1863, Union Gen. Joseph J. Reynolds, unaware that Asa Faulkner was a staunch Unionist who had asked Gov. Andrew Johnson for protection from Confederate raiders the previous year, ordered Woodman Cotton Mill burned. This began the destruction in the area, and by the war's end it was in shambles, with farms and businesses destroyed and many local men dead. The county slowly recovered after the fighting ended as industrialists developed nearby mineral and timber resources. Asa Faulkner and his son rebuilt their mill with an investment of $100,000, helping prosperity return to McMinnville and Rock Island. The Falls City (Great Falls) Cotton Mill, which still stands, operated here from 1892 to 1902.