A. I. Thornburg Heath, a Confederate Soldier

Young A. I. Thornburg Heath, of Sumner County, Tennessee, at the start of the War Between the States. He was a gunsmith with his own 'works' near Westmoreland (then called Coatstown), but joined the Confederate Armory in Gallatin prior to enlisting in the 9th Cavalry in 1861. He was wounded at the Battle of Hartsville, taken prisoner by the feds to Bowling Green, Kentucky, from which he led the escape of all the Confederates back to southern lines. He did not rejoin the Confederate army, but operated as a 'bushwhacker' in northern Tennessee and southern Kentucky. After the War was over, he returned to blacksmithing. He died in Sumner County, in the early 1920s, and is buried at Sherron Cemetery between Portland and Westmoreland where he was honored with a Confederate monument.