USA > Tennessee > Bradley County > History of the rebellion in Bradley County, East Tennessee > Part 13
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We shall now drop the family of Mr. Bryant, until the history of the other brings the two again in contact, when we shall elucidate them in connection or separately, as the case may be, to the end of the chapter.
Mr. Stonecypher at the breaking out of the rebellion, was not far from sixty years of age. Though never for- ward as a public man, and though he was now unable, from ill health, to influence any, for or against the rebel- lion beyond the circle of his own family, was neverthe- less, soon known to both parties as an unwavering Union man. This fact, surrounded as Mr. Stonecypher was with hundreds of rebel citizen informers, could not long remain a secret from the notable Capt. Brown, then en- camped with his men at Cleveland.
Some time in December, 1861, Capt. Brown ordered the arrest of old Mr. Stonecypher, sending about twenty men to execute the command and bring him a prisoner to Cleveland. Among these were James Miller, Wm. Brit- tain, Berry Gillian, and others, dressed in citizens garb, neighbors of Mr. Stonecypher, living some of them not more than a mile from his house.
These and many other rebels in the third district acted in the double capacity of informers and soldiers, first informing, then as rebel soldiers under Brown's instruc- tions, arresting those whom they had reported.
Mr. Stonecypher was taken to the rebel camp at Cleve- land, and by Brown confined in the guard-house. After enduring for a short time, the hardships common to that as a place of disciplinary punishment concocted by Brown, he succeeded in obtaining a hearing before his majesty, the only result of which was, that he was insultingly told that he was marked for Tuscaloosa. After being under
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guard four days, and becoming fully satisfied that Tus- caloosa was his intended doom, he obtained the privilege of addressing a letter to his family. In this letter he stated to his wife, that every time a Southern train stopped at the depot he expected to be put on board for Tuscaloosa. Receiving the letter, Mrs. Stonecypher and John her eldest boy, a lad perhaps between sixteen and eighteen, hastened to Cleveland, a distance of eleven miles, where the old lady appealed to Brown and others in behalf of her husband. She proposed to have him put on trial, and his case investigated. Failing in this, Brown in particular, refusing to give her husband a trial, she appealed to their honor and sense of justice, informing them that on account of his age and feebleness her hus- band could do them nor the rebellion any harm, that he had not been off the farm for weeks before they brought him to Cleveland, and though he was a Union man, he had conspired with no one, nor influenced any against their cause.
She told Brown that if he sent her husband to Tusca- loosa it would be the means of his death, and that imme- diately; and that it looked. to her like great cruelty to send a man of his age, and one in his condition, to a Southern prison, when it was evident that it would cost him his life, and all for no crime, only that he did not think as they did about the rebellion. This effort how- ever, was as fruitless as the other, and as she could avail nothing, Mrs. Stonecypher returned to her home, if not in utter despair, yet with less hope than ever before, that her husband could be saved. The boy, however, in view of some further effort or something of the kind, did not return with his mother, but remained with the intention of following her the next morning. The next morning came, but when the hour drew near that he was to part with his father, all appeals thus far having proved in vain, the intensity of his feelings suggested one more method, as yet untried, by which his father possibly might be saved. The boy went to Brown and offered to take his father's place and as a prisoner submit to his father's fate,
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whatever it might be, if on these conditions his father could be released, or as the boy's mother expressed it, " offered to yield up his own life to save the life of his father." Brown told the boy that if he would enlist as a rebel soldier, and obligate himself to fight like the other rebel soldiers for the rebellion, he would release his father. To promise faithfully from his heart to do all this, is what, perhaps, the boy never did; but his father's life was at stake, there was no other salvation, he immediately enlisted, his father was released and went home instead of himself.
On releasing the old gentleman, Brown put a guard over him, with instructions to the guard to take him immediately out of camp and out of Cleveland, and to go with him toward his home until he was three miles away. Mr. Stonecypher had walked but a short distance after the guard left him, before a gang of rebels from camp overtook him and insisted that he should guide them to his nephews, a Union man, whom they were in pursuit of. The old gentleman objected to this, saying that it would take him three miles out of his way, and if he was com- pelled to act he could direct them, so that it would be the same to them as for him to go with them. They cursed him, and told him that they would trust to none of his directions, and if he made any further objections they would take him back to Cleveland. He went with them, and was not released until he had revealed to them the residence of his nephew.
The old gentleman finally reached home in comparative safety, but not without manifest injury to his already sinking constitution from the mental vexation and rough physical treatment occasioned by his arrest and imprison- ment.
Young Stonecypher having thus enlisted, was put into Capt. Dunn's company, serving in the same regiment with .Brown. Not long after this regiment was ordered to the field at Knoxville. The boy was in fact unfit for a soldier, not only being too young, but constitutionally incapable, especially in the cold of winter, of bearing up under the effects of a sudden change from the quiet and comforts of
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home, to the hardships and privations of camp life. It was evident to many of his friends at the time, that his enlistment was the forfeiture of his life. He enlisted some time in December, and although in camp at Cleve- land but a short time, his health began to fail before his regiment was ordered to the field, and he died on the 6th of January, 1862, at Knoxville, serving in the rebel ranks, perhaps scarcely one month.
Though young Stonecypher was serving the rebels against his will, he was an obedient and submissive soldier, easily imposed upon, a proper subject for the abuse of indolent and tyrannical rebel officers. The same day he died, he was made to perform double duty as camp or picket guard, being compelled to stand not only his own hours, but in addition as one tour, those of another, when it was known to every reasonable man in his company, that he was not nor had been for days, fit to perform any duty whatever. His double duty being ended he went into his tent, laid himself down in his blanket and never woke again.
The mournful fate of this virtuous and loyal youth, whose filial affection, saved the life of his father, for the time, only at the sacrifice of his own, is one of that long catalogue of crimes that will confront the spirit of his brutal murderer in the day of final reckoning, if it does not before.
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Brown's object in hurrying old Mr. Stonecypher imme- diately out of camp and out of sight, as soon as released, is not altogether clear. The only plausible explanation seems to be the following :
Conscious of his own abominable villainy in arresting and imprisoning such a man, also in compelling his son to enlist to save his father from Tuscaloosa, and knowing that the Union people, as far as they had a knowledge of the transaction, looked upon the whole as in keeping with his usual course, Brown, perhaps felt it for his interest to close the matter up as much in the dark as possible. Had Mr. Stonecypher been permitted to communicate freely among his friends in Cleveland for a day, or even for a
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few hours after his release, immediately revealing the fact that his son was sacrificed to effect it, the general in- dignation would have been more deep and wide-spread at the time, and the atrocity more likely to reach the ears of some of Brown's own party not altogether imbruted like himself. As a bar to these possible contingences Mr. Stonecypher was slipped away, which, together with being captured by the gang of guerrillas, prevented him from communicating with any person till six or seven miles from Cleveland.
From the death of this boy at Knoxville till the summer of 1863, the family of Mr. Stonecypher escaped, perhaps, with as little injury from the rebels as the generality of Union people in the third district. In fact, the condition of the family after and in consequence of the death of this boy, and in consequence of the feeble health of the old gentleman, enhanced by the treatment he received from Brown, was such that none but the most abandoned even among the rebels, would have entertained a thought of offering any of its members further molestation.
A younger son was still left, who in the summer of 1863 passed his sixteenth birthday. He must be eighteen, however, before he could be reached by the rebel con- script law. But few fears, therefore, were entertained by his parents that he would be taken from them, as it was easily presumed that before two years longer Tennessee would be wrested from the hands of the rebels. Past ex- perience, however, might have suggested that neither these nor any other considerations were perfect security to any one under the reign of the Southern Rebellion.
The war had now lasted nearly two years and a half. Its novelty had worn off, and its pressure began to be se- verely felt among all classes at the South. The sons of many rebel families who enlisted in the spring of 1861 had grown tired of the service, and were anxious to return to their homes. Among other things, as a method of relief, a system of substitution began to be resorted to, which, from the abominable wickednes of the rebels, was soon brought into general use.
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Among the rebel families in Northern Georgia, who in the summer of 1863, attempted to avail themselves of the benefit of this system of substitution, was that of Mr. John Bryant, the family contrasted with that of Mr. Stonecypher's at the commencement of this narrative.
A son of Mr. Bryant enlisted in the rebel army in 1861, and had served on the Potomac till June, 1863. This son now felt that he had passed through his share of bloody battles to liberate the South, an opinion in which his father and the rest of his family coincided, and as his father was rich he felt that the rest of his term might be substituted by wealth in the person of some other soldier. Accordingly, Mr. Bryant offered $2,500 for a substitute to take the place of his son in the rebel army on the Poto- mac. This bid, however, was not altogether a public one, a bid that should become a contract with the person who should first offer himself as the desired substitute, himself to receive the bounty; but the bid was made to rebel substitute brokers, who were making it a regular business to arrest or kidnap Union boys and Union men, and sell them to rich rebel parents and those who were in need of substitutes for their sons and relations in the rebel army.
This proposal was made by Mr. Byrant sometime in May or in the first of June, 1863. Before the tenth of the latter month four men came in the night, about ten o'clock, to the house of Mr. Stonecypher, rapped at the door, and, though the family had retired, were soon ad- mitted by Mrs. Stonecypher, the old gentleman being confined to his bed and unable to rise. Mrs. Stonecypher was well acquainted with two of the men-Wm. P. Tracy, and Samuel Kincannon, the others, who subsequently proved to be Richard Acock and Charles Davis, she had recollections of seeing but did not know their names. They informed Mrs. Stonecypher that they came to con- script her remaining son into the rebel army, and pre- tended to have papers from the rebel anthorities for so doing. She replied that this could not be, that her son was clear of the conscript, being only sixteen years of age. 11
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Appearing to doubt her word she showed them in her Bible the record of her son's birth. This appeared to un- settle them for a moment, and they pretended to be on the point of leaving, requesting of Mrs. Stonecypher to take her Bible with them. Being asked what they pro- posed to do with her Bible, they replied, evasively, that they wished to show the record of her son's birth to some persons. The Bible being refused, instead of leaving, three of the party went out, and a few steps from the door held a consultation, while the other remained inside talking with Mrs. Stonecypher. At the expiration of ten or fifteen minutes the three came in, when all joined in an attempt to persuade Mrs. and Mr. Stonecypher to allow their son to volunteer in the rebel army. Meeting with no success with the parents, they went to the bed where the boy lay and persuaded, or rather compelled, him to get up and go out with them, stating that they had some- thing to tell him. Getting the boy out, they proposed to him to enlist in the rebel army. He objecting and they being unable to persuade him, they commenced to threaten him, using also different strategies to frighten him. The night was very dark. They told him if he did not go with them that night to join his regiment, that there were persons not far away who would certainly shoot him. Some of the party standing not far from the boy bursted the caps on their revolvers to help on the work of frightening him into submission. Demonstra- tions and threats of this kind not having the desired effect, they invented a scheme which in proportion as it was more depraved and diabolical was more successful.
They told the boy that he could take his choice of two things, he could go with them and enlist as they desired, or he could go with them and be sent to the Penitentiary. On being asked by the boy what he had done for which they could send him to the Penitentiary, they told him that he knew well enough what he had done, that he knew that he, not long before, had been guilty of rape on the person of a little girl in the neighborhood, that they could prove it on him, and if he did not confess it and go into
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the rebel army they would arrest him then and there, have him immediately tried and convicted of this crime and sent to the Penitentiary.
After being tortured in this manner by these four men, or rather Devils, some of them perhaps over fifty years of age, for half an hour, the nerves of the boy gave way, and bursting into tears, he consented to enlist in the rebel army. The men then went into the house, told his parents that Absalom had volunteered, that it was his own choice, in which case their objections could be of no avail, that the rebel authorities would take him, and after making Mrs. Stonecypher promise to meet them some time the next day at the house of Mr. Harrison Taft, about two miles from her own home, notwithstanding all the parents could do or say, they hurried the boy off, taking him that night about four miles to the house of a Mr. Tucker, a rebel, on Cooahulla Creek, reaching there about two o'clock in the morning. The agony that wrung the hearts of those parents, as well as the hearts of the other members of the family, the rest of that night we will not attempt to describe. Soon after reaching Tucker's two of the four men left on some other business, and did not re- turn until after the family had breakfasted. The two having charge of Absalom, also went about a mile from Tucker's, taking him with them, to get another Union boy, who, however, eluded their grasp, and the three returned to Tucker's, being absent about two hours. Shortly after breakfast the four men started with Absalom for Varnal's Station, distant but a few miles, from which point Kincan- non alone took him to Dalton, distant but afew miles fur- ther, the other three remaining behind, two of whom, it appears, repaired to the house of Mr. Taft to meet Mrs. Stonecypher according to arrangements, which she was compelled to consent to the night before as just related. Anxious about her boy, and hoping to obtain some infor- mation in regard to his fate, Mrs. Stonecypher was promptly at Mr. Taft's agreeably to her promise, where she found these two men in company with a Esquire Dean, who to some extent, no doubt, had also been con-
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nected with Absalom's arrest. These two men compelled Mrs. Stonecypher before Esq. Dean to testify, or make some statement in regard to her son's age. Being in deep trouble, and withal confused at the time, she was after- wards unable to recall the exact nature of the statement drawn from her. All the information she could get from them in regard to her son, was that he had enlisted in the rebel army as a substitute.
From Taft's she returned to her home sad enough, a sadness that grew heavier and heavier as the darkness of night drew on, and as she reflected upon the melancholy fate of her two boys. One was already murdered, and the other was now torn from her in a manner that left her but the faintest ray of hope that she would ever see his face again. The information she received from the two men at Tafts, namely, that Absalom had already left Varnal's Station, on his way to his regiment in the rebel army, apparently revealing the fact that to serve in the rebel ranks until his death, or until the end of the war, was now his certain doom-was a bolt that shivered her heart to atoms, and weighed her down with a load of sorrow, such as none but a mother can feel. The other members of the family also, the father stretched upon his bed of sickness, the daughters and sisters, all, with the mother deeply felt the severity of this additional affliction and sore bereave- ment. The last hope of the mother, and last strong sup- port of the other members of the family also, the rebel- lion had now taken from them, leaving a vacancy around that hearth which, with their reflections upon the mourn- ful fate, at best, that awaited the boy in the hated rebel army, far from home, exposed to a thousand evils, sent them to their couches that night with a pungency of grief and bitterness of life, which, perhaps, scarcely ever smote their hearts before.
Kincannon and Absalom reaching Dalton about the middle of the day, Kincannon presented the boy to the Provost Marshal, who took his name, designating the regi- ment to which he was afterwards to be sent. It was a Georgia regiment.
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Bryant, that same afternoon, unquestionably, according to previous arrangement, met the kidnapper with his vic- tim at Dalton and Absalom was turned to him as the sub- stitute for which he, Bryant, was to pay $2,500. Bryant took possession of the boy, and the two immediately set out for the rich man's plantation, preparatory to a start for Richmond, Virginia, the next day.
Seeing himself alone with Bryant, and smarting under a sense of the injustice of his fate, though but sixteen, Ab- salom began to calculate the possibilities of his escape. Notwithstanding in his judgement the chances in his fa- vor would allow, if necessary, a sudden and bold attempt to free himself, yet he also thought that the nature of the case justified any advantage that deception and working upon Bryant's credulity might give him; and, therefore, determined on the latter course before resorting to more desperate measures. He requested of Mr. Bryant, inas- much as he was going so far away, with so many proba- bilities that he would never return, to be permitted, in- stead of stopping with him, to spend the night at his own home, promising to return to Bryant the next morning. Bryant objected to this, alleging that his arrangements were all perfected for both to take the cars at Varnal's Station early the next morning for Richmond, Virginia. Absalom pressed his suit, and while discussing the subject they came to the house of the rebel Justice of the Peace, Esq. Dean, the veritable magistrate who has already been introduced to the reader. Dean here joined Bryant in dissuading the boy from visiting his mother, stating par- ticularly that it was some distance to walk that night, that the night was dark, and he would be in danger of being bushwhacked, especially at a certain point, by George Klick and old man Cook. It is true that these were two notorious rebel bushwhackers then desolating that part of the country, but neither this nor the argu- ments of Dean and Bryant abated the boy's desire to see his friends once more before going to Virginia ; and after leaving Dean's he renewed his appeals to Bryant more ur- gently than before, and pressed him so vigorously that he
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yielded the point on condition that Absalom would prom- ise upon his honor to return to him the next morning. To this Absalom consented and the thing was considered settled. In a short time, however, Bryant reflecting per- haps, on the influences that might be brought to bear upon the boy to make him break his promise, and the risk he was taking, everything considered, re-called his words and insisted that Absalom should not leave him. This served not only to renew the former struggle but to in- crease its former intensity, and Bryant was soon brought back to his contract, based upon the same conditions as before, and on these conditions Bryant and Absalom parted, each directing his steps to towards his respective home.
It is a little remarkable that Bryant consented under any circumstances short of those actually compulsory, to let the boy visit his home. Although Bryant must have known before the boy was captured that he was to be the victim, being perhaps also informed by the two absent so long from Tucker's, or by some one of the three left behind at Varnal's Station, that he was taken and was on his way to Dalton, in consequence of which he went there to re- ceive him; yet it is possible, that he did not know the whole of the wickedness by which he was secured. It is possible also, that Bryant was deceived in regard to the boy's willingness to go, by the leisurely manner in which he entered into conversation with him upon the nature of the trip, inquiring how much money he was to have for going as his son's substitute, &c. But what- ever might have been the principal cause that induced Bryant to give the boy this advantage of him, the advan- tage was gained the boy reaching his home in safety ; and we can imagine the relief felt by his mother after the sad forebodings the visit to Taft's had occasioned her, and the joy she experienced, when about twelve o'clock that night, or a little less than twenty-four hours from the time he was taken away, she unexpectedly heard his voice at the door, he having escaped from Bryant as just related. We can also imagine the degree of conscientiousness she as
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well as the other members of the family felt about his keeping his promise to return to the tyrant the next morn- ing. Such were their joy and fear together at this moment, that he remained in the house but a few minutes, taking quarters for the rest of the night, if less comfortable yet of more supposable safety than the couch he had been forced to leave the night before.
Having a knowledge of all the facts, the reader can judge whether the boy was morally bound to keep his promise, and can judge whether he was encouraged to do so by his parents and his friends on his return; and accord- ingly can calculate the amount of joy experienced the next morning by Bryant, at meeting young Stonecypher pre- paratory to taking him to Virginia, as a substitute for his son in the rebel army.
Instead of meeting Bryant the next day at ten o'clock, and giving himself up to fight the battles of the rebellion for him and his son, before night he had selected a hiding place in some ravine or thicket, and for the present was secure against the kidnapping rebel substitute brokers. No sooner, however, were these brokers informed by Bry- ant that Absalom had turned traitor, than a combined effort was put forth to retake him, especially by the Greg- ories, who it was known had much to do with his arrest before.
Absalom remained in the woods, occasionally slying his way in the night to some Union house, where he would be secreted a few days, from this time, the first of June, until the following October, during which period his mother and her Union neighbors exhausted every strategy to supply him with food, without revealing the places of his concealment. Being at one time more hotly pursued than usual he fled in the night to Polk county, where a Union widow woman named Pitts, secreted him in her house three weeks.
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