The Hurst Nation
Located in Northwest McNairy County, Tennessee
As I wander through the internet searching for information about my relatives, it's sometimes difficult to separate the facts of a person's life from the lore that has built up around time in which they lived. We "see through a glass darkly" when we try to piece together the lives of our ancestors. Take for example my great-uncle to the sixth power, Col. Fielding Hurst. He is a man with a complicated legacy.
Some "truths" about Fielding Hurst (according to http://www.fieldinghurst.com/) are that he was a Union loyalist who led a cavalry regiment during the Civil War that earned a reputation for doling out harsh punishment on his Confederate neighbors. He and his regiment are credited/blamed for burning parts of Jackson, TN and for burning his hometown of Purdy. The fact that Fielding's house survived the burning of Purdy probably didn't do much to endear him to his Confederate neighbors. Years after his death his name continued to be villified in his home county, so much so that the historical marker pictured above was rejected by the town of Purdy and had to be placed along Highway 54 South in Bethel Springs instead. Perhaps the marker would have been better received if it read:"In this section lived numerous members of the Hurst family,
who betrayed their Confederate brethren
and fought for the Yankee north.
Its most notorious member was Col. Fielding Hurst,
commander of the renegade 6th Tenn. Calvalry,
a traitorous Union group
which pillaged and plundered
for various Federal commanders in the area."
Here is a link to some additional information
about Fielding Hurst's home in Purdy, Tennessee.
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