Why is Tennessee called the volunteer state?
More specifically, it was due to the valor as well as the number of the soldiers who served under General Andrew Jackson in the Battle of New Orleans. Many of them had been with Jackson before 1812 and had fought local Indians under him. Later, when they heard that fellow Tennessean Sam Houston was involved in a fight with Mexico, many volunteered to get involved in that war too. The most famous of these volunteers was Davy Crockett. There is a theory that the nickname comes from the fact that Tennessee was not a “planned” state. Settlers went there so quickly that it was ready to be a state before the feds had a chance to organize the settlement. Tennessee wasn’t “planted”, it grew, a volunteer state.
“Tennessee has had several nicknames, but the most popular is “The Volunteer State.” The nickname originated during the War of 1812, in which the volunteer soldiers from Tennessee, serving under Gen. Andrew Jackson, displayed marked valor in the Battle of New Orleans. Other nicknames include the “Big Bend State,” which refers to the Indian name of the Tennessee River; “The River with the Big Bend”; and “Hog and Hominy State,” now obsolete but formerly applied because “the corn and pork products of Tennessee were in such great proportions between 1830 and 1840”; and “The Mother of Southwestern Statesmen,” because Tennessee furnished the United States three presidents and a number of other leaders who served with distinction in high government office. Tennesseans sometimes are referred to as “Volunteers,””Big Benders” and “Butternuts.” The first two are derived from the nickname of the state, while the tag of “Butternuts” was first applied to Tennessee soldiers during the War Between the
