When the Union army outflanked Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg's army at Tullahoma in June 1863, Bragg ordered a retreat south. On July 2, Confederate units arrived in Cowan. Bragg considered forming a defensive perimeter along the Cumberland Plateau to maintain possession of the Cumberland Mountain Tunnel (southeast down the track), since whoever controlled the tunnel controlled the vital Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad. The pace of the Union advance, however, convinced Bragg to keep moving to Chattanooga. He considered blowing up the tunnel, but there were not enough explosives available. Confederate Gens. Nathan Bedford Forrest and Joseph Wheeler had provided rearguard defense throughout the Tullahoma Campaign. According to local tradition, as the last Confederate cavalry unit passed through Cowan on July 3, an elderly woman stepped from the Franklin Hotel (300 feet to your left) and shouted to a passing cavalryman on horseback, "You big cowardly rascal, why don't you turn and fight like a man, instead of running like a cur? I wish old Forrest was here. He'd make you fight." The cavalryman was in fact Forrest.
