Like much of Appalachian Tennessee, Polk County was deeply divided during the Civil War, with residents forming both Confederate and Federal units. Benton, the county seat, served as a regional crossroads, while Ducktown held strategic importance because the Burra Burra Copper Company operated valuable mines there. Mining continued until 1863 under Confederate control, but after Federal troops occupied the county, the mines closed until the war ended. Bushwhacking and small skirmishes intensified after Federal occupation. John P. Gatewood, a Confederate partisan from Georgia, became the region’s most notorious guerrilla, and in November 1864 his gang rode through Polk County robbing and killing Unionist residents. The violence reached its peak in the so-called Madden Branch Massacre near the Georgia state line, where Gatewood’s men executed several unarmed Unionists. In February 1865, nine local men scouting for Confederate Gen. John C. Vaughn under Capt. Phillip L. Bible of the 62nd Tennessee Mounted Infantry camped on Chilhowee Mountain, but as they settled in for the night, a detachment of Union Col. Spencer C. Boyd’s 5th Tennessee Mounted Infantry fired on them, scattering the group and killing three men. Boyd was a prominent Polk County citizen.