The Rhea County Spartans

Walden’s Ridge, directly ahead, was a natural obstacle to east-west military movements during the war. In 1862–1863, Confederate authorities ordered three Rhea County cavalry companies to patrol the passes there between Emory Gap (north) and Sale Creek (south) to keep Federal forces out of the Tennessee River Valley. In the summer of 1862, thirty young, socially prominent women organized a nonmilitary unit called the Spartans.