Angela Wallace Finley

In April 1861 Governor Isham G. Harris ordered Lieutenant Colonel Marcus Wright, 154th Militia Regiment at Memphis, to proceed north and occupy a defensive position on the Mississippi River. Wright and a battalion of men and artillery established camp at…

The area forming West Tennessee was part of the Chickasaw Nation until 1818, when the territory was opened for settlement under the terms of the Jackson Purchase. An 1819 act by the general assembly divided the new territory into five…