Tennessee History
Believed to have been claimed in 1541 by Spanish explorer De Soto, explored by the French and finally settled by the English, the Tennessee region was a part of the North Carolina territory by the end of the 17th century. Its first settlement, Fort Loudon, just west of the Alleghenies, was established in 1756. During the War of 1812, riflemen in Tennessee responded in such great numbers that the nickname, the Volunteers State, which remains to this day.
Tennessee did not secede until 1861 and soon became the site of some of the Civil War’s bloodiest battles—Shiloh, Stone’s River, Missionary Ridge, Fort Donnellson and the Battle of Franklin. It was not 1866 when former Tennessee governor, Andrew Jackson became President that the state was reinstated to the Union.
Andrew Jackson
Photo by Brent K. Moore
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