USA > Tennessee > History of the Twentieth Tennessee regiment volunteer infantry, C.S.A > Part 32
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Having received a good plain education, General Zollicoffer's energy and spirit of independence led him, at the age of fifteen, to rely upon his own exertions for a subsistence. Accordingly, he entered a printing office in Columbia, Tenn. Shortly after he was sixteen he formed a partnership with W. W. Gates (since an
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editor of prominence) and Amos R. Johnson (who subsequently became a lawyer, and was promoted to the bench in Paris, Tenn.) Here he met with disheartening difficulties, which only served to develop and prove the pluck and indomitable will possessed by him. In some letters, now extant, from his father to him at that time, his high sense of honor, and his determination not to succumb to the untoward turn of affairs, were much commended. He also complimented and encouraged him, for "I am highly pleased," he wrote, "with the appearance of your paper, and I am proud to think that I have a son seventeen years of age who can edit such a one."
The young firm becoming financially involved, quit in debt, and Zollicoffer sought employment, first in Knoxville, Tenn., under the veteran editor Heiskell, and subsequently in Huntsville, Ala., where by hard work, strict economy, and self-denial, he managed to pay off the whole debt contracted at Paris-his part- ners subsequently repaying him their portion of it. The printing- press upon which their first editorial venture had been made, was, in 1855, discovered by the Whigs of Henry county, from which they carved a walking-cane, mounted it with solid gold, and presented it to Zollicoffer as a testimonial.
His literary tastes were very fine, and while still in his minority he was led occasionally to woo the Muses in his leisure moments. One of his prose fancies which abounds in beautiful word painting, has been preserved to the public among the choice selections in "Field's Scrap-book." He was said by those who knew him then, to be a model of neatness and youthful manliness.
From Huntsville he returned to Maury county, and located in Columbia, taking charge of the Observer. There he, in 1835, formed a happy matrimonial alliance with Miss Louisa Gordon, and in the following year he volunteered as a soldier and served as a commissioned officer with the Tennessee troops in the campaign against the Seminoles in Florida. He returned in 1837, and re- sumed his connection with the Observer, and continued to edit it with marked vigor and ability throughout the memorable cam- paign of 1840. He had a strong partiality for agricultural pur- suits, and published in connection with the Observer an agricultural journal which had a considerable circulation, and
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the columns of which evinced the variety of his attainments, and his eminently sound and practical judgment.
The great energy, boldness, and ability which he displayed in the management of the Observer made a decided impression upon the leading minds of the Whig party in the State, and in 1841 he was called to Nashville to take a place on the editorial staff of the Republican Banner, the chief organ of the party. He at once made his power felt, and by his zealous energy contributed greatly to the re-election of Governor James C. Jones in 1843. After the election his delicate health caused him to lay down the pen; but he was soon called to another field of labor, the Legislature having on the Ist of November following, elected him Comptroller of the State. He was retained in this responsible position until the spring of 1849, when he resigned. He went into the office without any information as to the routine of its business, and without instructions, but his persevering and untiring purpose soon mastered the details of the bureau, and where he found confusion he introduced system and order, and finally laid down the seals of office confessedly one of the most reliable and success- ful comptrollers that had ever served the State.
In August, 1849, he was chosen to represent Davidson county in the State Senate. Here his powers of intellect and self-culture asserted themselves, and the legislation of the session shows that he made his mark in the Senate and became a leader there among some of the finest minds of the State.
The year 1851 was an important period in the history of the Whig party of Tennessee, and General Zollicoffer was again called to the helm to take charge of the Daily Republican Banner and True Whig, in the hope of rallying the slumbering hosts, reanimating their drooping spirits, and overwhelming the Democ- racy again. The nomination of a candidate for the chief magis- tracy of the State was eliciting much discussion.
General Zollicoffer favored the nomination of Gen. William B. Campbell, and exerted his influence, which was now second to no Whig leader in the State, in that direction. Devoted to the Whig cause, and equally devoted as a friend to General Campbell, the canvass which followed was a labor of love. He prosecuted it with untiring energy and skill, initiating and carrying out -
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many of the measures which conduced to its success. Even when so ill he could scarcely sit at the table, he stuck to his post with his invincible spirit and indomitable will, triumphing over the infirmities of the body. A brilliant victory was the result. The canvass was one of the most remarkable in the annals of Tennes- see, and its result added immeasurably to the influence of General Zollicoffer. When at its height General Campbell was prostrated by disease, and as his competitor, General Trousdale, a war-worn veteran, was exceedingly popular, the Whigs were cast down and well-nigh hopeless, but the gallant Zollicoffer sprang to their relief, snatched up the old Whig banner, and bore it until General Campbell recovered. In the following year, that of the Presiden- tial contest between Scott and Pierce, he added fresh laurels to his political career.
On April 30, 1853, he received the Whig nomination for Con- gress in the Nashville district, and severed forever his connection with the press. Throughout the six years in which he served in Congress his votes and acts were in opposition to the party in power, and he won a national reputation as a Southern conserva- tive, and for great ability, strict probity of character, patriotism, purity, and amiability. These qualities gave him great influence as a representative. He was universally esteemed as an honor- able, high-minded gentleman, whose fidelity to principle was conspicuous, and who might at all times be relied upon. He sustained himself admirably in debate, and if he did not exceed in the graces of rhetoric and oratory, he was so well fortified with impregnable facts that the readiest and wiliest adversary had to look well to his cause. His encounter with the Hon. A. H. Stephens, of Georgia, the ablest and most adroit representative from the South during the period of his service, was a splendid display of parliamentary and elevated intellectual warfare, and was keenly relished by the members. The distinguished Georgian went out of the contest with a high appreciation of the gallant knight whose lance had won its laurels. They afterward enjoyed the most amicable relations, and became admiring friends, the great statesman on a subsequent occasion being an honored guest at General Zollicoffer's home in Nashville.
An honorable contemporary who knew General Zollicoffer well
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in Washington City, thus speaks of him : "In his intercourse with men he was very courteous and polite, and exacted the same deportment from others toward himself. In the House of Repre- sentatives he held a high position, and was esteemed for the excellence of his judgment, the integrity of his character, and the firmness with which he adhered to his convictions. He was a very modest, gentle, and dignified man, without pretension, bluster, or bravado; and yet he not only had commanding influ- ence, but challenged the respect of his opponents."
He retired from political life in 1859, and remained a private citizen until he was elected by the General Assembly of Tennessee a commissioner to the Peace Congress. He accepted the appoint- ment, but came home from the conference sad and disheartened.
Soon after the secession of Tennessee, a provisional army was organized by the General Assembly, and Governor Harris ten- dered to General Zollicoffer the commission of a major-general. He declined the appointment, giving as a reason, that he would not consent to risk by his inexperience the safety and reputation of his fellow-citizens of the Volunteer State. He was, however, appointed to, and accepted, the position of brigadier-general, which appointment he afterward received from the Confederate government. Early in the summer of 1861, it became known that the Federal army threatened the invasion of East Tennessee by way of Cumberland Gap. To defeat this movement the Confed- erate government sent Brigadier-General Zollicoffer, with a force of about two thousand men, by way of Knoxville, to the point of threatened attack.
Kentucky was at this time endeavoring to occupy and hold a neutral position in the Civil War. General Zollicoffer, on Sep- tember 14, telegraphed Governor McGoffin, "The safety of Ten- nessee requiring, I occupy the mountain pass at Cumberland Gap. For weeks I have known that the Federal commander at Haskin's Cross Roads was threatening the invasion of East Tennessee and ruthlessly urging our people to destroy our own roads and bridges. I postponed this precautionary movement until the despotic gov- ernment at Washington, refusing to recognize the neutrality of Kentucky, had established formidable camps in the center and other parts of the State, with the view, first, to subjugate your
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gallant State, and then ourselves. ... Tennessee feels, and has ever felt toward Kentucky as a twin sister; their people are as one in kindred, sympathy, valor, and patriotism. . . . . We have felt, and still feel, a religious respect for Kentucky's neutrality. .. .. We will respect it as long as our safety will permit. ... .. If the Federal force will now withdraw from their menacing position, the force under my command shall immediately be withdrawn."
General Zollicoffer also issued a proclamation which he caused to be distributed over the country, announcing that he came there to defend the soil of a sister State against an invading foe, and that no citizen of Kentucky was to be molested in person or property, whatever his political opinions, unless found in arms against the Confederate government, or giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
The incidents of his life leading up to its sad and lamentable termination are brought out in Part III, Regimental History, of this volume.
One of the most exquisite little poems, called forth by the tragedies of these four years of war, was written by the gifted Henry Flash, to commemorate the death of General Zollicoffer. It is as follows :-
ZOLLICOFFER.
First in the fight, and first in the arms Of the white-winged angel of glory, With the heart of the South at the feet of God, And his wounds to tell the story.
For the blood that flowed from his hero heart On the spot where he nobly perished, Was drank by the earth as a sacrament In the holy cause he cherished.
In heaven a home with the brave and blest, And for his soul's sustaining . The apocalyptic smile of Christ- And nothing on earth remaining,
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But a handful of dust in the land of his choice And a name in song and story- And fame to shout with her brazen voice, "He died on the field of glory."
At his fall a wail went up from over the whole South, each household seeming to feel as if death had crossed its special threshold; and even the enemy appeared regretfully subdued as if they were reluctant to proclaim such a victory, and by tender respect to the inanimate body of the fallen chieftain, sending it by flag of truce to his people and his family, there to receive in burial every honor that a loved and sorrowing city could bestow, showed a sympathy and appreciation of his merits not often bestowed by one hostile army to the head of another. His quali- ties as a public character were well known, but there was a gentler side to his character known only to those who clustered about his family fireside. To them he was indulgent, confiding, and affec- tionate. His attachment to his children was strong, deep, and tender, and was repaid by a devotion almost amounting to idola- try, and was beautiful and pure as it was undying. His loving and loved wife died in 1857.
In the preliminary report of the battle of Fishing Creek, dated Greensboro, Tenn., Jan. 29, 1862, General Geo. B. Crittenden says: "I am pained to make report of the death of Brig .- Gen. F. K. Zollicoffer, who fell while gallantly leading his brigade against the foe. In his fall the country has sustained a great loss. In counsel he has always shown wisdom, and in battle braved danger, while coolly directing the movements of his troops."
COL. JOEL A. BATTLE.
Joel A. Battle was born in Davidson county, Tennessee, Sept. 19, 1811. His father was originally from Edgecombe county, North Carolina, and his mother was Lucinda Mayo Battle, who inherited a large landed estate in Tennessee. It was through this channel that young Joel A. Battle became possessed of large
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landed interests. He was left an orphan at an early age, and his early education was limited, as there were no good schools near him. He was much beloved by his elders, and he in turn showed remarkable fondness and respect for the aged at this early period of his life. In his nineteenth year he was married to Miss Sarah Searcy of Rutherford county, Tennessee. Two years after their marriage his wife died, leaving an only son, William Searcy Battle, who grew to manhood and married Miss Louisa Holt, the second daughter of Thomas Holt, one of the wealthiest men of Williamson county. She died at the birth of her second child. William Searcy Battle joined the Confederate service, Twentieth Regiment Tennessee Volunteers, C. S. A., and was killed at the battle of Shiloh, April 6, 1862.
Joel A. Battle, shortly after the death of his young wife, raised a company near his home, and enlisted in the Florida War. After his return from the war he met Miss Adeline Sanders Mosely, a lady who was remarkable alike for her native refine- ment, her firm, Christian character, and her gentle lovable dispo- sition. Six years after his first marriage, he was united to Miss Mosely, near the Hermitage, and carried her to his comfortable home near Cane Ridge in the Sixth Civil District of Davidson county, to live the life of a quiet farmer's wife, at the old home of his ancestors. It was here that his children were born and raised (until 1861), surrounded by all of the comforts that a country life could afford at that time. (The writer of this sketch was often a partaker of its generous hospitality.)
In 1835 he was elected brigadier-general of the State militia, and in 1851-52 he represented Davidson county in the State Legislature, having as his co-Representative Hon. Russell Houston.
Battle was a zealous Whig, but he allowed no partisan spirit to interfere with his devotion to public interest, and his constant adherence to the principles of right and justice. As a friend, he was as unwavering as the north star, and his attachments for his friends in adversity were as unbroken as the eternal hills; his determination to overcome all obstacles that came in his path was unsurpassed. Nothing that he possessed was too dear to lay at the feet of a friend in distress. Noble, generous, and brave
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to a fault, the big. heart seemed always looking for some kind act to perform. He was by nature far above the average man. He was a near neighbor of my widowed mother, and I can as a boy count a number of kind acts that he rendered her and her children. It was in the company of such a man that your writer, at the age of seventeen, wedded the cause of the Confederacy, from which he has never been divorced.
In addition to his large landed estate, Colonel Battle was a large owner of slaves, all of whom loved and respected him for his kindness and fatherly care of them. As a proof of their respect for him after the war, when any freed man was allowed to choose his own name, almost to an individual the Battle negroes retained the name of their former master.
Colonel Battle was always in deep sympathy with his slaves. Your writer remembers the time when he was in need of money, and he hired seven negro men of his to run on a steamboat that plied between Nashville and New Orleans, and while the boat was on the Mississippi River it sank and the men were all lost. Their worth was about $10,000, but Colonel Battle did not seem to care so much for the value of his slaves as he did for the love and affection he had for them.
How beautiful was the tender tie that existed between the kind and considerate master and the confiding slave.
The Northern people who have never witnessed this domestic tie, find it difficult to realize it, for no one outside of the mother herself is so much beloved by the family as the "Old Black Mammy," whose protecting wing was always thrown over the family circle in the absence of "Old Missus." Her authority was acknowledged by both white and black, and her will was supreme.
At the beginning of our Civil War, in April, 1861, Joel A. Battle raised a company at Nolensville, Williamson Co., Tenn., which he named the "Zollicoffer Guards." It was afterward Company B in the Twentieth Tennessee Volunteer Infantry. Battle was elected captain, Dr. William Clark, first. Thomas Benton Smith, second, and W. H. Matthews, third lieutenant. This company was mustered into the State military service on the 17th day of May, 1861, and sent to Camp Trousdale, near the Kentucky line, on the L. & N. railway, to enter upon the duties
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of soldiers. It was here that other companies came until enough had gone into camp to form a regiment of ten companies, and by almost unanimous vote of the ten companies Capt. Joel A. Battle was elected colonel. This regiment was known through- out the four years of war as the Twentieth Tennessee Volunteer Infantry.
It remained in the camp of instruction until about the last of July, 1861, when it was ordered to Virginia. We struck our tents and boarded the cars going by way of Nashville, Chattanooga, and Knoxville, as far east as Bristol, where we were ordered into camp for a few weeks, and then returned to Knoxville, where Battle's regiment was put into a brigade commanded by Gen. Felix K. Zollicoffer.
After a few weeks of camp life here Colonel Battle was ordered with his regiment to proceed to Jacksboro, forty miles north of Knoxville, on the road to Cumberland Gap. The stay of the Twentieth Regiment at Jacksboro was only about three weeks, and then we passed through Cumberland Gap over to Cumberland Ford, in Knox county, Kentucky, some fourteen miles from the Gap.
Colonel Battle, in command of the Twentieth Tennessee Infan- try, believed that they were the first Confederate infantry to pass through Cumberland Gap at the breaking out of our war.
While Zollicoffer's brigade was at Cumberland Ford, the enemy had a force of five or six hundred at Barboursville, some eighteen miles farther north. So General Zollicoffer fitted out an expedition against them, consisting of two companies from the Eleventh Tennessee Regiment, two from the Ninteenth Tennes- see, two from the Twentieth Tennessee, and two from the Fif- teenth Mississippi, and a battalion of cavalry under Colonel · McNairy. Colonel Battle was entrusted with the command of the whole, and right nobly did he carry out his orders and disperse the enemy. Colonel Battle's little command returned to Cumber- land Ford in triumph.
In a short time General Zollicoffer made his celebrated move on the enemy at Wild Cat, Ky., in which Battle's regiment was often in the front. His regiment fought the enemy at Laurel Bridge, Ky., and next day was in front in the approach to Wild Cat. The
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fighting on the part of the Confederates was done mostly by the Seventeenth Tennessee Regiment, under Colonel Newman, and the Eleventh Tennessee under Col. James E. Rains.
After the battle of Wild Cat, Zollicoffer's command fell back to Cumberland Gap, over the same route that they had advanced, and then went westward down the mountain to Jamestown in Fentress county, Tenn. They then crossed over into Kentucky again by Monticello, to Mill Springs on the south bank of the Cumberland River. Here General Zollicoffer crossed a portion of his command to the north bank of the river, and the Twentieth Tennessee Regiment was included in this detachment.
Colonel Battle remained here with his regiment until the night of Jan. 18, 1862, when his command was ordered to the battle field of Fishing Creek, which they reached next morning at day- light. As the skirmishers began firing, a few minnie balls began to sing about the boys, and some of them began to duck their heads, when Colonel Battle cried out, "Don't dodge men, don't dodge!" About this time a shell came screaming through the woods and passed uncomfortably near Colonel Battle, and he dodged. His men began to laugh at him, and he said to them: "Boys, dodge the big ones, but don't dodge the little ones."
This grand old man led his regiment all through that bloody engagement, in the rain, while the brave boys were armed with the old flint lock muskets, that carried three buck-shot and one round ball, and not one musket in ten could be fired. His regi- ment, with the Fifteenth Mississippi, under Lieutenant-Colonel Walthall, bore the brunt of the day's fighting. Colonel Battle carried into this engagement 400 men and had 133 killed and wounded ; the noble Mississippians carried in 400 and lost 220 killed and wounded; and forever after that day these two regi- ments were fast friends. Colonel Battle brought his decimated regiment back to his camp, and recrossed the river, retreating to Gainsboro, Tenn., with the balance of the army. This retreat through the mountains occupied eight days in dead of winter, and the men lived on parched corn.
Colonel Battle was next ordered from Gainsboro to Murfrees- boro. Here he met the forces of Gen. Albert Sidney Johnson
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on their way to the battlefield of Shiloh. Colonel Battle with his regiment camped for a while at Iuka, Miss., then moved twelve miles down the M. & C. railway to Burnsville, and from there he carried his regiment to the bloody field of Shiloh. Here on this field, in Statham's brigade of Gen. John C. Breckinridge's division, he for two days, the 6th and 7th of April, 1862, led his men to glory and many of them to death. Of the 380 carried into this fight, 158 were killed and wounded. Two of Colonel Battle's sons were among the killed, as stated before, one of them being Joel A. Battle, Jr., his second son, who was the gifted and talented adjutant of his regiment, who did duty all day on the field of battle with one arm in a sling, from the effects of a wound that he had received at the battle of Fishing Creek. Colonel Battle was wounded and captured in this engagement, and carried to Johnson's Island.
After his exchange, Gov. Isham G. Harris appointed him State Treasurer of the State of Tennessee in the fall of 1862, which position he held to the end of the war.
The State funds were taken south on the evacuation of Nash- ville in the spring of 1862. When the end of the war came, it found State Treasurer Joel A. Battle, with the assets of Tennes- see on deposit in Augusta, Ga. The men who were conducting the affairs of the State at that time were Isham G. Harris, Gov- ernor, J. F. Dunlap, Comptroller, J. E. Ray, Secretary of State, Joel A. Battle, Treasurer, and G. C. Torbett, President of the Bank of Tennessee, with John A. Fisher, Cashier.
Governor Harris was with Gen. Joe Johnston's army in the Carolinas until it surrendered, then he came through Augusta, Ga., on his way to the trans-Mississippi department; from there he. went to Mexico, then to England, and did not return to Tennessee until 1867.
In May, 1865, there was on deposit in Augusta, Ga., a consider- able sum of money belonging to the Bank of Tennessee, which was turned over by its officers to the Federal authorities and shipped back to Governor Brownlow at Nashville. Governor Brownlow, in his message of October, 1865, referred to the
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