Oaklawn
The Absalom Thompson Home
Oaklawn has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places by the United States Department of the Interior Circa 1835.
Oaklawn has held the imagination of Civil War buffs and historians for many years. Considered one of the finest in the region, Absalom Thompson built this brick plantation home in 1835.
It was also the home of George Jones and Tammy Wynette for a short while.
Hood's Headquarters
Late in the afternoon of November 29, 1864, Hood established the headquarters of the Army of Tennessee at Oaklawn. Hood spent part of the evening sitting on a log near the fish pond of the house while officers and generals came and went seeking orders. While confederate attacks and units went awry south of town, Hood told one general, "General Forrest ... holds the turnpike with a portion of his forces north of Spring HIll and will stop the enemy if he tries to pass toward Franklin, and so in the morning we will have a surrender without a fight ... We can sleep quietly tonight." The Thompson family provided Hood and his staff with "a big feast."
Hood, his left arm crippled at Gettysburg and his right leg amputated at Chickamauga, had to be strapped into his saddle. During the afternoon, his horse had slipped on the treacherous roads and fallen on Hood. He was in physical pain and it has been suggested that he used whiskey or laudanum (an opium derivative) to dull his agony. Believing that Schofield's army was continuing to move north on the Columbia-Franklin Pike.