Dyer County in the War

During the Civil War, at least fifteen Confederate companies were formed in Dyer County, including Capt. Otho F. Strahl’s Company K, 4th Tennessee Infantry, and Capt. Tyree H. Bell’s Company B, 12th Tennessee Infantry. Both men rose to brigadier general; Strahl later became one of six Confederate generals to die at the Battle of Franklin in 1864 and was buried in Dyersburg’s Old City Cemetery on East Court Street, while Bell served under Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest and after the war took part in the Dyer County Aid Society to help former soldiers and their families. Although no major engagements occurred in Dyer County, foragers from both sides scoured the countryside there and in neighboring Gibson County, and in 1862 Confederate cavalry Col. William H. Jackson called the area the richest portion of Tennessee, with abundant supplies of bacon, corn, and hay. After a surprise attack on one of Jackson’s companies in August 1862, Union Gen. Grenville M. Dodge freed two enslaved people who had provided information. Because Dyer County bordered Kentucky, Missouri, and Arkansas, it also sheltered several Confederate guerrilla bands; from his headquarters in Trenton, Dodge asked for more cavalry to fight them, and by the end of 1863 the pro-Union Memphis Bulletin reported that guerrilla activity had declined. In 1864, a Confederate soldier apparently acting alone burned the courthouse; it was rebuilt in 1867, and the present Classical Revival building replaced it in 1911. In 1905, local resident Jane Skeffington unveiled a granite Confederate monument on the anniversary of the Battle of Shiloh.

Dyersburg, Tennessee · United States