The "Breastworks Cemetery" overlooking Tazewell

Thanks to Eldo Stone and Davis Greer with a host of others this cemetery has become a wonderful landmark in Tazewell, Tennessee. Read a resident's account of the cemetery and it's view from a 1871 diary account at the bottom of this page.

Click on picture to see enlargement

Looking directly at David Chadwell's DAR monument in the "Breastworks Cemetery" on the Robert Payne Farm, Tazewell, Tennessee.	Looking from directly behind David Chadwell's DAR Monument, notice the cannon ramparts that were used during the "Battle of Tazewell". The Breastworks was used by the Union Army.	The front of the encampment facing the "Roundtop" where the Confederate Troops were stationed.
Looking down the trenches that lay behind the front embankment. The large trees were removed with care during the renovation of the cemetery. A Flag and benches have been added here.	Standing atop the front embankment looking towards "Roundtop" where the trenches of the Confederate troops can still be seen with close inspection. Most of the shells from both sides landed in the town of Tazewell. The back of the Courthouse can be seen (large brick structure). These streets run behind the main street of Tazewell.	A closer look at Capt. David Chadwell's DAR Monument from John Owen. John is a direct descendent of Capt. Chadwell
This is a picture made from the top of Roundtop where the Confederate Trenches were located. This is on the Big Springs or Morristown road, south of Tazewell.	This is a picture made from along the front trench looking up Cedar Fork toward Virgnia. Balls Bridge and other notable landmarks are up that way.

From this part of my website:

Benjamin F. Schultz was a man of great intelligence and sensitivity, and it would be a disservice to publish a book without including some of his writings taken from his diary of 1871, written while he was living in Tazewell. He had a tremendous grasp of international affairs, and he prophesied trouble and perhaps war with Russia in his writing of January 7, 1871 as follows: "1 a.m., mail came in from Cumberland Gap. Stage turned over down Coumberland Mountain, but no one hurt. I arose at 5 a.m. thinking it day, the moon shining so brightly. Morning clear-- cloudy by noon -- looking very much like snow. Reports from the seat of Mar are bad. The attitude of Russia toward Turkey is threatening. It may be, however, that if the present Great Briton and -- stand firm, the Northern Bear may be connnvinced that the hour to strike is not yet. But the Bear will make the attempt sooner or later, and he is only biding his time. Strong as is Russia's intention to seize Constantinople, the key to the Orient, as the next stop is continental dominion, just as strong is England's that he shall not possess this key to the East and her possessions in India. Betwixt these two great powers, Russia and England whose power girdles the world, whose fleets phough every sea and whose drum-beats heralds the dawn through the entire circuit of the sun, there is yet to be a conflict in which will be involved the whole of Europe and possibly America. This will be such a war as the world has ever seen, and one that must pale the terrors of the Franco-Prussian War, and the great struggles of past battles fade into insignificance. The result of this great war, no mortal can have the least conception."

His quick mind could change and describe the beauties of nature in the mountains around Tazewell as well as write of internation affairs. On another page of his diary, he writes:

"Mr. Word bringing out his telescope or field glass, we took an enlarged view of the country making everything look fearfully near, bringing the hills and mountains almost within our grasp. Then reversing the instrument, the whole face of nature was changed into a distant scenery, not at all like seen before the natural eye, but more like that of a finely executed oil painting of some distant scenery -- the mountains looming up in the background marking the horizon with a long blue undulating lines above and beyond which ….. light fleecy cloud of an auriferous dye. The whole landscape seemed as though it was painted on canvas, making the most strikingly beautiful picture that I have ever seen.
After feasting my eyes on the beauties of assisted nature, I, in company with Millard Parker, went to "grave-yard hill", where we could get a more extended view. Looking in a north easterly direction, we beheld the most beautiful landscape ever witnessed by a mortal. Th the right of our picture rose majestically, Walden's Ridge, and stretching but as far as the eye could reach; marked with farms extending half way up it sides and over and above, could be seen the crest of Powell's Mountain, running parallel to the former and finally disappearing as behind the earth's curvature.
Directly in our front, lay a broken country of hills and vallies, farms and forests alternately. Nere were to be see dark groves of cedar, and whose brown fields of sage grass. On our left, we could trace the cold black wall of that mighty barrier, the Alps of America, the Cumberland mountains. Nere we could see crag piled on crag, and mountain on mountain interminable, but dimly marked through the smoky atmosphere between. Nere we stood upon, and at out feet were the relics of war, the old Fort -- and here the ruined and dilapidated graves of Tazewell's best citizens who were not left alone in their peace of death -- not only were the cities and habitations of the living laid in ruins and plundered, but the quiet cities of the dead, too were plumderend and ruined by the vile and mercenary hordes of the North. They not only made war upon the living, but carried in into the pale realms of the dead.
Then looking down at old Tazwell, we could plainly mark the mutations of time and the ravages of War -- we could only remark what changes Tazewell has undergone since several years ago. Her finest citizens, her best dwellings, buildings and churches, altars and the graves of loved ones are gone forever. The sun began to sink slowly behind the Western hills when we left, and soon darkness came moving on in her dusky cape and leaving to me only the gloomy shades of night which wrap all nature in her sable folds. The stars shone brightly from the vaults of heaven where not a cloud was left to obscure the mirror of God. So passed away the day, the holy sabbath day -- this day never to return."

His great sadness, perhaps stemmed from the plundering by Northern soldiers, of his parents many acres and large home in Missouri. His mother Louisiana, widowed by the war was left alone, with four children to rear, and her farm in total ruin. On B(restworks) Hill where David Chadwell lies buried among his slaves, the headstones were overturned by northern soldiers occupying hill, during the Civil War, and broken into pieces, so there is no way to mark the grave of the Revolutionary patriot and ancestor (MWB)

Claiborne County Home Page

Page 1 of 1

ï¿½ Copywrite 2001 Webworks, Inc.
Created with the amateur Genealogist in mind