Early Casualty of the War

On this site was the home of Robert H. Hatton that was unfortunately destroyed by fire after the war. He was born in October in 1826, but early in his life his family moved to Lebanon. He graduated from Cumberland University and the studied law at Cumberland School of Law. Admitted to the bar in 1850, Hatton established a successful practice in Lebanon. In December 1852, he married Sophie K. Reilly of Williamson County, Tennessee. They had three children.

Hatton joined the Whig Party and was elected to the state legislature in 1855. He ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1857. He was elected to the Thirty-sixth U.S. Congress in 1858 and chaired the Committee on Expenditures in the Department of the Navy. Although he opposed secession and believed that the Union should be preserved after President Abraham Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers following the attack on Fort Sumter, Hatton reversed his position. He organized a volunteer company for State service, the Lebanon Blues (soon part of the 7th Tennessee Infantry). Hatton was elected the regiment's colonel at Camp Trousdale in Sumner County, Tennessee, and was sent to western Virginia in July 1861.

On May 23, 1862, Hatton was promoted to brigadier general of the Tennessee Brigade, 1st Division, Army of Northern Virginia. Eight days later, he was killed while leading his brigade at the Battle of Seven Pines in Virginia. His body was returned to Tennessee, but because Federal troops occupied Middle Tennessee, he was temporarily interred in Knoxville. On March 23, 1866, Hatton was reburied in Lebanon's Cedar Grove Cemetery. His statue is atop the Confederate monument erected on Lebanon's town square in 1912.

(Inscription under the photo in the upper left side)
Gen. Robert H. Hatton-Courtesy of Library of Congress.

(Inscription under the photo in the bottom right side)
Seven Pines Battlefield, Virginia, 1912. Hatton was killed late in the afternoon of May 31, 1862, while leading his brigade in an attack on a Union position in a "low ditch" in a wooded area like this one.-Library of Congress

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Show me all markers in:  Lebanon, TN  |  Wilson County  |  37087  |  Tennessee  |  United States of America

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