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Battle of Kingston

1863 in TennesseeBattles of the American Civil War in TennesseeBattles of the Western Theater of the American Civil WarConflicts in 1863Knoxville campaign
November 1863Union victories of the American Civil War
Knoxville Campaign Area 1863
Knoxville Campaign Area 1863

The Battle of Kingston (November 24, 1863) saw Major General Joseph Wheeler with two divisions of Confederate cavalry attempt to overcome the Union garrison of Kingston, Tennessee, led by Colonel Robert K. Byrd. The Confederates mistakenly believed that the Kingston garrison was weak, but in fact, it comprised a brigade of infantry and a regiment of mounted infantry. When Wheeler's cavalrymen began probing the Union position, they discovered that its defenders were too numerous, and the position was too strong. The Confederate cavalry withdrew to rejoin Lieutenant General James Longstreet's forces in the Siege of Knoxville, but Wheeler himself returned to the Army of Tennessee near Chattanooga.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Battle of Kingston (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Battle of Kingston
North Kentucky Street,

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Wikipedia: Battle of KingstonContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 35.880833333333 ° E -84.508611111111 °
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Address

North Kentucky Street

North Kentucky Street
37763
Tennessee, United States
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Knoxville Campaign Area 1863
Knoxville Campaign Area 1863
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Roane County Courthouse (Tennessee)
Roane County Courthouse (Tennessee)

The old Roane County Courthouse building in Kingston, Tennessee, the county seat of Roane County. Built in the 1850s, it is one of six remaining antebellum county courthouses in the state of Tennessee. The old courthouse was the county's second courthouse building, replacing the original brick courthouse built in 1803. Construction of the new courthouse was authorized by the Roane County Court in January 1853. A local newspaper reported on November 25, 1854, that the building was "nearly completed," but records suggest that it was not ready for occupancy until about 1856. Architects for the building's design were Augustus O. Fisher and Frederick B. Guenther. Fisher was from a family that was active in the building trade in southwest Virginia and east Tennessee. Guenther, who was born in Dresden, Germany, had arrived in the United States in 1844 as an agent for a land company. He had been one of the founders of the town of Wartburg in nearby Morgan County, Tennessee, and had overseen the construction of several buildings in Wartburg. The courthouse is designed in the Greek Revival style with some influences of Federal architecture. The material for the courthouse construction included locally grown lumber, stone from a local source, and bricks manufactured on the project site by African-American slaves. The building was used as a courthouse until 1974, when Roane County's court and government offices were relocated to a new courthouse building on an adjacent site. The old courthouse currently houses a museum. In 1971, the courthouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill
Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill

The Kingston Fossil Plant Spill was an environmental and industrial disaster that occurred on December 22, 2008, when a dike ruptured at a coal ash pond at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston Fossil Plant in Roane County, Tennessee, releasing 1.1 billion US gallons (4.2 million cubic metres) of coal fly ash slurry. The coal-fired power plant, located across the Clinch River from the city of Kingston, used a series of ponds to store and dewater the fly ash, a byproduct of coal combustion. The spill released a slurry of fly ash and water which traveled across the Emory River and its Swan Pond embayment onto the opposite shore, covering up to 300 acres (1.2 km2) of the surrounding land. The spill damaged multiple homes and flowed into nearby waterways including the Emory River and Clinch River, both tributaries of the Tennessee River. It was the largest industrial spill in United States history. The initial spill, which resulted in millions of dollars worth of property damages and rendered many properties uninhabitable, cost TVA more than $1 billion to clean up and was declared complete in 2015. TVA was found liable for the spill in August 2012 by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee. The initial spill resulted in no injuries or deaths, but several of the employees of an engineering firm hired by TVA to clean up the spill developed illnesses, including brain cancer, lung cancer, and leukemia, as a result of exposure to the toxic coal ash, and more than 30 had died within 10 years of the spill. In November 2018, a federal jury ruled that the contractor did not properly inform the workers about the dangers of exposure to coal ash and had failed to provide them with necessary personal protective equipment. After rejecting multiple offers, workers reached a settlement with the contractor in May 2023.