Places · Landmark
Carnton
The McGavock family's 1826 house on Lewisburg Pike, which became the area's largest field hospital after the Battle of Franklin on November 30, 1864, with the McGavock Confederate Cemetery beside it. The Battle of Franklin Trust gives tours of the house, the grounds and the Eastern Flank battlefield.
The facts
Where and what.
- What it is
- Landmark, historic house
- Town
- Franklin, Williamson County
- Website
- boft.org
- Phone
- 615-794-0903
- Hours
- Monday to Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The last guided tour starts at 4. Closed New Year's Day, Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
- What it costs
- House tour: $22 for adults, $14 for children 6 to 15. Specialty tours: $29. One ticket for Carnton and the Carter House is $27 on the houses' pages and $28 on the Trust's ticket page; the Tennessee Campaign ticket, which adds Rippa Villa, is $40.
- Parking
- Free, at the Fleming Center at the end of Eastern Flank Circle, a one-way road you enter from Lewisburg Pike.
- What is there
- A 60-minute guided house tour, and 90-minute extended, behind-the-scenes, slavery and the enslaved, and Eastern Flank battlefield tours.
- The McGavock Confederate Cemetery, which the family set aside in 1866, where nearly 1,500 soldiers are buried.
- The bodies of four Confederate generals lay on the back porch after the battle.
- By 1860 John and Carrie McGavock farmed about 700 acres here and enslaved 44 people.
- The city's Eastern Flank Battlefield Park, next door.
This month
Coming up here.
Nothing posted here for the next month. See the whole calendar →
Nearby
Also in Franklin.
Carter House.
The Carter family's brick farmhouse of about 1830 on Columbia Avenue, the Union command post at the center of the Battle of Franklin. The farm office and smokehouse still carry more than a thousand bullet and shrapnel holes. The state owns it, and the Battle of Franklin Trust gives the tours.
Lotz House.
The house Johann Albert Lotz, a German-born carpenter and piano maker, finished in 1858 across Columbia Avenue from the Carter House. It took cannon fire in the battle and then served as a hospital for both armies. The Lotz House Foundation runs it as a museum, and the woodwork is the reason to go.
Pedego Franklin.
A locally owned Pedego dealer that sells, rents and services electric bikes and accessories. Kem and Bob Harris own it.
Franklin Antique Mall.
Antiques and collectibles from many dealers, in 12,000 square feet of the old Franklin Ice House on Second Avenue South. The mall's site says it has been in business 45 years.
Gallery 202.
An art gallery in Clouston Hall, an 1821 Federal-style building, that sells paintings, sculpture, glass, pottery and jewelry by its artists along with antiques.
Finnleys.
A women's clothing and jewelry boutique. Its site calls the Main Street store the one where the business started; it also has a store on 12th Avenue South in Nashville.
Philanthropy.
A women's clothing and home decor boutique that the Martin family founded more than 16 years ago. Shane and Sarah Lorente bought it in 2024.
The Franklin Theatre.
The 1937 movie house on Main Street, closed in 2007 and reopened in 2011 after the Heritage Foundation spent more than $8 million restoring it. It shows films and puts on concerts, plays and dance in about 300 seats.