McGavock Confederate Cemetery

After the Battle of Franklin on November 30, 1864, more than 8,000 Union and Confederate casualties lay on the field as the Union Army withdrew into Nashville and Confederate General John Bell Hood left a burial detail in Franklin for two days while pursuing the retreating forces. Confederate soldiers were first buried near the Carter House breastworks in plots arranged by their home states, but as winter passed and many headboards faded or were used as firewood, John McGavock and his family donated two acres beside the family graveyard for a permanent burial ground. In April 1866, McGavock and other citizens formed a committee, raised money, and reinterred the bodies, again arranging them by state and recording each known name in the Book of the Dead. Caroline Winder McGavock continued to keep the official Register of the Dead and welcome relatives and former comrades who came to honor the fallen. The John L. McEwen Bivouac of Veterans helped maintain the graves and in 1890 appointed a committee to care for the cemetery and raise funds to replace wooden headboards with permanent markers. In 1911, Mrs. Winder McGavock and the owners of Carnton, Mr. and Mrs. W.D. Shelton, transferred the cemetery deed and right-of-way to the trustees of the newly chartered McGavock Confederate Cemetery Corporation. After the McEwen veterans died, their wives, active in the Daughters of the Confederacy, assumed the work, and in 1926 the trustees authorized members of Franklin Chapter #14 United Daughters of the Confederacy to serve as well. The trustees continue in that role, and the State of Tennessee has designated the corporation as the cemetery's official caretaker. Restorations from 1990 to 1996 and repairs supported by a 1994 matching grant from the State of Tennessee were funded by descendants, heritage groups, reenactments, local institutions, government bodies, and other supporters.

Franklin, Tennessee · United States