U.S. Rep. Sherwood reintroduced the legislation in 1925, but at a reduced cost of $25-30,000 to establish a memorial park at the battlefield site. This was Sherwood’s final legislative request before retiring at the age of 96. Again, the bill did not move out of the CMA.30 Congress passed the 1926 Act for the Study of Battlefields to be carried out by the Department of War. The study would delineate a class system for commemorating military battlefields in the U.S. either as national military parks (Class I) or a national monument (Class II). The Department of War did not classify the Franklin Battlefield as Class I or II but noted that it qualified for a single commemorative monument. The final proposal was introduced in 1939, but it never made it out of committee.31 After numerous failed attempts to establish a national military park in Franklin, the UDC along with other preservation-minded residents turned their attention to saving individual historic places associated with the Battle of Franklin, utilizing public-private partnerships. TENNESSEE HISTORICAL COMMISSION FOUNDING: 1919 TO 1940 The Tennessee general assembly established the Tennessee Historical Committee in January 1919 with the mission of collecting information related to the state’s participation in World War I. The committee’s duties expanded in 1921 to include preservation of battlefields, houses, and other places that celebrated the state’s history. In 1940, the committee was renamed the Tennessee Historical Commission (THC) and given the task of funding historical markers and publication of books about Tennessee History. In Franklin, the THC erected several historic markers and played a key role in the preservation of places associated with the Battle of Franklin and the Civil War.32 30 NPS SRS 2006:74. 31 Bailey 2015:85–91; Falck 2020; NPS SRS 2006:74. 32 Harper 2018; Jones and Brackett 2019:3. CARTER HOUSE PROTECTION AND ESTABLISHMENT AS A MUSEUM: 1948–1953 Located along Columbia Turnpike on the south side of Franklin, the property containing the Carter House played a key role in the Battle of Franklin. Descendants of the Carter family owned the historic landmark until 1896. In 1910, Roberta George “Robbie” Hunter (1859–1946) purchased the Carter House. The following year she was elected a member of the Tennessee Chapter of the Society for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, founded in 1889 as the country’s first statewide historic preservation organization, during a meeting of the group in Franklin. After the 1911 gathering at Tennie Dozier’s house, the women were provided with a driving tour of the Franklin Battlefield.33 In 1913 Robbie Hunter married Joe L. Ullathorne, owner of the Ullathorne Seed Company in Memphis; he died in 1926. When Robbie Hunter died in 1946 as a widow with no children, she left the Carter House property to her brother Bennett Edward Hunter (1873–1967).34 In November 1948, Stanley Fitzgerald Horn (1889– 1980), president of the Tennessee Historical Society, a private organization, and author of several books about the Civil War, published an editorial in the Tennessean which advocated for the federal government to purchase the Carter House as a national monument due to its association with the Battle of Franklin. “This house, which marks the spot where the Confederate charge reached its greatest glory, could well become a national museum or monument to the brave men of both armies who fell that day,” wrote Horn. “It should be done.” Horn would serve as chairman of the Tennessee Civil War Commission from 1961–1965 and subsequently as the State Historian.35 33 Tennessean 20 May 1911:7. 34 Cantrell 2025; Falck 2020; Nashville Banner 13 July 1946:5; Smith and Nance 2010:12; The Tennessean 21 May 1911:9. 35 Riley 2018; Tennessean 30 November 1948:10. 67
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