Bleak House is an

antebellum Antebellum, Latin for "before war", may refer to: United States history * Antebellum South, the pre-American Civil War period in the Southern United States ** Antebellum Georgia ** Antebellum South Carolina ** Antebellum Virginia * Antebellum ar ...

Classical Revival Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the Neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century in Italy and France. It became one of the most prominent architectural styles in the Western world. The prevailing style ...

style house in

Knoxville Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division and the state's ...

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

. It is on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

History

The house was first occupied by Robert Houston Armstrong and his wife, Louisa Franklin. It was built in 1858 for the couple as a wedding gift by the bride's father, Major

Lawson D. Franklin Lawson D. Franklin (January 19, 1804 – April 8, 1861) was an American planter, slave trader and businessman in the plantation era, antebellum Southern United States, South. He was the first millionaire in Tennessee. Early life Lawson D. Franklin ...

. Robert Armstrong's father, Drury Armstrong, gave them the land. The Armstrongs named the house after

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...

' "

Bleak House ''Bleak House'' is a novel by Charles Dickens, first published as a 20-episode serial between March 1852 and September 1853. The novel has many characters and several sub-plots, and is told partly by the novel's heroine, Esther Summerson, and ...

" novel of the same name.A Brief History of Confederate Memorial Hall
United Daughters of the Confederacy, accessed October 24, 2008 The bricks in the house were molded on-site using

slave labor Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

.East Tennessee's Mountain War Historical Sites
Tennessee Historical Commission The home was used by

Confederate Confederacy or confederate may refer to: States or communities * Confederate state or confederation, a union of sovereign groups or communities * Confederate States of America, a confederation of secessionist American states that existed between 1 ...

General A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of highest military ranks, high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry. In some usages the term "general officer" refers t ...

James Longstreet James Longstreet (January 8, 1821January 2, 1904) was one of the foremost Confederate generals of the American Civil War and the principal subordinate to General Robert E. Lee, who called him his "Old War Horse". He served under Lee as a corps ...

and

Lafayette McLaws Lafayette McLaws ( ; January 15, 1821 – July 24, 1897) was a United States Army officer and a Confederate general in the American Civil War. He served at Antietam and Fredericksburg, where Robert E. Lee praised his defense of Marye's Heights, ...

as their headquarters from November 17 to December 4 of 1863 during the Battle of Knoxville. Three Confederate

sharpshooter A sharpshooter is one who is highly proficient at firing firearms or other projectile weapons accurately. Military units composed of sharpshooters were important factors in 19th-century combat. Along with "marksman" and "expert", "sharpshooter" i ...

s who were stationed in the house's tower were killed by

Union Union commonly refers to: * Trade union, an organization of workers * Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets Union may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Union (band), an American rock group ** ''Un ...

cannonballs. Two of the cannonballs are still embedded in the walls, and

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

-era sketches of the slain soldiers are displayed on the walls of the tower. The home now belongs to local Chapter 89 of the

United Daughters of the Confederacy The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) is an American neo-Confederate hereditary association for female descendants of Confederate Civil War soldiers engaging in the commemoration of these ancestors, the funding of monuments to them, ...

and is commonly called Confederate Memorial Hall. Crescent Bend, built by Robert Armstrong's father, Drury, and Westwood, built by Robert's daughter,

Adelia Armstrong Lutz Adelia Armstrong Lutz (; June 25, 1859 – November 17, 1931) was an American artist active in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She organized art circles in Knoxville, Tennessee, as director of the Knoxville Art Club and as ...

, still stand a few blocks from the Bleak House on Kingston Pike.

References

;General * ''Knoxville: Fifty Landmarks''. (Knoxville: The Knoxville Heritage Committee of the Junior League of Knoxville, 1976). ;Notes

External links

Confederate Memorial Hall - Historic Bleak House homepage

* http://www.restoreknoxville.com/Neighborhoods/KnoxvilleCollege/tabid/890/Default.aspx * http://www.discoveret.org/kcwrt/sites/sm-text.htm * https://www.bleakhouseknoxville.org/who-are-we {{coord, 35.9500, -83.9565, display=title Houses in Knoxville, Tennessee Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Tennessee Confederate States of America monuments and memorials in Tennessee Antebellum architecture Museums in Knoxville, Tennessee Historic house museums in Tennessee Italianate architecture in Tennessee National Register of Historic Places in Knoxville, Tennessee