McGavock Confederate Cemetery

In the spring of 1866, the bodies of Confederate soldiers killed at the Battle of Franklin were exhumed from their temporary graves and reburied on this two-acre plot adjacent to Carnton, home of John and Carrie McGavock. Over about ten weeks, veteran George W. Cuppett led four men who reinterred the remains of 1,481 Southern soldiers. In addition, the body of Cuppett’s younger brother, Marcellus Cuppett, who died during the period, was also buried here as the only civilian. A small journal containing the names of all the dead was given to the McGavocks. This became the largest private military cemetery in the United States in terms of the number of burials. John and Carrie McGavock maintained the cemetery for the rest of their lives, largely by themselves. Already well known for tending the Confederate wounded at Carnton immediately after the Battle of Franklin, Carrie McGavock became even more famous for her attention to the cemetery. In 1890, John L. McEwen Bivouac No. 4, United Confederate Veterans, appointed a committee to maintain the cemetery and raise funds to replace the wooden headboards with the stone markers now in use. In 1911 Mrs. Winder McGavock and the new owner of Carnton, Mr. and Mrs. W.D. Shelton, deeded the cemetery to the trustees of the chartered McGavock Confederate Cemetery. The United Confederate Veterans authorized the Franklin Chapter 14, United Daughters of the Confederacy, to serve as the trustees beginning in 1926.

Franklin, Tennessee · United States