John Sevier was an American soldier, frontiersman, and politician, and one of the founding fathers of the State of Tennessee. A member of the Democratic-Republican Party, he played a leading role in Tennessee's pre-statehood period, both militarily and politically, and he was elected the state's first governor in 1796. He served as a colonel of the Washington District Regiment in the Battle of Kings Mountain in 1780, and he commanded the frontier militia in dozens of battles against the Cherokee in the 1780s and 1790s.
John Sevier
Sketch in Goodpasture's History of Tennessee (1903), showing Sevier pulling Catherine Sherrill to safety during the Cherokee assault on Fort Watauga
Howard Pyle drawing in an 1885 edition of Harper's Magazine, showing a romanticized account of Sevier's 1788 escape from North Carolina (he was never tried by the state)
Portrait of Sevier by Washington B. Cooper
Tennessee, officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina to the east, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi to the south, Arkansas to the southwest, and Missouri to the northwest. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. Tennessee is geographically, culturally, and legally divided into three Grand Divisions of East, Middle, and West Tennessee. Nashville is the state's capital and largest city, and anchors its largest metropolitan area. Other major cities include Memphis, Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Clarksville. Tennessee's population as of the 2020 United States census is approximately 6.9 million.
Reconstruction of Fort Loudoun, the first British settlement in Tennessee
The Hermitage, plantation home of President Andrew Jackson in Nashville
in 1946 the U.S. Post Office issued a commemorative stamp celebrating the 150th anniversary of Tennessee statehood.
The Battle of Franklin, November 30, 1864