Hurst’s Wurst: Colonel Fielding Hurst and the Sixth Tennessee Cavalry U.S.A.

Not every brave son of the South fought against Northern aggression during the American Civil War. Some took a different stand and defended the Stars and Stripes rather than the Stars and Bars. It meant placing their lives and those of their families in danger against the persecution of their former friends and neighbors. Fielding Hurst raised a volunteer regiment of fellow Southern Unionists called the Sixth Tennessee Cavalry, with men from Decatur, Gibson, Hardin, McNairy, Perry, Wayne, and Weakley counties in Tennessee. Because of brutality credited to them during the war, hatred for them has been passed down through generations of families in southwest Tennessee.