Rutledge is a city in and the county chair of Grainger County, Tennessee. The city is part of both the Knoxville metropolitan Place and the Morristown metropolitan area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total population of 1,321.

Rutledge was customary and incorporated in 1797 and named for General George Rutledge, a prominent citizen in user-friendly Sullivan County. At the grow old of its incorporation, it became the first municipality to have its own police department in Grainger County. In 1801, Rutledge became the ascribed county seat of Grainger County, a distinction that had been shared by several communities before the county’s formation in 1796. Rutledge prospered in the prematurely 19th century in ration due to its event along the Federal Road (present morning US 11W), which associated New Orleans and Virginia. The road intersected the Wilderness Road (present hours of daylight US 25E) at Bean Station, just east of Rutledge.

In the 1820s, President Andrew Johnson, who worked as a tailor in Greeneville, briefly operated a tailor shop in Rutledge. In 1976, a replica of Johnson’s tailor shop was erected upon the Grainger County Courthouse lawn.

During the U.S. Civil War, guerilla war largely paralyzed Grainger County. In December 1863, Confederate General James Longstreet, who had earlier futile to wrest Knoxville from Union forces, passed through Rutledge en route to winter quarters at Russellville. On December 14, in what became known as the Battle of Bean’s Station, Longstreet attacked a Union coldness that had been pursuing him. The Confederates fruitless to verbal abuse the element of surprise, and the Union forces were practiced to retain out until reinforcements arrived. While Longstreet was victorious, Union forces were clever to retreat to fortifications at Blaine, and Longstreet subsequently abandoned the attack and continued eastward to Russellville.