Western North Carolina; a history, 1730-1913, Part 56

Author: Arthur, John Preston
Publication date: 1973
Publisher: Spartanburg, S.C., Reprint Co
Number of Pages: 744

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the ten regiments on either side which sustained the heaviest loss in any one engagement during the war, Georgia, Ala- bama, Tennessee, Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey furnished one each, and North Carolina furnished three. North Carolina furnished from first to last one-fifth of the entire Confederate army, and at the surrender at Appomattox, one- half of the muskets stacked were from North Carolina. The last charge of the Army of Northern Virginia under Lee was made by North Carolina troops, and the last gun fired was by Flanner's battery from Wilming- ton, N. C. The men of North Carolina were found dead farthest up the blood-stained slopes of Gettysburg. 40,275 soldiers from North Carolina gave their lives to the Confed- eracy-more than one third of her entire military population, and a loss of more than double in percentage that sus- tained by the soldiers from any other state. Of this num- ber 19,678 were killed upon the field of battle or died of wounds; and it is now a historical fact, questioned by none, that the greatest loss sustained by any regiment on either side during the war was that of the twenty-sixth North Caro- lina regiment at Gettysburg. 3 It carried into action 800 men and came out with eighty, who, with torn ranks and tattered flag, were still eager for the fray. The charge of the fifth North Carolina regiment at Williamsburg ranks in military history with that of the Light Brigade at Balaclava. That charge gave the regiment and its brave and illustrious com- mander, Col. D. K. McRae, to immortality." ?

Carved on the Confederate monument at Raleigh are these words :

"FIRST AT BETHEL, FARTHEST AT GETTYSBURG AND CHICKA- MAUGA, AND LAST AT APPOMATTOX."

These claims are amply sustained in Vol. I, "Literary and Historical Activities in North Carolina, 1900-1905," as fol- lows: First at Bethel, by E. J. Hale (p. 427); Farthest to the Front at Gettysburg, by W. A. Montgomery (p. 432); Longstreet's Assault at Gettysburg, by W. R. Bond (p. 446); Farthest to the Front at Chickamauga, by A. C. Avery (p. 459); The Last at Appomattox, by Henry A. London (p. 471); The Last Capture of Guns, by E. J. Holt (p. 481), and Number of Losses of North Carolina Troops (p. 484).

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ASHEVILLE A MILITARY CENTER. "During the War Be- tween the States, Asheville became in a small way a military center. ' Confederate troops were from time to time encamped at Camp Patton, at Camp Clingman on French Broad Ave- nue and Phillip street, on Battery Porter Hill (now called Battery Park), at Camp Jeter (northeast and northwest cor- ners of Cherry and Flint streets), and in the vicinity of Look- out Park. Fortifications were erected on Beaucatcher, Bat- tery Porter, Woodfin street opposite the Oaks Hotel, Mont- ford avenue near the residence of J. E. Rumbough, on the hill near the end of Riverside drive north of T. S. Morrison's, and on the ridge immediately east of the place where North Main street last crosses Glenn's creek, now [1898] owned by the children of the late N. W. Woodfin. At this last place, on April 11th, 1865, a battle was fought between the Confeder- ate troops at Asheville and a detachment of United States troops, who came up the French Broad river. The latter was defeated and compelled to return into Tennessee. This was the Battle of Asheville.

WAR-TIME LOCATIONS IN ASHEVILLE. "The Confederate postoffice was in the old Buck Hotel building on North Main street. The Confederate commissary was on the east side of North Main street between the public square and College street. This old building was afterwards removed to Patton avenue, whence it was removed again to give way to a brick building. The Confederate hospital stood on the grounds afterwards occupied by the Legal building, where is now the Citizen office. 4 The chief armories of the Confederate states were at Richmond, Va., and Fayetteville, N. C., but there were two smaller establishments, one at Asheville, N. C., and the other at Tallahassee, Ala. (1 Davis's Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, 480.)

CONFEDERATE ARMORY. "The armory at Asheville was in charge of an Englishman by the name of Riley as chief ma- chinist. It stood on the branch immediately east of where Valley street crosses it. Here, when North Carolina was one of the Confederate States of America, the Confederate flag from a high flag- pole was constantly displayed. There it floated in the breeze, and rested in the sunlight, the emblem-

Of liberty born of a patriot's dream, Of a storm-cradled nation that fell.

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"These buildings were burned by the United States troops when they entered the town in the latter part of April, 1865."

THE FLAG OF BETHEL. The flag of Bethel was made and presented to the Buncombe Riflemen by Misses Anna and Lillie Woodfin, Fanny and Annie Patton, Mary Gains and Kate Smith. It was made of their silk dresses. Miss Anna Wood- fin made the presentation speech and after the war embroidered upon it "Bethel." It was carried by the First North Caro- lina regiment at the battle of Bethel Church, the first battle of the Civil War.

A HERO OF THE MERRIMAC. Riley Powers of Buncombe was a member of the crew of the "Merrimac" when she fought the "Monitor" in Hampton Roads. He saw her launched and witnessed her blowing up.

LIEUTENANT-COLONEL J. A. KEITH. In the spring of 1863 Lieutenant-Colonel J. A. Keith of Marshall, with part of the 64th Regiment, went to the Shelton Laurel country in Madison county to punish those of that section who had taken part in the looting of Marshall, which had taken place only a short time before. At this looting men and boys from Shelton Laurel had broken into stores and removed salt and other property. Col. Keith captured thirteen old men and youths. He made them sit on a log, and without having given them even the pretense of a trial had them shot. . . . Some of these were mere boys. The trench in which they were buried is still shown to the curious. This section was filled with deserters from both armies and those seeking to escape con- scription in Tennessee and North Carolina. They carried on a sort of guerrilla warfare, and fought from rocks and crags. But this wholesale execution instantly aroused the indignation of the entire mountain section. Governor Vance demanded Keith's resignation, and he was dismissed from office in disgrace. " He was arrested after the Civil War and placed in jail at Asheville; but before he could be tried in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Western District of North Carolina, President Johnson's proclamation of amnesty was issued and he escaped trial altogether. In the account of the 64th Regiment by Capt. B. T. Morris, in "North Carolina Regiments," this act is characterized as being too cruel. 6

EARLY SIGNS OF DISAFFECTION IN THE MOUNTAINS. On the 7th of July, 1863, the General Assembly of the State pro-

hin zur vita impresethis is the way mas ont there males he is

* awing aard there, and the citizens all ras on the int approach of the Drive. I have 100 men at this place to grand spring Kirk, of laurel, and cannot reduce the force: and to call out any more home guard at this time is only certain destruction to, the country eventually. In fact, it seems to me. that there is a determination of the people in the country generally to do no more service in the cause. Swarms of men liable to conscription are gone to the tories or to the Yankees-some men that you have no idea of-while many others are fleeing east of the Blue Ridge for refuge. John S. McElroy and all the cavalry, J. W. Anderson and many others, are gone to Burke for refuge. This discourages those who are left be- hind, and on the back of that, conscription [is] now going on and a very tyrannical course pursued by the officers charged with the business, and men [are] conscripted and cleaned out my (if) raked with a fine-toothed comb; and if any are left, if they are called upon to do a little home-guard service, they at once apply for a writ of habeas corpus and get off.

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Some three or four cases have been tried by Judge Read the last two weeks, and the men released. . . If something is not done immediately for this county we will all be ruined, for the home-guards now will not do to depend on."8 Thus North Carolina, the only Southern State which did not sus- pend the writ of habeas corpus during the Civil War, was paying the penalty.

COL. KIRK'S CAMP VANCE RAID. On the 13th of June, 1864, Colonel Kirk, with about 130 men, left Morristown, Tenn., and marched via Bull's Gap, Greenville and Crab Orchard, Tenn., to Camp Vance in North Carolina, six miles below Morganton, "where he routed the enemy with loss to them of one commissioned officer, and ten men killed-num- ber of wounded unknown. His own losses were one man killed, one mortally wounded, and five slightly wounded, including himself. He destroyed one locomotive in good condition, three cars, the depot and commissary buildings, 1200 small arms, with amunition, and 3,000 bushels of grain. He captured 279 prisoners, who surrendered with the camp. Of these he brought 132 to Knoxville, with 32 negroes and 48 horses and mules. He obtained forty recruits for his regi- ment; but did not, however, accomplish his principal object: the destruction of the railroad bridge over the Yadkin river. He made arrangements to have it done secretly after he had gone, but they miscarried. On July 21, 1864, Gen. Stoneman from Atlanta thanked and complimented Col. Kirk upon this raid; but instructed Gen. Scofield at Knoxville to encour- age Col. Kirk to organize the enemies of Jeff Davis in Western North Carolina rather than undertake such hazardous ex- peditions. " 9

DETAILS OF THE EXPEDITION FROM THE GUIDE. They were afoot, carrying their rations, blankets, arms and ammunition on their shoulders. 10 They had no wagons or pack animals while going there. They reached what is now Carter county, Tenn., on the 25th, where they were joined by Joseph V. Franklin, who now lives at Drexel, Burke county, N. C., who acted as guide. They went from Crab Orchard on Doe river-the same place that Sevier and his men had passed on their way to Kings Mountain- crossing the Big Hump mountain and fording the Toe river about six miles south of Cranberry forge, where they camped near David Ellis's. He was a Union man and cooked rations

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for them. On the 26th they scouted through the mountains till they came to Linville river, which they crossed about one mile below what is now Pinola, and camped. They met John Franklin and made him go back a few miles with them, when they released him. The next day they passed through a long "stretch of mountains" 11 and it was evening when they got down on the eastern side; but, instead of camping then, they pushed on, and crossing Upper creek came to the public road leading to Morganton just at dark. This was twelve miles from Morganton, but they marched all night, and at daybreak got to "the conscript camp at Berry's Mill Pond, just above what was then the terminus of the Western North Carolina railroad. Here they formed a line of battle and sent in a flag of truce, demanding surrender of the camp in ten minutes, at the end of which time it capitulated without resist- ance." Accounts differ as to the number of conscripts in the camp, Kirk's men claiming 300 and 12 Judge Avery giving their number as "over one hundred of the Junior Reserves who had been gathered there to be organized into a battalion."

Kirk "then took a few men and went down to the head of the railroad and captured a train and the depot. We had aimed to go to Salisbury, but the news got ahead of us, and we gave it out We had an engineer along for the pur- pose of running the locomotive and a car or two to carry us to Salisbury, where we intended to release the Federal pris- oners confined there, arm them, and bring them back with us; but the news of our coming had gone on ahead of us, and we gave it out."13 "While the militia and citizens who did not belong to the Home Guards were gathering on the day of the capture, 28th June, one of Kirk's scouts 14 was shot at Hunting creek about half a mile from Morganton by R. C. Pearson, a leading citizen of the town." 15 Kirk then turned back, crossed the Catawba river and camped for the night. The next morning they resumed the march, crossing Johns river, and came into the road leading from Morganton to Piedmont Springs. Following this road they crossed Brown's mountain, where they were fired into by the pursuing Con- federates. This was fourteen miles from Morganton and one mile from the home of Col. George Anderson Loven, who was one of the party of sixty-five men and boys who attacked Kirk at Brown's mountain. This was about 3:00 or 3:30 p. m.

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"Kirk formed a line of battle, putting fifteen or twenty prisoners taken from Camp Vance in front. About fifty of our men fired on Kirk's men, killing one prisoner, B. A. Bowles, a drummer boy of Camp Vance, who was about thirty years of age, and wounding also a boy of seventeen years of age from Alleghany county, another one of Kirk's prisoners. Dr. Robert C. Pearson was seriously wounded in the knee by Kirk's men. We then retreated, but Kirk retained his position for ten minutes after we had gone. When we fired on them I heard Kirk shout: 'Look at the damned fools, shooting their own men,' referring to the Camp Vance prisoners whom he had so placed as to receive our fire. Kirk's men had about sixty horses and mules loaded down with all the best wearing apparel they could gather up through the country, and all the bedding they could find, all of which they had packed into bed ticks from which the feathers and straw had been emptied. After our militia had withdrawn, Kirk's men remounted, the horsemen going around the fence, and the infantry, three hundred or more, going up through Israel Beck's field for a near cut to the road above." 16 According to J. V. Franklin, he, Col. Kirk and several others were wounded at Beck's farm near Brown mountain.

"We then crossed Upper creek," continues Franklin's ac- count, "and came to the foot of Ripshin mountain and went up the Winding Stairs road, where we took up camp for the night." This position is near what is now called the Bark House and only two miles from Loven's Cold Spring tavern. They camped behind a low ridge, which commands the only road by which the Confederates could approach, but down which they could be enfiladed. This was twenty-one miles from Morganton. At daybreak Kirk's pickets reported that the Confederates were approaching, "when Col. Kirk took twenty-five men and went back and had a fight with the pur- suing Confederates. It was here that Col. Waightstill Avery was wounded and several others. . . ." 17 According to Joseph V. Franklin's letter, "there were twelve Cherokees and thirteen white men who fought Col. Avery's pursuing party.

"The fog was dense as the militia came up the road. Col. Thomas George Walton was in command of the militia. Kirk's men formed on a ridge and behind trees, from which position

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they could enfilade the column, which had to approach by a narrow road. Kirk's men fired on the advance files before the main body had come up. Col. W. W. Avery, Alexander Perry, seventeen years of age, and N. B. Beck were in front. They fired on Kirk. Avery was mortally wounded and an old gentleman named Philip Chandler, from Morganton, also was mortally wounded. Col. Calvin Houck was shot through the wrist, and Powell Benfield through the thigh, neither wound being serious. Col. Avery died the third day after having received the wound. There were said to have been twelve hundred men in the militia under Col. Walton;

but only a few were in the advance when they came upon Kirk's camp, as they were scattered for a mile or more along the road down the mountain; and having no room in which to form except the narrow cart-way that was enfiladed by the enemy, they retired. Kirk went across Jonas's Ridge unmolested, burning the residence of the late Col. John B. Palmer as they passed about ten o'clock that morning. Two conscripts named Jones and Andrew McAlpin had been de- tailed by the Confederate government, under the late Thomas D. Carter, to dam Linville river just above the Falls for the purpose of making a forge for the manufacture of iron which was to have been hauled from Cranberry mines; and when they heard that Kirk had passed down, they went down Linville mountain by a trail, and sent two teams and wagons loaded with property from the dam above Linville Falls to follow, only they were to go by the Winding Stairs road, the only one practicable at that time.' These wagoners had gone into camp at the top of the Winding Stairs road when Kirk and his men arrived after their fight at Beck's farm. Of course, they were promptly captured and turned back." 18 The buildings at Camp Vance were burned. 19 "There were bacon and crackers there which Kirk's men packed on mules which they captured, and took away with them. 20 George Barringer was another man they met on Jonas's Ridge and forced to go a part of the way with them, but he escaped. The yarn thread found at Camp Vance was given to the neigh- borhood women before the camp was burned. 20 They got back to Knoxville, having lost but one man (Hack Norton) and sent their prisoners to Camp Chace in Ohio. No recruits joined them going or returning. The distance traveled was about two hundred miles."

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W. H. THOMAS AND THE UNION MEN OF EAST TENNESSEE. Col. Thomas was not a Secessionist, but claimed that any peo- ple, when denied their constitutional rights, if oppressed, always had the right of self-defense, or revolution. It was his desire to keep the Southern people united that induced him to enter the Confederate army, coupled with a desire to keep the Cher- okee Indians from joining the Federal army, as some of them had done at the commencement of the Civil War. 21 He wanted to keep them out of danger and to guard the moun- tain barriers from the incursions of Federal raiding parties from the Tennessee side; for he never doubted that the Mis- sissippi valley would, sooner or later, be in the possession of the United States troops. So, he got an order from General Kirby Smith in the spring of 1862 to raise a battalion of sap- pers and miners, and enlisted over five hundred of the people of East Tennessee, where the Union sentiment was predomi- nant, and put them to making roads, notably a road from Sevier county, Tennessee, to Jackson county, N. C. This road followed the old Indian Trail over the Collins gap, down the Ocona Lufty river to near what is now Whittier, N. C. He was conciliating the East Tennesseans who had joined his sappers and miners when General Kirby Smith was trans- ferred to another field of activity. The first order of Smith's suc- cessor in command required these Union men of East Tennes- see to lay down their picks and shovels and join the Confed- erate army. In 24 hours there were 500 desertions. Then followed the attempt to enforce the Confederate conscript law, which drove these East Tennesseans to join the army of General Burnside. This army soon forced Col. Thomas and his Indians back from Strawberry Plains into the mountains of North Carolina, and the white wing of his Legion to Bris- tol, Virginia.

COSBY CREEK. After the Confederates lost possession of East Tennessee it was the policy of the Confederate govern- ment at Richmond to guard all the passes on the Tennessee boundary so as to keep free and clear their line of communi- cation from Richmond through Danville, Greensboro, Salis- bury and Charlotte to Columbia and the South. In order to do so this section of the country was made into the Military Dis- trict of Western North Carolina and Brigadier General R. B. Vance was placed in command. He had a brigade under

W. N. C .- 39

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his command. They succeeded in keeping the Federals under General Burnside penned up in Knoxville, but never did dis- lodge them from that city. After Chickamauga, General Long- street came from Virginia and drove the Federals back into Knoxville and besieged that place. But the exigencies of Gen- | | Jeral Lee's army were such that Longstreet was ordered to return with his army to Virginia. No sooner had Longstreet started with his army for Richmond than Burnside followed him, harrassing his men, and it was to draw Burnside off that General Vance was ordered to make a demonstration by going through Quallytown, up Ocona Lufty and through the Collins Gap down into Tennessee. It was during a cold snap in January, 1864, and fortunately Vance had but two or three wagons; but he managed to take them up the mountain suc- cessfully. Still, when the artillery got to the top, following the rough road Col. Thomas had constructed, it had a hard time getting down the other side. The cannon were dis- mounted and dragged over the bare rocks to the bottom, while the wheels and axles of the carriages were taken apart, divided among the men and so carried to the foot of the moun- tain, when they were reassembled. The guns were not tied to hollow logs, as in Napoleon's passage of the Alps, but were dragged naked as they were down the steep mountain side. Capt. Theo. F. Davidson had this done.

GENERAL VANCE DIVIDED HIS FORCE. After reaching the foot of Smoky mountain on the western side, General Vance sent Col. Thomas and his Indians and Col. J. L. Henry with his mounted battalion to Gatlinsburg, Tennessee, and taking with him from three to five hundred men went on toward Seviersville. Much to. his surprise, he captured an unguarded wagon train of about eighty loaded wagons and their teams and drivers, and immediately started back with them. When he reached Cosby creek Meeting House he stopped his com- mand to eat dinner, but failed to put out pickets to notify him of the approach of the enemy. It was while engaged in eating dinner that a pursuing body of Federal cavalry dashed upon the resting Confederates and captured many of them, including the General himself, who was taken to Camp Chade A. and kept there till the close of the war. Captain Theo. F. Davidson, who was acting adjutant general, and Dr. I. A. Harris, escaped by going to Big Creek and through Mount

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Sterling gap into Haywood county, and thence to Asheville. Others also escaped. Colonels Thomas and Henry, learning of the fate of the rest of the expedition, returned into North Carolina by the route they had come, and Col. Thomas' In- dians resumed their places near Ocona Lufty.

A SPARTAN MOTHER. 22 During the last year of the war deserters from both armies, who generally were thieves and murderers, banded themselves together, and were called bush- whackers. About this time three men were murdered twelve miles from Valleytown, near Andrews, and this band of law- less men swore revenge on the best five men in this valley. Mr. William Walker was warned of his danger, but said he was an innocent man, and had fed out nearly everything he had, and he would not desert his family. He was sick at the time, and friends pleaded in vain. "On October 6, 1864, there came to my house at 11 A. M., twenty-seven drunken men. '' They had stopped at a still house and were nearly swearing drunk. Dinner was just set on the table, but they did not eat, as they were afraid they would be poisoned, but they broke dishes from the table, and went to my cupboards, and smashed my china and glassware. At the time Mr. Walker was warned, I took his papers and hid them, but he was so sure he would not be molested that he made me put them back in his desk, but they were all taken." In spite of her tears and his pleadings he was taken from her. She followed with her sister the next day on horseback for fifteen miles, beyond which her sister was afraid to go; but Mrs. Walker went on six miles further, alone, where friends persuaded her to return home, which she did after one of them had gone to Long Ridge to ascertain if there were any tidings from her husband there. Nothing was found, however, and she has never had any satisfactory word of him since. She had searches made by the government, the Masons, the war de- partment and others, but discovered nothing. When she got back home she found that these thieves and thugs had stolen nearly all her bedding, and had even taken her dead baby's clothing, leaving not even a pin, needle or knitting needle, and tramping her fifteen feather beds full of mud. Still, neighbors contributed to her assistance; but it was three years after the war closed before she could buy even a calico dress for herself. Coley Campbell, a Methodist preacher and

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a tailor, taught her to cut and make men's clothing and by dint of hard work and strict economy and fine business man- agement she reared five boys into splendid men. She also kept boarders and won the reputation of being the finest housekeeper in the mountains. But she suffered : "I wept for three years," she says in her narrative, "and two pillows were so stiffened by salt tears that they crumbled to pieces. . My husband told a woman, Mrs. McDaniel, where he stayed all night after his capture, that he only worried that I might not live to raise the boys; but that if I did, he knew they would be raised right." How nobly she carried out that prediction is attested in the lives and characters of these sons themselves. She died December 9, 1899.

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Western North Carolina; a history, 1730-1913, Part 56

Author: Arthur, John Preston Publication date: 1973 Publisher: Spartanburg, S.C., Reprint Co Number of Pages: 744

Author: Arthur, John Preston
Publication date: 1973
Publisher: Spartanburg, S.C., Reprint Co
Number of Pages: 744