The Tannehill Ironworks were an important source of warmaking material for the Confederate Army, and so were tempting military targets. Companies D and I of the 8th Iowa Cavalry, with other units from the 1st Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division, US Army of the Mississippi executed a raid on the Tannehill furnaces on 31 Mar 1865, destroying the forges and scattering the slave workforce that manned them.
This small memorial to that raid and the troops involved stands at the Tannehill Ironworks State park in McCalla AL. The memorial was placed by Des Moines (IA) Civil War Round Table in 1988.
The memorial reads as follows:
EIGHTH IOWA CAVALRY
This tablet dedicated to the men of Companies D and I which, along with other detachments, attacked the Tannehill Ironworks March 31, 1865 under the command of Captain William A Sutherland, First Brigade, First Division (McCooks) United States Cavalry Corps, Military Division of the Mississippi (USA).
--Des Moines Civil War Round Table, 1988 --
CROXTON'S RAID"
From Explore Southern History: (
visit link)
"The production of iron at the site actually
began in 1830 when Daniel Hillman built a
forge on the banks of Roupes Creek. He died
within two years and the facility was taken
over by Ninian Tannehill, who operated it as
a sideline to his more profitable farming
operation.
In 1859, however, the small forge evolved
into something much greater. A slave labor
force began work on the massive Tannehill
No. 1 furnace, designed by ironmaster
Moses Stroup. Over the next four years,
hundreds of slaves hand cut sandstone
blocks and pulled them on skids to the site
for use in the building of three large blast
furnaces.
By 1863, the Tannehill Ironworks could
produce 22 tons of desperately needed iron
per day. Used for the casting of artillery,
cookware and even cast iron stoves for the
Confederate army, the iron produced at
Tannehill contributed significantly to the
Southern war effort. Around 500 workers lived
in cabins on the site and the facility also
included a gristmill, tannery and tax-in-kind
warehouse.
Remarkably, Tannehill operated to within one
week of the surrender of Robert E. Lee. The
death blow to the facility finally came on
March 31, 1865, when it was targeted by the
troops of Union General James Wilson.
As Wilson and his men pushed south
through Alabama, they targeted the iron
facilities throughout the central part of the
state. Three companies from the 8th Iowa
Cavalry seized Tannehill on March 31st and
by the end of the day, the wooden parts of the
facility had been reduced to ashes and the
massive stone furnaces were no longer
operational.
From the ironworks at Tannehill, the Union
raiders pushed south to strike the Bibb Naval
Furnaces at today's Brierfield Ironworks
Historical State Park. Wilson ultimately fought
famed Confederate general Nathan Bedford
Forrest at the Battle of Ebenezer Church and
Battle of Selma before turning east to capture
Montgomery.
The destruction of the Alabama ironworks
came too late in the Civil War to have any real
impact on the outcome of the conflict. The
damage done to the facilities did, however,
further damage the economy of Alabama and
cause even more hardship for the Southern
people in the years after the war."