FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Contact: Ricky Rodriguez, TMP, CTTP
Wilson County Convention and Visitors Bureau
615-453-9655 (P) 615-444-3757 (F)
www.visitwilsoncounty.com

Civil War Historical Markers to be Dedicated

Lebanon, TN, September 21, 2009 – The Wilson County Convention and Visitors Bureau is pleased to announce the installation of three Civil War markers for the TN Civil War Trails Program on Tuesday, October 6th.   Civil War Trails is a multi state program that identifies, interprets and creates driving tours of both the great campaigns and lessor known sites by providing a history of the sites using interpretive and trail blazer signs.     

A marker will stand at Seawell Hill in Lebanon (Site of Castle Heights), where Confederate General Joseph Wheeler and his cavalry camped during their raid through Tennessee. The second marker will denote the site of  General Robert H. Hatton’s Home on West Main Street.  Hatton’s statue sits on top of the Confederate monument in Lebanon’s town square.The third marker will be installed at Cedar Grove Cemetery.  Besides General Hatton, over 150 other Confederate soldiers are buried there. This group includes the man who was Tennessee’s last surviving Confederate veteran, James Barry. Also buried there is Robert Caruthers, who was the only elected Confederate governor of the state and a founder of Cumberland University. The names of the Confederate soldiers buried there are engraved on the side of an 18-feet-tall monument that was erected in the cemetery in 1899.Tennessee will join Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland and West Virginia, in this important initiative, which has been identified by the National Trust for Historic Preservation as one of the most successful and sustainable heritage tourism programs in the nation. The markers will join hundreds of other sites across the South that are regularly visited by tourists and Civil War enthusiasts.  Additional information about the Trails Program is available online at www.civilwartrails.org

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