More western Tennessee

Not too far from Jackson, Adamsville was the home town of Sheriff Buford Pusser. Pusser was the McNairy County Sheriff from 1964 to 1970. During his terms as sheriff, he led a one man crusade to try to rid the county of the illegal moonshine trade and the gangs that controlled it. This made him a popular guy with the townsfolk, but not so much with the gangs.

At first in his career he was known as the sheriff that didn’t carry a gun – carried a huge club or stick that looked like an oversized baseball bat. He was cured of that on August 12, 1967 when he responded to a call of a disturbance on New Hope Road, and his wife, Pauline, rode along. As they passed the New Hope Methodist Church, gang members opened fire on his car, severely wounding Pusser in the jaw, and killing instantly his wife. His jaw damage was so severe that he could not eat solid food for the next 3 months as he recovered.

At the Pusser home, we met the docent who had actually gone to high school with Buford and knew the family well. After Buford’s death, the family sold the home to the city of Adamsville, along with all of its furnishings and his personal items in the home at the time. So what we got to see as we walked through the house was what Buford and Pauline had used on a day to day basis during their short, tumultuous time together. It was fun touring the house with her as she would salt in items of personal knowledge and stories from the time she had spent with Buford and his family.

Three different movies were made about Pusser, starting with the 1973 movie “Walking Tall”. In fact, on August 21, 1974, Buford was returning from Memphis after having just signed a $2 million contract with Bing Crosby Productions to personally star in the sequel about his life, “Walking Tall”. Just on the edge of Adamsville his Corvette struck an embankment at high speed and burst into flames, killing Pusser instantly. While official investigations found no evidence of tampering, the locals still believe that the crash was caused by the gangs having tampered with the tie rods and the steering mechanism.

Only about 8 miles from Adamsville is the Shiloh National Battlefield at Pittsburgh Landing. Fresh off his decisive victories at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, Grant wanted to keep the momentum and penetrated deeper into the Confederate heart by moving his forces down the Tennessee River. The bloodiest battle of the Civil War to date was fought here on April 6-7, 1862 by Union forces commanded by US Grant and Confederate forces commanded by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and Pierre G T Beauregard.

The Union forces would prove to be overpowering – the Union forces totaled nearly 67,000 men while the Confederate forces totaled just shy of 45,000. While you wouldn’t necessarily conclude that dominance from the casualties – nearly 13,000 for the Union and nearly 11,000 for the Confederacy – the losses were a much larger percentage of the Confederate forces and as a result the Union proved victorious in the battle. One of those casualties ended up being Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston himself – the most senior officer to fall during the Civil War.

Walking around the battlefields is pretty sobering. Today they are all green and lush with the sounds of song birds non-stop. You can only imagine what it was like on those two days – the smoke, the cry of the injured and dying, the roar of the cannons and muskets alike, and the clash of arms. When you do make it into the visitor center, you get some assistance in bringing it all into perspective – we have yet to watch a National Park Service video at the various Civil War sites that was not simply outstanding, Shiloh was no exception.

 

Talk to you soon!