As I look back over the 150th anniversary of Stoneman's Raid, these are some of my favorite personalities who brightened the pages of The Stoneman Gazette.
I sought every perspective I could find, and those you see here represent slaves and presidents, preachers and teachers, journalists and journalers, generals and privates, fiddlers and flatpickers, pacifists and hawks.
Even if you don’t care about the Civil War in general or Stoneman’s Raid in particular, I bet you will enjoy these tales.
North Carolina’s last living Confederate veteran was born as a slave and owed his freedom to a war he lost. And boy did he exercise his freedom, walking 150,000 miles on the job and living almost 110 years. Because we published his story on April Fool's Day, some thought it was a joke or a myth, but I wouldn't have run it if I didn't think it was all true ... mostly.I sought every perspective I could find, and those you see here represent slaves and presidents, preachers and teachers, journalists and journalers, generals and privates, fiddlers and flatpickers, pacifists and hawks.
Even if you don’t care about the Civil War in general or Stoneman’s Raid in particular, I bet you will enjoy these tales.
GOV. WILLIAM GANNAWAY BROWNLOW
Knoxville TN
Knoxville TN
Before he became governor of Tennessee, “the Fighting Parson”
was a firebrand publisher who skewered the Confederacy in a federally funded
newspaper called the Rebel Ventilator. If you have ink in your blood and remember when newspapering was fun (or if you are a fellow Methodist) you'll enjoy his
story.
The original Siamese Twins
probably went into hiding when Stoneman’s Raid came through Mount Airy, the iconic little town where they raised 21 children and owned 30 slaves. But what if they got into one of their occasional arguments and one of them betrayed the
other? Mark Twain was amused by the possibilities, and according to one account, so was Gen. Stoneman.
JOHN C. CALHOUN (1849 daguerreotype by Mathew Brady)
Abbeville SC, Washington DC, Clemson SC
Might the "Father of Secession" also have been the father of the president who defeated secession? That would be outrageous in every sense of the word. Still, some have suggested (or insisted) that Calhoun was indeed the father of Lincoln. If they are right, it would give a whole new meaning to the Civil War slogan "brother against brother."
CONFEDERATE LT. CHARLES CONNOR
Terrell NC
Was he a daring hero? Or an innocent bystander? The Stoneman Gazette sorts out the facts and legends about the Catawba County man who may have been the last Confederate officer killed in combat.
with daughter Maggie, wife Varina, grandchildren, and servants in Biloxi MS
The last fortnight of Stoneman's Raid was essentially a manhunt for Jefferson Davis. Yankees called him the “Prince of Traitors,” and
rebels never exalted their president like they did their generals. The Confederacy and his administration were doomed from the start. But Davis turned out to be more of a sympathetic character than I expected. He did not
seek the presidency of the Confederacy but served out of a binding sense of duty that became blinding (literally and figuratively) in the end. Jimmy
Carter and Congress restored Davis' citizenship in 1978. In this era when gender-hopping is considered courageous, shouldn't we pardon him for one episode of cross-dressing?
Doc Watson and Grayson’s nephew chime in on the murder mystery made
famous by the Kingston Trio. Tom Dula was in a Yankee prison when Stoneman's Raid came through the valley where he was raised, and he might-a lived happily ever after if it hadn't-a-been for the girls back home. (NOTE: This photo has become identified with Tom Dooley but is not the actual Tom Dula.)
LENORA HUBBARD
Anderson, SC
My grandmother's schoolteacher was a daughter of the Confederacy but graciously tended the graves of the enemy—three Union soldiers murdered in Anderson in the months following Stoneman's Raid. She also led the effort to raise the Confederate memorial on the square in downtown Anderson. We can learn a lot from her example.
UNION COL. MYLES KEOGH
County Carlow, Ireland, and Fort Lincoln ND
County Carlow, Ireland, and Fort Lincoln ND
Gen. George Stoneman’s right-hand man was an Irishman recruited from the Pope's guards who
led the charges into Boone and Salisbury and later died with Gen. George Custer in the
Battle of the Little Bighorn. "My great weakness," he once said, "is the love I have for the fair sex, and pretty much all my trouble comes from or can be traced to that charming source." The Stoneman Gazette found a soap-opera picture to prove it.
U.S. PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN
entering Richmond April 4, 1865 (drawn by Thomas Nast)
entering Richmond April 4, 1865 (drawn by Thomas Nast)
Seven-score and fourteen years later, America needs to heed the closing words of President Lincoln's 1861 inaugural address: “We
are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory,
stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and
hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union,
when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our
nature.”
- Abraham Lincoln and the Horn of Freedom
- Lincoln’s map showed the way
- Good Friday and Abraham Lincoln
- GIS mapping: Another Civil War innovation
- Father of all irony? The other Land of Lincoln
- Tell Mama: The Civil War is finally over!
- Reconciled: Yankees honor Jeff Davis’ daughter
- Revisiting the Lincoln-Calhoun debate
CONFEDERATE CAPT. WILLIAM LUFFMAN
Guilford County NC, Spring Place GA
How did this wounded rebel outrun hundreds of mounted Yankees? Read Milton Cundiff's 1897 account and see if you believe it.
UNION GEN. WILLIAM J. PALMER
Philadelphia PA and Colorado Springs CO
Philadelphia PA and Colorado Springs CO
The 28-year-old Quaker was the good guy of Stoneman’s Raid, even earning the respect of loyal Confederates such as Stonewall Jackson's widow and Jefferson Davis' daughter. He began the march as a colonel and received a field promotion to general when Stoneman put him in charge of pursuing Davis. "Palmer is worth a whole brigade of cavalry," one of his commanders said. After
the war, Palmer received the Medal of Honor, founded Colorado Springs, made a
fortune in railroads, built a majestic castle for his "Queen," and helped educate thousands of slaves’ children. If you have ever toured Glen Eyrie or ridden the Durango & Silverton scenic railroad, you have experienced a bit of his vision.
Stoneman’s Raiders never met a feistier rebel than Miss Emma
Rankin, a teacher who wrote a little book about her four-day ordeal at the hand of the
Yankees. In the spirit of 19th-century journalism, The Stoneman Gazette
presented excerpts as a serial:
The Scarlett O’Hara of Stoneman’s Raid, Emmala Reed was pining
for her Confederate beau when Yankees raided Anderson, SC—her hometown as well as mine. Fortunately for us, she kept a journal that Robert Oliver edited into a book called A Faithful Heart, and The Gazette excerpted as a three-part serial.
- May 1: The audacity of the cute Yankee
- May 2: Many drunken demons
- May 3: A ruined, humiliated people
ROBBIE ROBERTSON & LEVON HELM
Woodstock, NY
In the midst of the 1969 Woodstock Festival, Robertson and Helm say they found time to visit a local library to learn more about the Civil War and flesh out a song that became "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." In the original version, they wrote "Till Stoneman's cavalry came," but when Joan Baez made the song famous she sang "Till so much cavalry came."
LITTLE SORREL
Lexington, VA
Horses were the unsung heroes of the thousand-mile march of Stoneman's Raid. Many wore out after a few hard days of cavalry duty in the mountains. Frank the Warhorse went the distance and was rewarded with his own headstone. Meanwhile, the most famous prisoner of the raid is still saddled up for the South.
UNION GEN. GEORGE STONEMAN
(portrait in Harper's Weekly, 1862)
Busti NY, Washington DC, San Marino CA
(portrait in Harper's Weekly, 1862)
Busti NY, Washington DC, San Marino CA
General Stoneman personally led the first half of the raid and had a very personal reason to excuse himself from the rest of the march. People in Salisbury were thankful that Stoneman was not as incendiary as Sherman. Beyond that, I'll let you decide what to make of him.
- The longest raid begins with a single debt
- Meet George Stoneman
- 'A Yankee gentleman can steal butter'
- 'I believe I am talking to the Yankees now'
- The awful burr in Stoneman’s saddle
- Stoneman's worst mistake?
- Scoop! Sly Stoneman chides rebel church
- Yosemite bridge may be Stoneman's last stand
- An animated glimpse of Gen. Stoneman
- 75 years later: Roadside fame or cast-iron shame?
IRENE TRIPLETT
Wilkesboro NC
Wilkesboro NC
The Wall Street Journal identified Miss Triplett as the last person receiving a Civil War pension. Her father Mose Triplett served on both sides of the war and was a member of Stoneman's rear guard that terrorized Boone in April 1865.
MARK TWAIN
(portrait by Carroll Beckwith)
Hannibal MO, Elmira NY, Hartford CT
The great storyteller made America laugh with an outrageous tale rooted in Stoneman’s Raid. But Samuel Clemens also had blood on his hands from his brief days as a Confederate soldier in Missouri, and his Private History of a Campaign that Failed is so true that it hurts: "All war must just be the killing of
strangers against whom you feel no personal animosity, strangers who in
other circumstances you would help if you found them in trouble, and who
would help you if you needed it."(portrait by Carroll Beckwith)
Hannibal MO, Elmira NY, Hartford CT
I commissioned Capt. Weand as the war
correspondent for The Stoneman Gazette. Many of our stories quote from his journal, which details the daily events of Stoneman's Raid.
CONFEDERATE PVT. THOMAS WHEAT
Rome GA
Rome GA
Did this Georgia farmer really start the
Civil War? That's what he confessed when he was captured near Winston-Salem by Stoneman's cavalry. "I had nothing against the Yankees," he said, "but I was in for anything that promised a little sport."
UNION PVT. JOHN JERVIS WICKHAM
Beaver, PA
YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK: Stoneman Bridge
Though he had the perfect name for a marble bust, you won't find Stoneman among the pantheon of Civil War statues. However, dozens of monuments mark his path from the Carolinas to California.Beaver, PA
Long before he became a Pennsylvania Superior Court judge, Wickham was a 21-year-old "cypher expert" who tricked a Confederate telegraph officer into divulging the troop movements of Robert E. Lee.
YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK: Stoneman Bridge
- The month they drove old Dixie down
- Yosemite bridge may be Stoneman's last stand
- Historical markers: They report, we deride
- Stoneman's headquarters on Caesar's Head
- What Civil War statues are whispering to us
- 75 years later: Roadside fame or cast-iron shame?
__________________________________
TOM LAYTON (with my mom and our ancestor's 1744 English musket)
Just in case you're wondering where this blog is coming from ...
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