William Quincy Farnsforth established a society of exiled former soldiers of the Confederacy in the caves outside Wicks Point. During the war, Farnsworth fought under the command of Brigadier General Joseph Benjamin Palmer, seeing whites of Northern eyes and sustaining heavy losses at Fort Donelson, Stone’s River and Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, and Jonesborough. Farnsworth returned to Wicks Point a lieutenant, as shy and unassuming as when he left it, but found his fair city in utter disarray, cut in more pieces than pie by human greed, ordinary stupidity, malice, and the naked pettiness of small scores left unsettled. Farnsworth wanted no part of this. It hardly seemed a life worth living. The war had been its own form of stupidity, but life in the army—the daily life, the eating and sleeping, the robbing of farms, and the marching for miles with wrapped rags for shoes—had at least been conducted with an admirable orderliness, a regularity and—Farnsworth always came back to this word whenever roused to conversation—dignity. Such a life was no longer possible in Wicks Point. Out of necessity, Farnsworth took to the caves. At first, only a few stalwart companions and close friends joined him. But in time, their number swelled to a hundred or more. They did not live in the manner of savages. Rather, the lives of the exiles were, as Farnsforth insisted, dignified and clean. The men shaved every morning and did assorted chores. They held meetings and aired their troubles in public hearings, for no society is without its troubles.