The ill-defined area known as "Nickajack" generally refers to the rugged Appalachian foothills in eastern Tennessee and northeastern Alabama. "Nickajack" is a corruption of the Cherokee word ᎠᏂ ᎫᏌᏘ Ᏹ which translates to Coosa Town, but more likely references Koasati Town.
After those wars, the settlement of Nickajack Town eclipsed the neighboring town of Running Water as the dominant town in the immediate area, due to its position on the river near the crossing of the "Federal Road" running from Athens to Nashville over the Tennessee River. One of the town's more prominent residents, Turtle-at-Home, owned the ferry at that crossing and had other commercial interests. In addition, Turtle-at-Home was on the council of the Lower Towns and served as Speaker of the Cherokee National Council.
Cave
Nickajack Cave, formerly called Tecallassee, near the site of the former town, may have been used as a hideout and cache by the Chickamauga Cherokee. Its deposits of bat guano were mined by Confederate forces during the Civil War, and the cave became one of the leading sources of saltpeter for the Confederate Powderworks at Augusta, Georgia. The road used to transport the material became known as the "Nickajack Trail".
Nickajack was made up of loosely defined regions of North Alabama and East Tennessee where popular sentiment remained loyal to the Union, and were decidedly anti-slavery. In the period leading up to the American Civil War, there had been increasing talk of secession by the politicians representing wealthy plantation owners in the Black Belt. Hill country residents, however, were typically poor dirt-farmers and rarely slave owners. They believed such a war of secession would be "a war for the rich, fought by the poor," and they wanted to have nothing to do with it.
Regional discord
On January 7, 1861, Alabama Governor Andrew B. Moore called delegates from Alabama to Montgomery for a convention to debate the Articles of Secession. Delegates from South Alabama wanted the convention delegates to determine the vote, while northern delegates wanted the issue put to a popular vote. Because the apportionment of delegates to the convention was based on total population, the Southern delegates effectively voted "on behalf" of the African-American slaves, who made up a large proportion of the population in the region. The results of the poll determined that the balance of power would shift to the North, where the population was mostly white. Ultimately, the Alabama Ordinance of Secession was passed by a vote of 61 to 39, split along geographic lines. In addition to Nickajack, Winston County, Alabama, threatened to form its own Free State of Winston. These threats of internal separation never materialized, but men in the region fiercely resisted conscription into the Confederate Army, with many joining the Union Army.
