Gibbs Crossroads

Gibbs Crossroads, once prominent on Tennessee’s antebellum transportation routes, held significant strategic value in fighting in Tennessee’s Upper Cumberland region during the Civil War, and countless soldiers and cavalrymen passed through it. Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg established a temporary headquarters there in September 1862 during his Kentucky Campaign, and from his camp at the crossroads he wrote to Confederate Gen. Leonidas Polk that captured mail revealed Federal plans and showed his opponents greatly demoralized, disheartened, deceived, and in the dark about Confederate movements; he also ordered Polk to press the matter of supplies and to seize the railroad at Cave City, Kentucky, immediately and, if possible, secure some rolling stock. Fighting reached the crossroads in the spring of 1863, and on May 11, 100 men of Union Major F. M. Davidson’s 14th Illinois Cavalry engaged 125 men of Confederate Gen. John Hunt Morgan’s command. Federal losses were one officer and two privates wounded, with four taken prisoner, while Confederate losses were two killed, one wounded left behind, and several wounded carried off. Davidson’s cavalrymen fell back from the crossroads, leaving it open temporarily for Confederate movements. A Union camp was located four miles west on Union Camp Road behind Union Missionary Baptist Church.

Tennessee · United States