[3] This contrasted sharply with the situation in not distant Winston County, Alabama, which was largely pro-Union and provided more volunteers for the Union than the Confederacy.

During 1863, the Army of Tennessee retreated through the county, leaving it more or less under Union control for the rest of the war, although some guerrilla warfare still took place.

During the temperance (anti-liquor) agitations of the late 19th century, residents discovered that by a quirk of state law, liquor could be sold only in incorporated towns.

As a result, all of the county's towns abolished their charters in order to prohibit the sale of alcohol.

It also created opportunities for water recreation by making new lakes, but at the same time also displaced many county residents from their soon to be submerged homes.

Two notable figures who were born in the county early in the twentieth century were singer/entertainer Dinah Shore and entrepreneur/philanthropist John Templeton.

During the last decades of the 19th and the first of the 20th, Tennessee, like other southern states, passed laws and constitutional amendments establishing Jim Crow: racial segregation in public facilities, restrictions of voting for blacks, and similar measures.

Considerable industrial growth occurred in the county in the last decades of the 20th century, including the construction of a large automobile engine plant by the Nissan corporation in Decherd.

An emphasis on tourism also developed, based on Civil War history and local scenic attractions such as the dogwood forests, for which an annual festival is held.

It has a varied geography, extending from the southeast corner of the Nashville Basin over the Highland Rim and up onto the Cumberland Plateau, for a difference in elevation of about 1,300 feet (400 m).

The county is well watered and forested, and except for the steeper areas of the plateau is well suited for agriculture, having a long growing season and mild winters.