Oaklands Mansion: Jefferson Davis Slept Here

Oaklands Mansion in Murfreesboro was built in phases between approximately eighteen eighteen and the eve of the Civil War, by the enslaved workforce of the Maney family. The house became a center of Civil War drama almost immediately. In July of eighteen sixty-two, Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest routed Union troops encamped on the front lawn of Oaklands.

Five months later, Confederate President Jefferson Davis stayed in the house from December twelfth through fifteenth, eighteen sixty-two, accompanied by George Washington Custis Lee, son of Robert E. Lee. After the city bought the abandoned house in nineteen fifty-eight, the Oaklands Association restored it and opened it as a museum.

The interpretation deliberately includes the lives of the enslaved people who built and maintained the estate, placing their experience alongside the generals and presidents who visited.