Robert Hatton Hodsden (November 23, 1806 – June 18, 1864) was an American physician, planter, and politician who served three terms in the Tennessee House of Representatives (1841–1845, 1861–1862).
He worked as a government physician on the Cherokee removal ("Trail of Tears") in 1838, and served as president of the East Tennessee Medical Society in the mid-1850s.
A Southern Unionist during the Civil War, Hodsden represented Sevier County at the East Tennessee Convention in 1861, and was later arrested by Confederate authorities.
In 1838, Hodsden worked as a government physician on the Trail of Tears, the operation in which the Cherokee were removed from their homelands in the southeastern United States to Oklahoma.
[1] A Whig and supporter of Henry Clay, Hodsden was elected to Blount County's seat in the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1841, and was reelected in 1843.
[6] In 1857, he was elected president of the East Tennessee Medical Society,[1] and delivered an address, "On the Advancement of the Profession of Medicine," at the group's convention the following year.
[9] In June 1861, Hodsden attended the Greeneville session of the East Tennessee Convention as a member of the Sevier County delegation.
[13] In November 1861, Hodsden delivered a speech in Sevierville in which he noted he had only taken the oath to the provisional Confederate government, and proclaimed that he was a "stronger Union man today than ever."
[12] Amid the Confederate crackdown during the weeks following the East Tennessee bridge burnings, Hodsden was arrested and charged with treason in December 1861.