Richard Poynor (1802-1882) was born into slavery in Halifax County, Virginia. He settled in Williamson County, Tennessee, in 1816 with his master, Robert Poynor. When his owner died in 1848, Richard was valued at $450.

After purchasing his freedom in the 1850s, he became known as one of the region’s more prolific and accomplished chair makers. His “common” or “split-bottom” chairs, as they were called, were ladder backs with shaved posts and arched slats. They were made strong and durable by joining seasoned hickory stretchers to bent, green maple posts, which would shrink on the stretcher’s round tenons while seasoning. Rockers on his chairs were made from walnut. According to oral history, Poynor used a horse-powered lathe to make his turned posts and rungs. The chairs were seated with finely-woven oak splits, and then painted red, blue, black, or green for the average farmer, or rosewood-grained for the wealthier patrons. The armless rocker displayed here has the dramatic history of being a Civil War casualty. Its upper slat was shattered by a bullet as it sat in the Carter House during the Battle of Franklin on November 30, 1864.

In the impoverished economy after the Civil War, chair makers like Poynor experienced less demand for their furniture. Many supported themselves by farming and furniture repair work, such as reseating chairs and replacing broken posts and rungs.

— Mike Bell, Curator of Furniture and Popular Culture, Tennessee State Museum

Further Reading

• Richard Warwick, “Richard ‘Dick’ Poynor,” in A History of Tennessee Arts: Creating Traditions, Expanding Horizons, Carroll Van West, ed. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2004), 163-164.

A website co-sponsored by Vanderbilt University Libraries, Middle Tennessee State University Walker Library, and the MTSU Center for Historic Preservation, with generous support from the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area.

A website co-sponsored by Vanderbilt University Libraries, Middle Tennessee State University Walker Library, and the MTSU Center for Historic Preservation, with generous support from the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area.

Orlando Metcalfe Poe, soldier, engineer, and cartographer, would have been an extraordinary talent in any age. Being born in Ohio in 1832 meant that Poe’s time of accomplishment would likely be the Civil War era. As an 1856 West Point graduate, number six in his class, a career in the United States Army’s prestigious topographic engineers awaited him. The war years allowed Poe to excel in the execution of the training he had received. In the fall of 1863 his position as the chief of engineers under General Ambrose Burnside in Knoxville offered him an opportunity experienced by few others. Given a free hand, he planned and executed the defense of a natural fortress; this he accomplished in a dauntingly short amount of time. He used all of his genius and inventiveness to augment the town’s geography with innovative applications of the natural and man-made materials at hand, fortifying the city of Knoxville at every position north and south of the river for 360 degrees.

Cleveland Rockwell and R. H. Talcott. Map of the Approaches and Defences of Knoxville Showing the Positions Occupied by the United States and Confederate Forces During the Siege surveyed by direction of Capt. O. M. Poe, Chief Engr Dept of the Ohio, during Dec. Jan. and Feb. 1863-4, 1863. Library of Congress.
View Object Details

And then Captain Poe had his creation challenged by some of the best assault troops the world has ever produced, Confederate General James Longstreet’s corps from the Army of Northern Virginia. 4000 veterans of Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, and Chickamauga, despite attacking the weakest point on the line, could not breach the defenses held by 400 Federals. In 20 minutes of carnage, the Battle of Fort Sanders was over; 813 casualties for the CSA, 13 for the USA. Poe summed it up, “I know of no other instance in history where the storming party was so totally annihilated… My ‘ditch digging’ saved Knoxville.”

— Joan Lynsky Markel, Ph.D., Curator of Civil War History, Frank H. McClung Museum, University of Tennessee

Further Reading

• Robert Tracy McKenzie, Lincolnites and Rebels: A Divided Town in the American Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006)
• Digby Gordon Seymour, Divided Loyalties: Fort Sanders and the Civil War in East Tennessee (Knoxville: East Tennessee Historical Society, 2002)
• Paul Taylor, Orlando M. Poe (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2009)

Click an object for more details.

A website co-sponsored by Vanderbilt University Libraries, Middle Tennessee State University Walker Library, and the MTSU Center for Historic Preservation, with generous support from the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area.

A website co-sponsored by Vanderbilt University Libraries, Middle Tennessee State University Walker Library, and the MTSU Center for Historic Preservation, with generous support from the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area.

A website co-sponsored by Vanderbilt University Libraries, Middle Tennessee State University Walker Library, and the MTSU Center for Historic Preservation, with generous support from the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area.

A website co-sponsored by Vanderbilt University Libraries, Middle Tennessee State University Walker Library, and the MTSU Center for Historic Preservation, with generous support from the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area.

A website co-sponsored by Vanderbilt University Libraries, Middle Tennessee State University Walker Library, and the MTSU Center for Historic Preservation, with generous support from the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area.

A website co-sponsored by Vanderbilt University Libraries, Middle Tennessee State University Walker Library, and the MTSU Center for Historic Preservation, with generous support from the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area.