Clay Kenner House - Rogersville, TN
Posted by: 
saopaulo1
Assisted by: 
Hobo Larry
N 36° 24.515 W 083° 00.239
17S E 320311 N 4031133
Tennessee Civil War Discovery Trail marker in Rogersville, Tennessee.
Waymark Code: WM12VWK
Location: Tennessee, United States
Date Posted: 07/21/2020
Views: 5
Created From:
Clay Kenner House - posted by
Hobo Larry
"John G. Bynum and his wife Nancy Bradley Phipps Bynum, owned this house during the Civil War. The value of his land and slaves in 1860 totaled $140,000, an enormous sum for the time. Bynum helped raise the county's first Confederate unit, the Hawkins County Boys. In December 1861, local Confederates killed Unionist William K. Byrd in the so-called "Byrd Raid", and Bynum was suspected of involvement. The Byrd Raid began almost four years of indiscriminate attacks between Confederates and Unionists in Hawkins County.
In 1862, Confederate supporter John D. Riley murdered Bynum in front of the Bank of Tennessee (now the Masonic Temple) three blocks west of here. According to diarist Eliza Rhea Anderson Fain, the pair earlier had "an altercation" and neither forgot: "Time passed along and each seemed to be cherishing the dark malignant passions of the heart." Riley discharged a shotgun at Bynum's chest, "tearing one lung to pieces." Bynum fired his revolver as he fell from his horse, wounding Riley. Bynum died at the scene, but Riley was not arrested.
Three years later, Nancy Bynum married Confederate Capt. Henry Boyle Clay, a grandson of the famous U.S. Senator from Kentucky. Capt. Clay served on the staff of cavalry Gen. John Pegram before transferring to the staff of Lt. Col. Basil W. Duke, one of Gen. John Hunt Morgan's subordinates. Clay was with Morgan on the day Morgan died in Greenville. When Union soldiers forced him to identify Morgan's body, Clay cried out, "You have just killed the best man in the Confederacy."
Type of site: Other
Address:
East Main Street and Clay Street
Rogersville, TN USA
Admission Charged: No Charge
Website: [Web Link]
Phone Number: Not listed
Driving Directions: Not listed
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