James Gettys McGready Ramsey (1797-1884) was a prominent Knoxville physician, public official, religious leader, banker, railroad developer, historian, and staunch secessionist. In addition to his work to establish railroad service in Knoxville, a mission accomplished in 1855 with the arrival of the first train in town, Ramsey became an important author and historian of Tennessee's early settlement period. In addition to supporting the organization of the East Tennessee Historical and Antiquarian Society (now the East Tennessee Historical Society), Ramsey published The Annals of Tennessee to the End of the Eighteenth Century in 1853. During the Civil War, he publicly supported states' rights and served as a treasury agent and field surgeon for the Confederacy. His family was forced out of East Tennessee during the war, moving through Georgia and the Carolinas before returning to Knoxville in the early 1870s. Ramsey continued to play an active role in the community until his death in 1884.