Editing Bradley County, Tennessee (section)

===European-American development of Bradley County===
Bradley County was established by the legislature on February 10, 1836.<ref name="goodspeed"/> It was named to honor [[Edward Bradley (colonel)|Colonel Edward Bradley]] who served in the [[War of 1812]].{{sfn|Lillard|1980|p=17}} The first election in Bradley County took place on April 2, 1836.<ref name=hometown16>{{cite news|author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.-->|title=Our Hometown 2016|url=http://clevelandbanner.com/stories/our-hometown-2016,39825|work=[[Cleveland Daily Banner]]|location=Cleveland, Tennessee|date=August 6, 2016|access-date=September 13, 2019}}</ref> On May 2, 1836, the location for the county seat of Cleveland was chosen.<ref name=goodspeed>"  [http://www.tngenweb.org/bradley/b_gdsp.htm Goodspeed's History of Bradley County, Tennessee]," published in 1887. Transcribed for web content and maintained by TNGenWeb - Bradley County. Retrieved: December 30, 2007.</ref> On January 20, 1838, Cleveland, which had a population of 400, was formally recognized by the state legislature as the seat of Bradley County.<ref name=snell>William Snell, "Cleveland," ''An Encyclopedia of East Tennessee'' (Children's Museum of Oak Ridge, 1981), pp. 108-111.</ref> Cleveland was incorporated on February 2, 1842.<ref name=snell/>

Like most East Tennessee counties, the voters of Bradley County were largely opposed to secession on the eve of the Civil War. In Tennessee's Ordinance of Secession referendum on June 8, 1861, the county's residents voted against secession -  1,382 to 507.<ref>{{cite book|last=Temple|first=Oliver Perry|date=1899|title=East Tennessee and the Civil War|url=https://archive.org/details/easttennesseean00tempgoog|publisher=R. Clarke Company|page=[https://archive.org/details/easttennesseean00tempgoog/page/n227 199]|author-link=Oliver Perry Temple|via=Internet Archive}}</ref> No major battles were fought in Bradley County, but several major skirmishes between Union and Confederate troops took place there. In 1864, Confederate soldiers failed in an attempt to destroy a Union train near the [[Tasso, Tennessee|Tasso]] community, an effort that resulted in destroying a Confederate train instead.<ref>{{cite book|last=Jameson|first=W.C.|date=1997|title=Lost and Buried Treasures of the Civil War|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QSJ8uAEACAAJ|publisher=Lyons Press|pages=76–79|isbn=1493040758|via=Google Books}}</ref>

The bridge over the [[Hiwassee River]] was burned on November 8, 1861, by members of the [[East Tennessee bridge burnings|East Tennessee bridge-burning conspiracy]] led by [[Alfred Cate]].<ref>Temple, ''East Tennessee and the Civil War'', pp. 370-406.</ref> On November 4, 1862, a train accident south of Cleveland near the Black Fox community killed 17 members of the [[33rd Regiment Alabama Infantry]], who were being transported to Chattanooga.<ref>[http://www.nps.gov/stri/historyculture/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&PageID=157391 ''W.E. Mathews Preston Diary and Regimental History'', SPR393, Alabama Dept. of Archives and History], page 14.  {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140225031354/http://www.nps.gov/stri/historyculture/loader.cfm?csModule=security%2Fgetfile&PageID=157391 |date=February 25, 2014 }}</ref> Union soldiers under the command of [[William Tecumseh Sherman]] camped at Cleveland, Tasso, and [[Blue Springs Encampments and Fortifications|Blue Springs]] on multiple occasions during the latter half of the war.<ref>{{cite book|last=Hardy|first=Lucina Welch|date=March 1962|title=An Album of Historical Memories: Chatata - Tasso, Bradley County, Tennessee, 1830 -1961|publisher=Hardy & Randolph|page=53}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Shemo|first=Christina|date=October 14, 2005|title=Legends abound|work=Cleveland Daily Banner}}</ref> The city of Cleveland was occupied by the Confederate Army from 1861 to 1863.<ref>"[https://tnmap.tn.gov/civilwar/Civil%20War%20Trails%20Installation%20Sites%20with%20descriptions.pdf Tennessee Civil War Trails Program]," June 9, 2011, pp. 1-2. Accessed: March 12, 2015.</ref>