"Fayetteville was involved in two of the muster sites that supplied troops to two of the major battles in the War of 1812," said Dr. Farris Beasley, a member of the association, who said that Tennessee at that time was considered a frontier state. "There was no Alabama, no Mississippi, or no Louisiana."
In September 1813, a call for troops went out from President James Madison to Tennessee Governor Willie Blount.
"The governor called on General Andrew Jackson, in charge of the Tennessee militia, to raise militia and volunteers," Beasley said, adding that they met at Camp Blount. "The governor gave the order to meet on the south bank of the Elk River at the big oak trees." Those oaks would have been in front of where the Walmart in Fayetteville sits today.
They called for 2,500 volunteers," Beasley said. "4,500 showed up. And for the first time, a Nashville newspaper used the term Tennessee, the volunteer state."
Beasley said that Andrew Jackson kept a diary and often the words "my Tennessee volunteers" are found within those pages.
So That's How We Got "Tennessee Volunteers." --Brock-Perry
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