USA > Tennessee > Johnson County > History of the Thirteenth Regiment, Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry, U. S. A. > Part 25
USA > Tennessee > Carter County > History of the Thirteenth Regiment, Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry, U. S. A. > Part 25
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We relate the preceding incidents because we regard these achievements only as among the more prominent of scores of instances in which the men and officers displayed equal courage and gallantry.
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CHAPTER XXVII.
A Brief Outline of the Numerous Tragedies That Occurred in Carter and Johnson Counties During the Civil War, Giving Date and Circumstances Attending Them as Far as Possible.
Nothing like a consecutive and detailed account of the tragedies that occurred, even in a single county of Ten- nessee, has ever been written, so far as we know. We have been informed that Col. N. G. Taylor began the task at one time and found the names of about two hun- dred victims that had met with tragic and untimely deaths in the two counties of Carter and Johnson alone, and the list was probably still incomplete. They were such, too, as will be seen from those we relate, that at the present day, should they occur and be known to the civilized world, would call forth the execration of mankind upon the actors in them, but at the time they occurred the cries of the victims were drowned to a great extent by the clamor and strife of Civil War, and men's minds were turned from these single atrocities to view the many fields of blood strewn with the bodies of the flower of . American youth and nobility on hundreds of battlefields.
These scenes and the actors in them will soon pass from the memory of men and live only in tradition and history. It is perhaps fortunate that the sickening details of many of them have already passed into oblivion. It may be well to preserve enough of them to teach a lesson to those who may come after us, and for the rest, to make such apologies to the future as we can, and draw the mantle of charity over, the actors in them, on both sides, as over the memory of the dead.
While charity would plead for oblivion, justice and history demands that some of the stories be told, and we tell them truthfully as we can with the data at our com- mand at this late day.
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Before relating any of them we would observe that war, and more especially civil war, has always aroused the baser and more brutal passions of men; and that many who under ordinary circumstances are good citizens and seem to possess an ordinary share of "the milk of human kindness," and the amenities of life, in times of peace, seem to lose these virtues amidst the turbulence of war ; they seem to be carried away by the unbridled passions that rule the hour, and are lost to the finer feelings of our nature. Even the helplessness of age, the innocence of childhood and the defencelessness of the weaker sex, appeal in vain to men to whom war and bloodshed have become familiar. Neither would we claim that all the atrocities committed were on one side. We do claim, however, that at this period there was much to palliate the crimes committed by the Unionists. Their homes were invaded and their rights trampled upon in the attempt to coerce them into the acceptance of a doctrine that was repugnant to their every sense of right and to their life- long teachings. They were deprived of free speech and trial by jury, principles which are the basis of liberty, and for which men in all ages and countries have poured out their life's blood.
The hatred and vindictiveness, the crimes and blood- shed which marked the period of the Civil War in East Tennessee were only such as have always prevailed, even in civilized countries, in times of civil war. The crimes, however great, were not to be compared wth those of the religious war of Cromwell in the 17th century or that of the French Revolution at the close of the 18th century. Those who have read the sickening details of these scenes of horror may even look wth complacency upon the milder forms of recklessness and bloodslied which marked the dark days in East Tennessee.
We would gladly pass over these events in silence and not harrow our readers with their recital, but they are a part of our history ; and as history has its lessons for those who are to wield the destiny of our country in the future, we trust a lesson will be drawn from these events that will tend to prevent their recurrence.
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Let us plead for those engaged in them that they were the slaves of passion and the victims of the era of ill-feel- ing and animosities that suppressed their better natures ; and that they were surrounded by conditions that have in all times driven men to deeds of violence from which they would have recoiled with horror under other conditions. Each side looking at things from diametrically different points of view could see nothing but wilful wrong in the words and acts of the other ; and the continuation of these criminations and recriminations, embittered by hostilities in other fields, could result in nothing but anarchy, the de- thronement of reason and a reign of terror.
Before relating what we have been able to learn coll- cerning the tragedies that occurred in these counties dur- ing the Civil War we will say something in regard to the source of our information. We have visited the scenes where many of them occurred, and have endeavored in every instance, where it was possible to do so, to obtain the statements of witnesses living near the scene of the tragedy, and should the readers who have grown up since the war, or live remote from the scenes where they were enacted doubt the correctness of what we write, we invite them to visit the old people still living in any part of East Tennessee and they will learn that similiar tragedies were enacted all over it.
However maddened men may be there is seldom a crime committed without some incentive or excuse for it, at least in the minds of those who commit it, though to the disinterested reader the reason or excuse may appear very inadequate. We must keep in mind, however, that these crimes were committed in a time of lawlessness and dis- order unaparalleled, at least in this country. We have no desire to apologize for them any further than we are justified in doing so for the sake of humanity, and the race to which we belong. The men engaged in them were Americans-our fellow-countrymen, though we confess, that sometimes, when we think how far some of them departed from the usages of modern civilization, we blush to own them. We shall not attempt to relate them
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in chronological order, as it is impossible now to obtain dates in many instances.
As we have said, a justification of these acts has been attempted to be made by their friends on each side. On the part of the Union people engaged in them it has been said that they were deprived of free speech and the rights of a free people to think, and act for themselves. That an attempt was made to force them into hostility to the flag and Government they loved and for which their fathers had fought; that because they would not turn against the Government of their fathers and support a government that they believed had been inaugurated, at least in Tennessee, by fraud and intimidation, they were arrested and imprisoned and driven from their homes; their property was seized, their homes invaded and their families insulted. Harsh epithets were applied to them and every indignity offered them regardless of their former social standing and character. Strangers were sent among them in the persons of brutal and bigoted Confederate officers who treated them in a coarse and ruf- fianly manner. Their names were reported to the Con- federate authorities as "rebels" and Lincolnites and rene- gades-as men without honor or principle, cut-throats and thugs.
It was said of them that only the Southern "white trash" were Unionists, and that they deserved no consid- eration or respect, but should be banished from the coun- try and never be allowed to return. All this, of course, was the vaporings of what was termed the hot-headed secessionists. but it was approved in silence by many others. On the other hand the secessionists of these counties believed, or affected to believe, they were en- gaged in a cause more sacred and holy than that of the Crusaders, who in the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries un- dertook to recover the Holy Land from the Mohamme- dans or Infidels, and that he who raised his voice or his hand against the sacred cause was worse than a heathen or an infidel. They believed, no doubt, their cause was just, and that others had no right to think otherwise.
LIEUT. JAMES N. FREELS. (See page 304.)
SERG'T. J. J. M'CORCLE. (See page 305.)
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They believed that such men as Johnson, Nelson, Brown- low, Taylor, Carter and other leaders of the Union cause were ambitious demagogues and traitors to the South for whom there would be no forgiveness, either in this world or in the world to come.
Thus these men's passions were wrought up to the highest tension, and it required but a single act of blood- shed to produce a climax of revenge and retribution that was truly appalling.
The bringing to Carter and Johnson counties a company of Cherokee Indians, said to be a part of an organization known as "Thomas' Legion" and commanded by one Captain Walters, of Georgia, was the culminating event in arousing the Union people to a state of anger and in- dignation that knew no bounds. That their homes should be invaded by these wretched, ignorant, half-civilized off- scourings of humanity, brought there, too, by their neigh- bors and friends, seemed to them an act beyond human endurance. Must their wives and children, who were now alone for the most part, be horrified by the appear - ance at their very doors of these long-haired, greasy-look- ing savages, who could not even speak a word of English. or understand a plea for mercy? It seems to us that if men are held responsible in the world to come for the flood of evil they turn loose in this world, the man, or men, who first conceived the idea of bringing the Indians into Carter and Johnson counties to harass the people, will have a long list of tragedies to answer for.
Among the first tragedies we now think of was :
THE KILLING OF ANDREW J. WARD.
After the Carter county rebellion, in November, 1861, men were at first arrested and hurried off to prison by the wholesale, but after the excitement died down to some extent, a kind of truce was agreed upon, that Union men who could satisfy the authorities that they had not been engaged in the bridge burning or rebellion, or had not engaged in what was called "bush-whacking," and
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would take the oath of allegiance to the Southern Con- federacy, would be set at liberty. Up to this time there were Union men who had conscientious scruples about taking an oath that they knew they could not, nor would not, at heart, at least, abide by ; for it was as utterly im- possible for a Carter or Johnson county Union man to be loyal to the Confederate government as it would be for a dromedary to go through the eye of a bodkin. But later, necessity taught these men many lessons, among others, that "an oath extorted by violence" is not, and should not be, binding on anybody.
Young Andrew J. Ward, a Carter county Union inan, was arrested by a squad of Col. Vance's men in charge of one Landon Ellis, usually called "Lank" Ellis. Ellis was a Carter county man, and distantly related to Daniel Ellis, the noted pilot, but his father had married into the Nave family, who were prominent secessionists, and his son, Landon, became a rebel soldier of the most vindictive type. It was said that young Ward had committed no offence and was indignant at his arrest and asserted that he was a Union man and peremptorily refused to take the oath. It is alleged that Ellis ordered him to be shot, saying that it was necessary to make an example of some Union man so that others would not dare to defy the Confederate authorities. He was accordingly shot by a soldier named Joseph Murphy. This occurred Decem- ber 14, 1861. It was but the prelude to a long list of shocking and sickening tragedies.
The next tragedy that comes into our mind is :
THE DEATH OF WILLIAM BROOKS.
Young Brooks was the son of Reuben Brooks, a wealthy rebel citizen, who lived on Stony Creek, in Carter county. The young man was also a secessionist, but was not an extremist. He was appointed enrolling offi- cer, and felt it his duty to perform the duties of his office. He was said to be a brave, though not a vindictive man.
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George and Godfrey Heatherly, sons of Thomas Heatherly, Sr., who had always been a respected and law-abiding citizen, were conscripts in hiding from the conscript officers. They lived about 6 miles from the home of the Brooks' and had always been on friendly terms with them, but young Brooks, through his zeal and devotion to the Southern cause got together a posse of citizens and went in search of the Heatherlys. He came upon them in the hills about 21/2 miles southwest of the old Speedwell furnace on Stony Creek, and one of them opened fire on him with a musket or shot-gun loaded with slugs, killing him instantly. He had been advised that morning by a friend who was a Union man not to go, but said he had started and it would look cowardly to turn back, but he would not go on that business again.
This event was greatly deplored by many Union people as well as Confederates as young Brooks was a well- known and a very popular and promising young man.
DEATH OF LIEUT. ROBERT P. TIPTON.
The Heatherly's and their friends were now regarded as desperate outlaws by the Confederate authorities, and renewed efforts were made to capture them. Lieut. Tip- ton, who was known to be a brave and active Confederate officer, who had been raised in Carter county, had been assigned the duty of going with Captain Walters' com- pany of Indians belonging to Thomas' Legion. It was alleged that he went to the home of the Heatherlys and threatened the old man. Thomas Heatherly, that if he did not tell where his sons, George and Godfrey, were, he would hang him. We do not vouch for the truth of this story. However, the Heatherly boys raised a com- pany of their friends, known then as the Heatherly gang, and went to the home of Isaac P. Tipton, the father of Lieut. Tipton, who lived one and a half miles northwest of Elizabethton on the night of August 28, 1863, and called Lieut. Tipton up, and when he went to the window they
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told him they were a company of rebels that had been attacked at Carter's Depot by the Yankees and badly whipped, and their officers all killed or captured; that they had come by to tell him to get out of the way. Lieut. Tipton, not suspecting the ruse, and his brother Elbridge, who happened to be at home on furlough from the army, hastily dressed themselves, and not suspecting anything, went down to where they were. It being dark they did not recognize any of the party. Heatherly told Lieut. Tipton as he was an officer he had best take command of the men and advised him to get off the road as soon as possible as the Yankees were in pursuit of them. Lieut. Tipton took charge of the men and directed them throughi his father's farm to a secluded place called the "Glades." When they halted there the men rushed upon the Tiptons and disarmed them and told Lieut. Tipton they were going to shoot him. There was a mulatto, named Yates, with the Heatherly gang who had come to Carter county from North Carolina, and who was said to be a desperate character. Lieut. Tipton was standing up facing the men, and this man Yates fired at him at short range with an old gun that snapped a time or two before it was dis- charged. It was said Lieut. Tipton met his fate bravely, facing his heartless murderers and remarking when the gun snapped: "You will need better arms than that should you meet an enemy." He was mortally wounded, and one of the men, George Heatherly, it was said, placed a pistol near his forehead and completed the tragedy. El- bridge Tipton, the brother, had stood by, a helpless spec- tator of this cold-blooded affair. The Heatherly crowd, leaving the body where it fell and taking Elbridge Tipton with them, retreated hastily to the mountains.
The Tiptons were one of the most prominent and highly respected families in the county, and this tragedy awakened the strongest sympathy for the family as well as the indignation of all classes and parties, and the great- est excitement prevailed.
Capt. Gregg was Provost Marshal at the time, and Capt. B. H. Duvall, a Kentuckian, had charge of the
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military force at Elizabethton. The crime was laid at the door of the Union people, and while the excitement lasted no Union man's life was safe.
Elbridge Tipton was in the hands of the Heatherly's and their whereabouts was at first unknown. Dr. Abram Jobe, Hon. A. J. Tipton, Hon. Hamilton C. Smith, L. W. - Hampton and Elijah Simerly, five of the most prominent Union men of the county were arrested and informed that if Elbridge Tipton was not returned in safety by the following Saturday night their lives should pay the penalty. These men had no more to do with the killing of Tipton than this officer himself, nor not nearly so much -as it was partly through the vindictive spirit he had shown that had aroused the hostility of the Heatherlys; besides some of these hostages were relatives of Tipton, and all were warm personal friends of the family.
These men obtained permission to go to the mountains to endeavor to find where Tipton was concealed. This, in itself, was dangerous at that time as the Union men in hiding were on the lookout and ready to shoot any men who were suspected of being enrolling officers or engaged in hunting them. When they went to the mountains they, of course, commenced the hunt for Heatherly's camp, knowing their own lives depended on finding Tipton and inducing Heatherly to give him up, provided he should be still alive. Dr. Jobe learned after- wards that while going through the woods at that time a Union man who was in concealment was pointing his gun at him and was in the very act of firing when an- other Union man recognized Jobe, who had practised medicine through that country, and no doubt, saved his life.
L. W. Hampton was acquainted with a family in the locality where the Heatherly gang were supposed to be in hiding by the name of Holly. He went to Holly's home and found that the young man was at the camp and prevailed on his sister to conduct the party there. When they got there they found that the negro, Yates, had Tip- ton in charge and that the latter had not been harmed.
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They commenced negotiations for his release but found the negro disposed to kill Tipton rather than deliver him up, but Hampton finally induced him to release him by rewarding him with a fine pistol. Tipton was returned to Elizabethton and the hostages were released. Had he not been released doubtless they would have paid the pen- alty of a crime of which they had no knowledge or com- plicity, and had they known of his danger they would have been among the first to give him warning. Such are the horrors of civil war.
Soon after this another tragedy occurred which was a sequel to this one, equally horrible and more to be con- demned as it was done under the sanction of a Confed- erate officer, Duvall, and instigated by him.
This man Duvall had the character of brutality, not only by the Union people but by the rebel citizens and soldiers. He had captured Thomas Heatherly, Jr., a brother of George and Godfrey, and a lad only about 15 years old. He was placed in jail at first and then this officer ordered him to be taken to a place a short distance west of Elizabethton and shot. This was done and the body left without burial. It was the intention to shoot him on the spot where Lieut. Tipton had been shot, but for some reason, they did not reach the place. There was no reason assigned for this tragedy except that the youth was the brother of George and Godfrey Heatherly. This act of brutality undoubtedly cost the lives of many other good men at a later date. If the perpetrator of the deed had met the fate of Parker before he committed this act it would not have been regretted, but it was the fate of better men to pay the penalty.
The Union people were afraid to go near the body of this boy to give it burial and it would have become prey for the buzzards or hogs had it not been for Major Fol- som, a Confederate officer and humane gentleman, who was at home at the time and went with William Burrow and other Union people and attended to having it re- moved and decently interred, for which he incurred the displeasure of this inhuman officer. The body was wrapt
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in an old blanket and buried, "uncoffined," but a few weeks later was taken up and removed to his home and buried.
George Heatherly met a tragic death some years after the war.
Godfrey Heatherly joined the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry and made a brave soldier and lived a respected citizen of Carter county until his death, which occurred a few years ago (in 1898.)
Elbridge Tipton returned to the army after his release, but it was said his mind was partially unbalanced by the terrible experience of witnessing his brother's tragic death and he survived only a few months.
A large number of the tragic deaths that occurred in Carter and Johnson counties were laid at the door of William Parker, of Johnson county, whose own violent death, at the hands of Daniel Ellis, we have noted in an- other chapter. His zeal for the Southern cause seems to have made him a fanatic and desperado, in whose hands Union men and women could hope for no mercy. If the truth has been told in regard to him, burning the houses of Union men and turning women and children out into the world homeless, was a pastime in which he delighted. He was the ruling spirit in what was known as the John- son county "home guards," but his zeal and ambition led him into Carter and other counties. We would not do in- justice to his memory, or heap obloquy upon his name wrongfully, but the stories of his crimes have come to us through so many sources and from the lips of so many witnesses, still living, that we can but believe that he must have been a monster in crime and a man devoid of all human sympathy.
We have been informed that Parker was a native of North Carolina and came to Johnson county some years before the war ; that he lived in the 2d Civil District of that county near what is known as Shoun's Cross Roads, and that he was a man of no prominence before the war, but that he became the tool of Samuel McQueen, William Waugh, Jacob Wagner, William Shoun, Green Moore
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and other vindictive secessionists, who urged him on and aided him in his cruelty to the Union people. If this be true these men were fully as culpable as he, and one can feel little sympathy that three of these men, like Parker himself, met the same fate that they measured out to others. It is only a wonder that others still, did not fare likewise.
A very worthy secession citizen was killed near Tay- lorsville, Tenn., by some outlaws and bushwhackers who shielded their meanness under the garb of being Union men, as is well known by all, was done by unprincipled scoundrels in every part of the South, who committed crimes under whatever banner was most convenient for their purposes. A party of these kind of men, we have been told, murdered an old, inoffensive man named Rob- inson, and drove off his cattle and acted most shamefully. The true and respected Union men of the neighborhood were indignant at the barbarous act, and had no sympathy with these outlaws, who would have robbed them as readily as they did Robinson if they had happened to live in a community where the rebel element was dominant. Yet, through the instigation of this man Parker, fourteen of the most prominent and wealthy Union men in Carter and Johnson counties were blacklisted and the sentence of death passed upon them to expiate the crime of these outlaws. Among the men so blacklisted and condemned were M. M. Wagner, John H. Vaught, Col. David Slimp, L. W. Hampton, John Hawkins, R. L. Wilson, and others, whose names we could not learn.
Wagner was arrested and preparations were being made to carry out this brutal sentence on him, which was only prevented by the prayers, tears and entreaties of his daughter. He had been taken to the Court House, and the mockery of a trial gone through with, and he was con- demned to death, but it so happened for once, we are glad to note it, that the officer was not deaf to the pleadings of the daughter.
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DEATH OF JOHN H. VAUGHT AND WILLIAM JOHNSON.
Vaught was a man 65 years old, a citizen of Johnson county, noted for honesty, integrity and Christian char- acter. Having been blacklisted he left home to visit some friends in Carter county, and try to keep out of Parker's way. He was at the home of Elijah Simerly, in Doe River Cove, who was a noted Union man, and there were a number of men there at the time. Parker, with the Johnson county company of home guards, had crossed through Elk over into the Crab Orchard and down Doe River to that place. His name was now a terror to Union men, and when they saw him approaching some of them ran towards the woods. One man, William Johnson, who lived near by, ran through Simerly's orchard and was followed by Parker's men and shot down near the orchard. Johnson was a good citizen and had committed no crime. He was killed because he was supposed to be a Union man, from running from these desperadoes, and so he was.
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