McMinnville

Warren County POW & MIA Memorial

The cenotaph of the fallen members of the 16th Tennessee was erected just after the death of their commanding officer, Colonel John H. Savage. It was Savage himself who designed and paid for the memorial, a tribute to the fine men he led to battle. 221 Officers and men of the 16th were lost in battle, over 160 in one furious action that lasted only 30 minutes. Savage, a competent and outspoken officer and leader, is said to have openly wept over the loss of his men. He blamed his superior officers for their deaths, as they had forced him into enfilading fire and knew there would be no chance for survival.

He was a contemporary of U.S. Grant, Andrew Johnson, Jefferson Davis, and others of the era. He frequently challenged their political positions and military decisions. His military service began with the Florida Wars and continued through the Mexican War was a brief respite before taking up arms in the Rebellion, although he was openly skeptical that the Confederacy would ever be able to successfully secede, or even that the form of the Confederacy was a workable form of government.

Savage was a strident voice in the US Congress after the Rebellion and was known to be a gambler at the Faro tables, one who would duel on a field of honor, and he was unafraid to stand for the practical principles of good government. He walked the halls of Congress armed...and his fellow politicians knew it. John Savage was given wide berth. But in the end, he died with friends at his bedside and with the respect of those with whom he had served a lifetime.

04/2006