Sam Davis (October 6, 1842 – November 27, 1863)[1] was a Confederate soldier executed by Union forces in Pulaski, Tennessee, during the American Civil War.

Davis was captured near Minor Hill, Tennessee, on November 20, 1863, having been detailed for special, hazardous duty within the Union lines of occupation around Nashville.

Imprisoned in Pulaski, which at that time was a garrisoned Union town under command of General Grenville M. Dodge, Davis faced charges of espionage and steadfastly refused to reveal the names of his informants.

After Davis was found guilty, General Dodge announced that he should be hanged on a hill described by a report from the Cincinnati Daily Commercial as "a pretty eminence, north east of Pulaski, and overlooking the town."

As he was trundled along to the hanging site atop his own coffin, Union soldiers alongside the bumpy wagon road shouted out their entreaties for his cooperation, lest they have to watch the grim execution.

The Provost Marshal took off the prisoner's hat, for his hands were tied behind him, and then Chaplain Young, of the 81st Ohio, addressed a throne of mercy in behalf of his soul.

Then he implored God's blessing upon our whole country – that sweet peace might soon return again – that the time when war should no longer be waged might come even speedily; and every breathing heart in that vast multitude said, 'Amen!

That night, the Daily Commercial reported, "evergreens were planted, and now sigh in the wild wintery winds o'er his grave, while flowers culled by fair hands, were strewn upon it.

Most of the rural counties surrounding Nashville were only nominally under Union control, and this 'no-man's land' witnessed over three years of bloody internecine conflict and the steady dissolution of the institution of slavery.

The Provost Marshal records for Middle Tennessee offer evidence of scores of execution on espionage charges, with not all the victims receiving trials (as Davis did).

In 1866 Davis's father erected the first monument to his son, a twenty-five foot shaft of Italian marble, at the back of the family's plantation home outside Smyrna.

The Sam Davis story became part of a broader social memory only in the mid-1890s and chiefly through the efforts of Sumner Archibald Cunningham, the founding editor of Confederate Veteran magazine.

When an early subscriber to the magazine submitted a school oration about Davis for publication, Cunningham rejected it, "feeling that there were so many equally worthy heroes it would hardly be fair to print this special eulogy."

By summer's end, Cunningham launched a fundraising drive for a monument to Davis's memory to be erected on the Tennessee State Capitol grounds in Nashville.

Today, representations of the life and death of Sam Davis mark the historical and geographical landscapes of the Middle Tennessee heartland.

[10] Monuments commemorating him stand at the scene of his execution and on the court square in Pulaski; at his childhood home outside Smyrna, Tennessee; and in the form of a life-size statue positioned prominently on the southeast corner of the state capitol grounds in Nashville.

An exhibition case of Sam Davis artifacts—including the overcoat worn at the time of his arrest and the boot in which papers were concealed—is on permanent display at the Tennessee State Museum.

Over the years, archivists at the Tennessee State Library and Archives have procured and catalogued scores of documents: firsthand recollections, poems, commemorative speeches, at least four published biographies, and the papers of the Sam Davis Memorial Association.

[10] In the 1950s the "Sam Davis Story" was turned into a theatrical production performed to packed houses in Nashville, and later became the basis of a radio drama broadcast to U.S. troops overseas under the title "Honor Bound".

In 1999, however, the Black Caucus of Tennessee state legislators erected a monument within fifteen feet of the Davis statue to the victims of the Middle Passage who died en route to slavery in the Americas.

This drew protests from the Sons of Confederate Veterans who called the proximate placement of the monument to the Davis statue "a foolish little sophomoric prank."

A spokesperson for the Black Caucus claimed no intent "to disrespect a Confederate soldier or have it overshadow him in any way" adding that the location for the monument to slavery's victims within the State Capitol grounds was determined by horticultural factors alone.