Citizen-Hero of the South:
The Story of Jack Hinson
Written by Justin Lamb
After years of failed compromise and heated political rhetoric, the sectional crisis gripping the United States during the mid-19th century had finally come to war when in April 1861 the Federal Army fired upon Fort Sumter in South Carolina sparking the War Between the States.
Back in the ‘Tween the Rivers section (LBL) in West Tennessee along the Kentucky border, Jack Hinson, a prosperous landowner in the Bubbling Springs community just three miles southwest of Dover, planned to mind his own business and steer clear of the oncoming conflict. Hinson had initially opposed secession and felt no need to get involved in a fight in which he believed was started by radical elements in both the North and the South. When Tennessee joined the Confederacy, Hinson came to loosely support the new confederation and voted in the 1861 presidential election which elected Jefferson Davis, but he vowed to remain out of the war. Despite his oldest son joining the Confederate army and another joining a Confederate home guard militia, Hinson continued to assert his neutrality and even hosted General Ulysses S. Grant at their plantation home when he arrived in the area in February 1862 following the Union capture of Fort Donelson and Fort Henry.
With the Union victory at the battle of Fort Donelson meant a permanent Union presence in the ‘Tween the Rivers area which was a nuisance to the overwhelmingly Confederate-leaning citizenry along the Kentucky-Tennessee border. In response to the Yankee occupation, Confederate guerrilla activity sped up as bushwhackers took to the woods sniping and killing Federal troops. To clamp down on the guerilla activity by the Confederate sympathizers, the Union army created a zero tolerance policy against anyone suspected of guerrilla activity. This policy soon landed on the doorstep of the Hinson family and forced the patriarch to abandon his neutrality and pick up arms to save his family.
In the Fall of 1862, two of Hinson’s sons, 22-year old George and 17-year old Jack were out squirrel hunting about a mile from the Hinson plantation when they ran upon a Union patrol. The two boys were accused of being bushwhackers and were subsequently arrested. Despite their pleas of innocence, Union soldiers from the 5th Iowa Cavalry tied the boys to a tree and shot them. To show the Union army would not tolerate any sympathy for the Confederate cause, the soldiers dragged the boys’ lifeless bodies back to town and paraded them around the Dover courthouse. In a heinous act, the lieutenant of the company took his sword and cut the boys’ heads off in front of the citizens of Dover and left their decapitated body on the courthouse square. He then ordered the heads to be taken back to the Hinson plantation where they were mounted on a fence post for the family to see. The lieutenant planned to arrest the remaining members of the Hinson family, but was soon informed of General Grant’s stay at the planation back in February thus prompting him to abandon the arrest.
Clearly upset over the senseless deaths of his two boys, 57-year old Jack Hinson secretly began planning to avenge his family. Despite a raucous early life where he had been accused of killing a neighbor in a heated dispute in the 1830s, Jack Hinson had come to be a very peaceable man in his elder years, but he was not going to let justice go unserved for the death of his sons. As he began planning his act of revenge, Hinson sent his wife and remaining children and slaves to live with relatives in extreme West Tennessee. Hinson ordered a custom made 18 pound .50 caliber Kentucky Rifle with a 41 inch barrel which could hit targets as far away as a half mile. Hinson moved to a nearby cave on a bluff above the Tennessee River where he could monitor the movements of the Union transports, and over the remaining years of the war, he would wreak havoc on the “Yankee devils” as a phantom sniper.
Hinson’s first target was the lieutenant that had ordered his sons’ killings and the second was the solider who had placed their heads on the fence posts. The Union army soon realized they were not dealing with an ordinary bushwhacker so they ordered the Hinson plantation burned to the ground. This only furthered Hinson’s resolve to eliminate the abusive Union troops in the area as he continued to snipe off Union officers one by one much to the growing frustration of the Yankee army. Hinson even captured an entire boat of Union soldiers after the captain suddenly surrendered after believing he was being fired upon by an entire Confederate unit. To avoid further bloodshed, the captain beached the boat and raised a white tablecloth in surrender. However, Hinson could not possibly handle an entire boat of Union prisoners, so he retreated and let them wait. In November 1864, Hinson aided Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest on a scouting expedition prior to the Battle of Johnsonville in nearby Humpheys and Benton Counties in which the Confederates won.
Hinson became a local hero and stayed on the move throughout the countryside during the remainder of the war and avoided being captured despite having a price on his head. According to One Man’s War written by Tom McKenney, “Hinson cut 36 circles in the barrel of his rifle to mark the number of Union officers he killed. Union records, however, blame him for over 130 kills – though it’s believed that he may have killed “only” a little more than 100.”
Hinson survived the war and returned to a more peaceful life, but the war had taken its toll. His son who had joined the Confederate army was killed in service and four other children had died of disease. With his plantation destroyed, Hinson and the remainder of his family left the Bubbling Springs area which is now part of Land Between the Lakes recreational area. Jack Hinson died in 1874 and was buried in Cain Creek Cemetery. His famous rifle is now owned by Judge Ben Hall McFarlin of Murfreesboro, Tennessee and this spectacular story of the Citizen -Hero of the South was commemorated by a Kentucky Historical Marker in Trigg County, Kentucky.