Ipcress, my father's ancestors lived right across the river in Hawkins County TN. The ones that you looked up were on my mother's side, so the house has no relation to them. My dad's people would have known it though.
Yes, the house does have a minor military history to it. During the Civil War the Confederate forces were sure that they could hold the town of Kingsport at the Holston river, because it was too deep and wide for horses and artillery to cross. However there were some locals who knew that just two miles up the river, right at my house on the Tennessee/Virginia border, was Cloud's Ford. Cloud's Ford had been a river crossing used by hunters, trappers, Native American's etc. for centuries because it's only about knee deep at that point. On December 12th, 1864 the Federal troops simply detoured two and a half miles upriver, waded across, came up through my yard, and overtook the town of Kingsport.
