Austin Peay State University faculty edits Diary that provides glimpse of Clarksville during Civil War
August 5, 2020
Clarksville, TN – In the mid-1980s, an old store ledger was found inside a local smokehouse. At first glance, it seemed like little more than trash, but then someone opened the yellowed, water-stained pages and read surreal accounts of Clarksville during the Civil War.
“Clarksville is almost depopulated,” the ledger recorded. “All the escaped soldiers have been ordered to the main army via Clarksville before the Yankees get in. I ripped the stripes off a young man’s coat over at Uncle W’m’s this evening that he might not be detected on his journey. Once I enjoyed sewing them, but now I take them off as willingly.”
Civil War diary edited by APSU faculty wins Duke award
October 28, 2015
Clarksville, TN – In 1862, the author of “The American Stud Book,” a breed registry for thoroughbred horses, became one of the least popular people in Montgomery County. His name was Col. Sanders Bruce, and as an officer in the Union Army, he oversaw the military occupation of Clarksville during the Civil War.
“Well upon Christmas day Colonel Bruce with his ‘whiskey jug’ and several regiments took possession of this place and here they have been ever since,” Nannie Haskins Williams, a 16-year-old Clarksville resident, wrote in her diary a year later. “And here I am too still writing in my journal about those detestable blue coats for whom I have such a disgust.”