Off Cades Cove Loop Road is the Primitive Baptist Church with a cemetery. One of the tombstones belongs to Russell Gregory. After reading his tombstone I became curious about him and did some research.
This is an excerpt from The Cades Cove Story by A. Randolph Shields:
"Near the end of the war when the Union army was cleaning up the area with units in Knoxville and Maryville, the Confederates used the route through Cades Cove for escape. they usually followed the road through the "Flats of the mountians," locally called the Joe Road, camped overnight in the cove, proceeded by way of the Trough Branch Road (Parson's Branch Road) to the toll road (U.S. 129), and from there into North Carolina and on to South Carolina. One such unit, said to consist of about 300 men, some on horseback, entered the cove by way of the old Joe Road on a December afternoon in 1864. The unit broke up into smaller groups and scattered out over the west end of the cove to encamp for the night. One group made camp near the spring and down the hollow a bit from the house of Russell Gregory, who was away from the home when they arrived. Gregory returned home at dusk to find the army unit encamped just below his house and making supper of one of his calves. He fortified his courage a bit with the usual liquid, picked his rifle from over the door, and walked down the hill to demand payment for his yearling. The camp guard hardly hesitated when he saw the approach of a rifle-bearing native and proceeded to shoot Mr. Gregory, age 69."
I think the tombstone says it pretty well. Don't you?
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