Carnton

Carnton is an 1826 plantation house in Franklin, Tennessee, built with enslaved labor for Randal McGavock. Today it is a Battle of Franklin Trust museum, on the National Register since 1973.

After the Battle of Franklin on November 30, 1864, Carnton became the largest Confederate field hospital. Roughly 300 wounded were treated inside, and at least 150 of them died the first night.

The bodies of 4 generals, Patrick Cleburne, John Adams, Otho Strahl, and Hiram Granbury, were laid on the back porch. Blood still stains the floors, heaviest in the room used for surgery.

In 1866 John and Carrie McGavock set aside 2 acres beside the house to rebury the battle’s dead. Nearly 1,500 Confederate soldiers lie there, the largest privately owned military cemetery in the country.

Visitors and staff report a woman in a long dark dress pacing the back porch, gazing toward the cemetery. The story goes she is Carrie McGavock, still tending her wounded and her graves.

Soldiers cross the fields in other accounts, alone or in groups. Guides tell of a general, most often named as Cleburne, walking the porch where his body lay or riding the battlefield.

Guests describe shadowy figures in 19th-century clothes slipping around corners or through closed doors, and heavy, boot-like footsteps in hallways that turn out to be empty.

The Tennessee State Library and Archives’ “Tennessee Myths and Legends” exhibit calls Carnton the state’s most haunted building. It logs charging horses, gunfire, graveyard moans, and children peering from windows with none inside.

Guided house tours run 7 days a week, no reservation needed, last tour 4 pm, grounds close 5 pm. Tour formats include one on the enslaved community that built and ran the place.