USA > North Carolina > Western North Carolina; a history, 1730-1913 > Part 57
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WILLIAM JOHNSTONE. "During the last years of the war the mountains became infested with deserters from both armies, desperadoes, who lived in caves and dens and issued forth for plunder and robbery.24 Among the number of murders committed by these we recall three of peculiar atroc- ity. The house of Mr. Wm. Johnstone, a wealthy South Carolinian, was entered by six men who demanded dinner; the old gentleman set before them all that his house afforded; after partaking of his dinner and without a word of dispute they shot him dead in the presence of his wife and young children.
OTHER OUTRAGES. "Gen. B. M. Edney, a brave man, was shot down in his own room after making a desperate resistance. Capt. Allen, son-in-law of Mr. Alexander Robin- son, a man of wealth and high social position, and a gallant soldier, after the armies had surrendered, while working at a mill near his home trying to earn bread for his wife and child, was murdered in cold blood, and his body stripped of coat and boots and left on the roadside."
"AN OLD MAN, MY LORD." In the fall of 1864 Levi Guy, an old and inoffensive white man who had allowed his sons to shelter at his home when being hunted for their robberies in the neighborhood of Watauga Falls, was hanged by Con- federates from a chestnut tree which grew between the present dwelling of David Reece and his barn across the State road. The tree has disappeared. Guy lived near Watauga Falls, just inside North Carolina. The names of those who com- mitted this act are still known, and all those who have not died violent deaths have never prospered.
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MURDERED BY MISTAKE. 25 "Old Billy Devver," as William Deaver was locally known, was killed at the old Deaver place in Transylvania towards the close of the Civil War. It occurred through a mistake. He had a son, James, who was a captain in the Confederate Army and among whose duties was that of the arrest of deserters and outliers from the Confederate Army. He thus had incurred the enmity of men of that class, who were called in that country by the plain and unmistakable word "robbers." One night one of these robbers called at the Deaver home, expecting to find the Confederate Captain within. It seems, however, that he was not at home, but that his father, William Deaver, was. Therefore, when this robber called at the house and Old Man Billy came to the door, the robber asked him if he was Captain Deaver. He said he was, and believing that he was the Confederate Captain for whom he was seeking, the robber shot him dead at his own door.
SHOT THEIR HOST AFTER DINNER. 26 Philip Sitton, near the Henderson and Transylvania line, was shot down by a party of these robbers as soon as they had finished eating a dinner they had ordered and which Sitton had furnished. They left him lying in his blood, believing his wound was mortal, but he recovered.
DEATH OF ROBERT THOMAS. 26 Robert Thomas, who lived on Willow creek in Transylvania county, was killed by these robbers in 1864.
JESSE LEVERETT A PENITENT. "In the time of the war there was a very notorious character at large in this part of the State," says Mrs. Mattie S. Candler in her history of Henderson county, "Jesse Leverett. He was known and feared by both sides, as he made a practice of piloting deserters through the Federal lines to Kentucky, taking them through here (Hendersonville) by way of Bat Cave and thence to the Tennessee lines. He was an outlaw and a desperado with such bold working methods that he continued this practice throughout the war, and was not even injured. Later he went to Illinois, discovered the error of his ways, and ended his career as a very earnest preacher."
"A HARD ROAD TO TRAVEL OUT OF DIXIE." Such was the title of an article in the Century for October, 1890, giving a very readable description of the escape and vicissitudes of a
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party of Federal prisoners who had escaped from prison in Columbia, S. C., and made their way to these mountains. They passed through Transylvania county, crossed Chunky Gal mountain between Macon and Clay and came down on Shooting creek where they had a fright at the house of a Mr. Kitchin. He had taken them in and was allowing them to sit before his fire when the Confederate Home Guard appeared on the scene, the prisoners escaping through a window. An- other story in a later Century told of another party and their adventures on Tuckaseegee river in Jackson county. Col. Geo. W. Kirk began his military career in the Union Army by piloting Union men from these mountains into the Federal lines in Tennessee.
AN UNDERGROUND MOUNTAIN RAILROAD. Just as the Abolitionists before the Civil War had what were called "un- derground" railroads from Mason's and Dixon's line and the Ohio river to Canada, the Union element of these mountains had their underground railway to Kentucky and East Tennes- see from the prisons of the South in which captured Federal soldiers were confined. T. L. Lowe, Esq., in his history of Watauga county, prepared for this work, gives some account of the assistance given by the late Lewis B. Banner, of Ban- ners Elk:
"He was a strong Union man and his home was the home of the oppressed and struggling Union sympathizer trying to get through the Federal lines in Kentucky, and many a time through great personal sac- rifice and danger did he pilot men through the mountains so as to avoid the vigilance of the Home-guard. On one occasion he rendered valuable services to a brave Massachusetts soldier, which services were remem- bered by the recipient for many years. The soldier's name was Major Lawrence N. Duchesney. He had been for 13 months a prisoner in the Libby prison, 73 days in the dungeon; was sent to Salisbury, N. C., and from there was being transferred to Danville, Virginia, and while en route jumped from the train and made his way across the country, and finally, foot-sore and weary, he reached the home of Mr. Banner, where he was tenderly cared for until he was able to travel, and then Mr. Banner, or 'Uncle Lewis' as we all are ever wont to affectionately call him, took him on a horse at night through hidden paths through the mountains to a place of safety. Major Duchesny some few years ago paid the family of his deliverer a visit, but his old friend had been dead many years. Major Duchesney had a home at Skyland, N. C., where he and his wife lie buried."
ALLEGHANY DURING THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES. 27 Alleghany furnished several companies during the war; one,
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company F, 22d North Carolina regiment, with Jesse Reeves as the first captain, and Company I, 61st North Carolina regiment, with Dr. A. B. Cox as the first captain. J. H. Doughton, later in the war, organized another company, but when he arrived on the field of service, he found these two companies in such a depleted condition that he disorganized his company for the purpose of recruiting them. Alleghany furnished a great many more soldiers beside these companies, who served in various commands; some in Virginia, some in Tennessee, but mostly in the 37th Virginia battalion. Com- panies F and I were constantly recruited, but when the war was ended, there were not more than 50 or 60 men in both companies. But Alleghany's greatest trials were caused by deserters and bushwhackers. These men would hide in the mountains in order to evade active service on the battlefield. At first they seemed to have stolen only necessary food and raiment, but later took to robbing and murdering. With the able-bodied men in the army, the women and children were left at their mercy. The few old men and others unable for active service constituted a home guard, but were powerless to cope with these desperate outlaws. Alleghany appealed to Surry county in 1863 for aid-Surry county sent about 100 men to aid the Alleghany home guard; these men crossed the Blue Ridge at Thompson's gap and camped at what is known as the "Cabins." They sent four of their number to Dun- can's Mills, about five miles distant for a supply of meal. These four men had passed Little River Church and it was almost dark, when the robbers snatched one of their men (Jeff Gal- yen) from his horse and hurried him off through the woods. The other men turned their horses and hurried back to the main body. Next morning early the whole force started in search of Galyen and the robbers. They found neither; and, after hanging Levi Fender (the stump of the old sapling on which he was hung can still be pointed out about one and one-half miles east of Sparta), they returned home. Within a few days Galyen was found in a few hundred yards of the place where the robbers had disappeared with him, on his knees by a tree, shot dead. One of the robbers, Tom Pollard, afterwards ac- knowledged to the killing, and said, he did it while Galyen was on his knees begging for his life. It was decided by the officers to send General Pierce with his soldiers into this sec-
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tion. These soldiers scoured the country, captured a num- ber of the robbers and carried them to Laurel Springs, where a number of them were hung. Among those hung, were Lewis Wolfe and Morgan Phipps. Later Hoke's cavalry was sent into the county, but still robbery, murder and lawlessness continued.
In October, 1864, the fight at "Killen's Branch " took place. This is about one mile Northwest of Sparta, on the main road leading from Sparta to Mouth of Wilson, Virginia. Here the Home Guard was ambushed by a band of bushwhackers under Henry Taylor. The bushwhackers were concealed in a dense ivy thicket by the roadside and fired upon the Home Guard as they were passing. The Home Guard promptly returned the fire. The fighting continued for some time, when both sides withdrew. Of the Home Guard, Felix Reeves was killed and Wiley Maxwell, Jesse Reeves and Martin Crouse were mortally wounded. This was the last fight of any im- portance between the outlaws and the Home Guard.
A CIVIL WAR JOAN OF ARC. It was in this fight that Mrs. Cynthia Parks, wife of Col. James H. Parks, then living in Sparta, who, when she heard the firing and saw the horses, of the wounded men running loose through the streets of the town, mounted her horse and rode to the scene of the com- bat, in order that she might render what aid she could to the wounded Home Guard. Later on the same day she brought the mail into Sparta. The mail carrier had been fired upon and had deserted his mail. She went to the place where the mail had been left and brought it to the postoffice.
During Reconstruction, Alleghany did not suffer from car- pet - bag misrule as did some of the other counties of the State, owing, probably, to the small number of negroes in the county, and to the fact that most of the outlaws had fled. But still, we find instances where such men as Captain J. H. Doughton and Jesse Bledsoe, the first sheriff of the county, were dragged before the court. Feudalism must not have ex- isted to such a great extent as elsewhere in the South, for J. C. Jones, who was sheriff of the county during the war, continued to be sheriff under the provisional government.
IN HAYWOOD COUNTY. Owing to the remoteness of Cata- loochee creek in Haywood county, raiding parties from both armies figured extensively hereabouts during the Civil War,
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and several soldiers were killed along the roadsides, among them being Manson Wells of Buncombe, while Lewis Williams, who was with him, escaped. Two men named Groomes and Mitchell Caldwell were killed just above the point where the Mount Sterling and Little Cataloochee roads join. Henry Barnes was killed one mile east of Big creek. Levi Shelton and Ellsworth Caldwell were killed in 1863 on Caldwell Fork, between the McGee house and the gap of the mountain be- hind Harrison Caldwell's. Solomon Groomes killed a man named Townshend on Big Creek in 1861 or 1862 with an ax, on account of his daughter's relations with Townshend, and although he pleaded insanity, he was hanged just west of the bridge across Richland creek, and near the present passenger depot at Waynesville, in 1862.
WATAUGA'S EXPERIENCES. When, on March 28, 1865, Stone- man came into Boone he was fired on from the upper story of the house now occupied by Mr. J. D. Councill, opposite the present Blair Hotel, and his men then killed the following: Ephraim Morris, J. Warren Greene, J. M. Councill, and wounded Sheriff McBride, Thomas Holder, Calvin Greene, W. W. Gragg and John Brown. Two days later Kirk's men came into Boone and fortified the court house, which then stood where Frank A. Linney, Esq., now resides, by cutting loop - holes in the walls, and erecting a stockade made of timbers from a partly finished building which then stood where the Blair Hotel now stands and a house which then stood near the present Blackburn Hotel. He remained in Boone till Stone- man returned, when he, too, left. He also fortified Cook's gap and Blowing Rock, cutting the trees away from the road leading up the mountain. He also arranged to signal from mountain-top to mountain-top from Butler, Tenn., to Blowing Rock. Fort Hill at Butler is still visible, and was one of his fortified posts. When Stoneman's men got to Pat- terson, Clem Osborne of North Fork was there after thread, and the Federals chased him to the top of the factory, firing on him as he ran. Just as he was about to be overtaken he gave a sign which was recognized by a Mason among his pursuers, and his life was not only spared but he was sent back home with his team and wagon and all that properly belonged to him. The people of Beaver Dams had a particularly trying time with the outliers, and many are the harrowing experi-
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ences they were forced to undergo for nearly three years. When salt got scarce during the war men cut small hickory saplings from one to two inches in diameter and bound them into bundles and took them by wagon to the Salt Works in Virginia and traded them for salt, the hickories being split and made into hoops for barrels. After the close of the war Union people sued the more prosperous of their neighbors on the border of Watauga and Tennessee for damages for killing, wounding and arresting Union marauders, and in most cases lost, though the expenses of the litigation were ruinous to the Southern men who won. Among those sued were Commodore Perry, father of J. K. Perry of Beaver Dams, and Thomas Dougherty of Dry Run, Johnson county, Tenn.
BUSHWHACKER KIRKLAND. Between Yellow creek and the Little Tennessee in Graham county as it now exists used to live two men by the name of Kirkland, one of whom came to be called before the end of the Civil War, "Bushwhacker" Kirkland, and the other "Turkey-Trot" John Kirkland. They joined the Confederate Army at the commencement of the Civil War, but soon afterwards found themselves members of an independent command which was frequently accused of committing certain depredations upon the property of certain Union-loving citizens living in East Tennessee and in the neighborhood of the Great Smoky mountains. According to John Denton of Santeetla, who had been in their company when they were in the regular Confederate Army, they were brave men physically.
CAPTAIN LYON'S RAID. During the expiring days of the Civil War Captain Lyon of the United States Army came from Tennessee through what is now known as the Belding Trail to Robbinsville, Graham county. That trail was then known as the Hudson trail from the name of the man who first lived where David Orr now lives on Slick Rock creek; but the trail itself had been used by the Cherokees for years when the first white people came to that section. Lyon's men killed Jesse Kirkland, a kinsman of "Bushwhacker" and "Turkey-Trot John," and two other men, one of whom was named Mashburn and the other Hamilton; and probably two or three others. This was done on Isaac Carringer's creek, about half a mile from its mouth. They killed an Indian in Robbinsville, which was then or had recently been
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the home of Junaluska, the Indian chieftain; and then went up Santeetla, where they spent the night, returning the next day to the Unaka mountains and camping that night on the Bob Stratton Meadow.
COL. KIRBY DRIVEN BACK. From "The Last Ninety Days of the War," chapter XVI, by Mrs. Cornelia Phillips Spencer, we learn that during the second week of April, 1865, a brigade of infantry under Col. Kirby was moved by the Federals from Greenville, Tenn., on Asheville, but were met near Camp Woodfin-now Doubleday-by a part of Gen. J. G. Martin's command, and so successfully repulsed that they turned about at once and returned to Greenville.
GENERALS MARTIN AND GILLAM AGREE. "When it was found that General Gillam intended to take Asheville Gen. Martin ordered his whole command, consisting of the 62d, 64th and 69th North Carolina, and a South Carolina battery (Por- ter's) and Love's regiment of Thomas's Legion, to the vicin- ity of Swannanoa gap. Love's regiment reached the gap before Gillam did," fortified it and repulsed him. After vainly trying to effect a passage here Gen. Gillam moved to Hickory Nut gap. Palmer's brigade was ordered to meet them there; but Gen. Martin, giving an account of this affair, adds, "I regret to say the men refused to go." They had heard rumors of Lee's surrender. Porter's battery hav- ing been ordered to Greenville, S. C., was captured on the road there by Gen. Gillam. On Saturday April 22, Gen. Martin received news of Gen. Johnston's armistice with Gen. Sherman, and sent two flags of truce to Gen. Gillam, one of which met him on the Hendersonville road, six miles south of Asheville, on Sunday. At an interview between Generals Gillam and Martin, Monday, it was agreed that the former should proceed with his command to Tennessee and that he should be furnished with three days' rations. Gen. Gillam reached Asheville on the 25th and with his staff dined with Gen. Martin. The 9,000 rations were furnished him, and that night his command camped a few miles below Asheville, afterwards going on to Tennessee. Col. Kirk and staff had dashed into town while it was in possession of Gen. Gillam's troops, but perfect order was preserved while they were there, and they "were compelled to leave in advance of General Gillam." The People of Asheville had the mortification of
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.
seeing the guns of Porter's battery, that had guarded the crest of what is now Battery Park hill, just captured, driven through by negroes. Following the Federal army was an immense train of plunder, animals of all sorts, household goods and treasures.
"Tuesday night passed quietly. The town was guarded only by Captain Teague's company. A small party of Fed- erals, under flag of truce, passed through during the 26th, carrying dispatches to General Palmer, then approaching from Morganton via Hickory Nut gap. At sunset on the 26th, Gen. Brown, in command of a portion of the same troops that had just passed through with Gillam, suddenly reentered the place, capturing all the officers and soldiers, and giving up the town to plunder. The men captured were paroled to go home, the officers to report to Gen. Stoneman at Knoxville." This was within 24 hours after General Gillam had assured Gen. Martin that he would give him the forty-eight hours' notice provided for in the Johnston-Sherman truce before renewing hostilities. The residences of Gen. Martin, Mrs. James W. Patton, Judge Bailey, Dr. Chapman, a Presbyterian minister, and others were pillaged. The author adds: "The Tenth and Eleventh Michigan regiments certainly won for themselves in Asheville that night a reputation that should damn them to everlasting fame. . .
. On Thursday, parties scoured the country in all directions, carrying on the work of plunder and destruction. On Friday they left, having destroyed all the arms and ammunition they could find and burned the armory. On Friday afternoon, they sent off the officers they had captured under a guard," but Gen. Brown refused to leave a guard behind for the protection of the town from marauders. On the 28th Gen. Palmer sent a dispatch from some point on the Hickory Nut gap road releasing Gen. Mar- tin, his officers and men who had been captured by Gen. Brown, because Brown had not given the promised notice of the termination of the armistice. General Palmer also pre- vented two negro regiments in Yancey from entering Asheville.
GENERAL PALMER'S DISPATCH. Following is the dispatch referred to:
HEADQUARTERS EAST TENNESSEE CAVALRY DIVISION, HICKORY NUT GAP ROAD, April 28, 1865.
General :- I could not learn any of the particulars of your capture and that of Colonel Palmer and other officers and men at Asheville on
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the 26th, and as my troops at that point were obliged to leave immedi- ately, there was no time to make the necessary investigation. 'I there- fore ordered your release on a parole of honor to report to General Stone- man. On further reflection I have come to the conclusion that our men should have given you, under all the circumstances, notice of the termi- nation of the armistice, and that in honor we cannot profit by any fail- ure to give this notice. You will therefore please inform all the officers and soldiers paroled by General Brown last evening and this morning, under the circumstances above referred to, that the parole they have given (which was by my order) is not binding, and that they may con- sider that it was never given. Regretting that your brother officers and yourself should have been placed in this delicate situation, I am, gen- eral, very respectfully your obedient servant,
WM. J PALMER, Brevet Brig. Gen. Commanding.
To Brig. Gen. J. G. Martin, Asheville.
PERRY GASTON BRINGS FIRST NEWS. J. P. Gaston of Hominy walked all the way from Appomattox and showed his parole. This was nearly three weeks after Lee's surrender. Stoneman was besieging Asheville on the South and Kirk's regiment on the north. Gen. Martin went out under a flag of truce and made an agreement to furnish three days' rations to the Federal troops-and furnished them-on condition that they should not disturb private or public property.
GENERAL JAMES GREEN MARTIN. He was the son of Dr. William Martin and Sophia Dange, and was born at Eliza- beth City, N. C., February 14, 1819. He entered West Point in July, 1836, was graduated in July, 1840, and was commissioned a second lieutenant of the First regiment U. S. Artillery. In 1842 he served on the frontier of Canada in the Aroostock War, or "War of the Maps, " and married at Newport, Rhode Island, July 12, 1844, Miss Mary Ann Murray Reed, a great granddaughter of George Reed, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and also of Gen. William Thompson, a brigadier general of the Revolutionary army. During the three days' assault on Monterey, Mexico, September 21, 22, 23, 1846, he was still a second lieutenant, but he was in command of his battery, with "Stonewall" Jackson as his second in command. At Cherubusco, August 20, 1847, his right arm was shot off. He turned over his command to Jackson, and taking his sleeve in his teeth, rode off the field. He was brevetted major for "gallant and meritorious conduct" at the battles of Con- treras and Cherubusco, and presented with a sword of honor
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by the citizens of Pasquotank county, on which were en- graved the battles in which he had taken part. He was then transferred to the staff and appointed assistant quartermaster and stationed at Fortress Monroe, Philadelphia and Gover- nor's Island for several years, when he was ordered to Fort Spelling, Minnesota, where Mrs. Martin died. February 8, 1858, he was married to Miss Hetty King, a sister of Gen. Rufus King of the U. S. Army, and eldest daughter of Charles King, president of Columbia College, New York, and the grand- daughter of Rufus King, the first American minister to the court of St. James. He was a member of the Utah expedi- tion with Gen. Albert Sydney Johnston, and was at Fort Riley, Kansas territory, when the Civil War began. He resigned when North Carolina seceded, and served in this State and in Virginia till the close of hostilities. Penniless after the close of the war he read law and commenced its practice in Asheville in copartnership with the late Judge J. L. Bailey. He died and was buried at Asheville, October 4, 1879.
LEWIS M. HATCH. This distinguished citizen and soldier served in South Carolina during part of the Civil War, and, hence, is not mentioned in the records of "North Carolina Regiments." He was born November 28, 1815, at Salem, N. H., but went to Charleston, S. C., in 1833. He joined the Washington Light Infantry, April 15, 1835, and served with that company in 1837 in the Seminole War. He was pro- moted to the captaincy of that company in 1855, and in 1856 he marched his company to Cowpens, which trip resulted in 1876 in the erection of the Daniel Morgan monument at Spartan- burg. He was an expert swordsman, an athlete, and walked from Charleston to New York, when a young man, in thirty days, averaging 30 miles a day. On the last day he walked 60 miles. Gov. Pickens appointed him quartermaster gen- eral in 1860, and the fine service from then till 1865 was due to him. In 1861-62 he commanded the 21st South Carolina Infantry. To him was largely due the victory at Secession- ville in June, 1862. He served subsequently in Virginia. In March, 1866, he moved to Asheville, where he died January 12, 1897. While living in Charleston he was in the commis- sion business.
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