Hangings at the Depot

After Unionists burned several East Tennessee railroad bridges on November 9, 1861, Confederate engineer Col. Danville Leadbetter soon arrived to rebuild the bridges and capture the perpetrators. Later that month, his forces captured Henry Fry, Jacob Hinshaw, and Hugh Self and confined them in the Greeneville jail. A court martial convicted them on the morning of November 30 and sentenced them to death by hanging. Self's sentence was commuted to imprisonment because he was only 16 years old.