Attorney & general: Little sister's big day

Kate Stoneman became the first female lawyer in New York

 Twenty years after the Civil War, George Stoneman was the governor of California. Meanwhile, back in New York where the general was raised, his little sister Kate was making her own mark in the Statehouse.

 That’s why the Albany Law School celebrates March 27 as Kate Stoneman Day. Catharine “Kate” Stoneman was a longtime teacher who, in 1885, became the first woman to pass the bar exam in New York. Then she was banned by a three-judge panel who ruled that there “no precedent … and no necessity” for women to practice law—not unless the state legislature voted otherwise.

 Kate Stoneman immediately proved her legal skills by personally marshalling a bill through the legislature and convincing the governor to sign it, making it legal for women to practice law. On May 22, 1886, at age 45 she became the first woman admitted to the New York bar, and 12 years later she became the first female to officially graduate from the Albany Law School.
 Gen. Stoneman’s relationships with his sisters reveal a softer side of the hard-driving Yankee, whose troops terrorized parts of the Carolinas and Virginia during the closing days of the Civil War.

Reasons for the war? How quickly we forget

 This is not the first time a new president has needed a history lesson on the Civil War.
 It also happened in May 1865, when the war was as fresh as cavalry dust and the Yankees were still chasing the fugitive Confederate president Jefferson Davis across Georgia.
 Here's a link to our original story in The Stoneman Gazette, where Union Gen. William Palmer wrote a passionate and eloquent letter intended for President Andrew Johnson. Palmer was alarmed to hear that the administration might delay the full emancipation of slaves, now that Lincoln was dead. Gen. Palmer wanted the new president to know what he was hearing from Southerners and why emancipation was non-negotiable.
 Our original story also includes links to the "Declaration of Causes," where several seceding states explained why they left the Union.
 If we're honest, we all have questions about the real reasons for secession and the Civil War (which are not necessarily the same), not to mention the complicated motives of individual generals and soldiers on both sides.
 However, the declarations of those who voted to secede are undeniable. For example, read what the delegates from Mississippi wrote:

 The Confederate Constitution of March 11, 1861, explicitly protected slave ownership (though it did prohibit the international slave trade.)
 Article IV, Section 3, says: "In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected be Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States."

Remember when N.C. voted to save the Union?

 Four days before the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, North Carolina held a statewide referendum to decide whether to secede from the Union. 
 You might have thought that was a foregone conclusion. Seven southern states had already exited.
 Yet at the end of February 1861, voters across North Carolina rejected secession and chose to remain in the Union. The vote was close, and it wasn't binding for long, but it remains a refreshing history lesson for our generation as we deal with another polarizing presidency and an increasingly fractious society.

North Carolina Standard, March 20, 1861

 This referendum was news to me when I began researching Stoneman's Raid and learned about it from the books of North Carolina historian Michael C. Hardy. I looked it up in old newspapers and found this county-by-county table in the North Carolina Standard published March 20, 1861 in Raleigh. The referendum was held February 28 (156 years ago today), but back then it took a couple of weeks to compile all the votes.
 North Carolina voters faced two questions:

1. Should the state hold a constitutional convention to consider secession?
2. If the convention is approved, who would you vote for as your delegate?

 In effect, a vote against the convention was a vote for the Union.
 North Carolina rejected the convention by a margin of just 661 votes, 47,333 against and 46,672 for. That made the second question moot, but if the delegates had convened, they would have been 83-37 in favor of the Union.
 Many of the counties that would be raided by Stoneman in 1865 were overwhelmingly loyal to the Union: Watauga voted against a convention 536-72, Caldwell 651-186, Wilkes 1,890-51, Yadkin 1,490-34, Forsyth 1,409-286, and Guilford 2,771-113.
 Among counties ready to secede were Rowan 1,150-882, Catawba 918-158, Lincoln 708-86, Mecklenburg 1,448-252, McDowell 638-217, and Buncombe 1,219-389. Most of the support for secession was in eastern North Carolina, where slavery was more widespread.

 While North Carolina was still counting votes, Lincoln gave his inaugural address on March 4 and made one last eloquent plea to save the Union:

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.

 So if North Carolinians were loyal to the Union, how did we wind up in the Confederacy?

Revisiting the Lincoln-Calhoun debate

Judge Felix Alley's 1941 book tried to show the underlying resemblance between Lincoln and Calhoun.

CRAYTONVILLE, S.C.

 The last time The Stoneman Gazette delved into Abraham Lincoln's parentage, the Yankees were in Lincoln County, N.C., where it was widely rumored that that the president had been born in the hills nearby.
 Now that DNA tests have traced the lineage of Lincoln's mother, let's explore another possible root of Lincoln's family tree. This one involves John C. Calhoun, the South Carolina statesman who was known as the "Father of Secession."
 Could Calhoun have also been the father of the president who defeated secession?
 Indeed, it appears likely that Calhoun had a fling with a young lady named Nancy Hanks. She lived in Anderson County, S.C., and her ancestors and mine share the same graveyard.

 After further review, however, I would say it is unlikely that she was the same Nancy Hanks who married Thomas Lincoln and gave birth to Abe, not necessarily in that order.
 Unlikely—but not impossible.

Lloyd Ostendorf's 1963 portrait
 of the enigmatic Nancy Hanks Lincoln

 Nancy Hanks was not an uncommon name. After Lincoln disclosed his mother's name in his 1860 campaign biography, more than a dozen Nancy Hanks were mentioned as the possible mother of the president. Hanks families here and there were suddenly reminded of young Nancies who had moved west over a half-century earlier. "Do you think Lincoln's mother could have been OUR long-lost Nancy?" You can see how rumors got started.
 Similarly, Calhoun is just one of a dozen men who have been investigated as Lincoln's possible father. You can read about them in The Many-Sired Lincoln, a 1925 story in The American Mercury magazine by a University of North Carolina professor named J.G. de Roulhac Hamilton.

 Regarding Calhoun, Hamilton reported:

     At Craytonville, Anderson County, South Carolina, was a stage-road tavern kept by one Christopher Orr. In Orr’s employ was a girl from the neighborhood, named Nancy Hanks, who was possessed of unusual beauty. At Abbeville lived Calhoun, a young, unmarried lawyer who made frequent trips to Pendleton by way of Craytonville. When he reached Orr’s tavern he nearly always developed a sick headache of such severity as to compel his stopping. Presently it was discovered that Nancy, free of favors, of course, was the cause of his visits and that presumably he was responsible for the condition which led to her discharge, and to her rejection by her own people. Calhoun then bought a horse and saddle and sent her off with some horse-drovers to Kentucky, where she had an uncle. Two months later her child was born and named for her uncle, Abraham Hanks. Six months later, the ever-obliging Thomas Lincoln married her. A variant of this is that Thomas Lincoln came to South Carolina with the horse-traders and for a consideration agreed to take Nancy off Calhoun’s hands. A frill on the story is that Calhoun once left Washington on horseback, bound for Kentucky, ostensibly to visit Henry Clay, but really to see his son Abraham. The rumor does not indicate whether he admired him or not.

       There was undoubtedly a Nancy Hanks at Craytonville, but she never married Thomas Lincoln nor gave birth to Abraham Lincoln. She did marry and was living long after the death of Nancy Hanks Lincoln [in 1818]. Whether or not the story of her relations with Calhoun is true is a matter of no importance so far as Abraham Lincoln is concerned.

 The Calhoun-Hanks relationship is no secret to historians. Margaret Coit detailed it in her 1950 Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, John C. Calhoun, American Portrait. (Flip to pages 49-52.) She wrote that Hanks "may even have been related to the Kentucky girl who became the mother of Abraham Lincoln."
 Coit does not mention a pregnancy but says that Calhoun had lifelong regrets about the relationship, even suggesting that it may have haunted him in his own presidential aspirations.
 The key to the story, of course, is whether the Nancy Hanks from Craytonville was the same woman who gave birth to Lincoln. Some members of the Hanks and Calhoun families believed she was.
 However, the recent DNA tests have traced Nancy Hanks' bloodline to ancestors in Virginia, rather than South Carolina. She was the daughter of Lucy Hanks and the granddaughter of Ann and Joseph Hanks, a Virginia farmer. Lucy was 17 and unmarried when she gave birth to Nancy Hanks in 1784 in Virginia. A month later, Lucy’s father Joseph moved the entire family to Kentucky.
 Lincoln cited his mother's Virginia roots in biographical information he wrote in 1859 and 1860. Abe idolized his mother, who died in 1818 when he was just nine, though he hinted to his law partner and biographer that he might have been born out of wedlock.
 Calhoun’s Nancy evidently came from a different branch of the Hanks family that settled on the South Carolina frontier near the Anderson-Abbeville county line.
She was said to be the daughter of Luke and Ann Hanks, and many of her kin (and mine) are buried at the Ebenezer Methodist Church in lower Anderson County. Luke Hanks evidently was from Virginia, so it is possible that Calhoun's flame and Lincoln's mom were cousins.
 Hamilton concluded that Craytonville's Nancy Hanks moved to Huntsville, Ala., married a man named Richard South, and lived into the 1830s. If this is true, it would rule her out as Lincoln's mother, who died in 1818. However, I think this is incorrect. What I have found online indicates that Huntsville's Nancy Hanks South was born in 1768, while Craytonville's Nancy Hanks was born 19 years later in 1787. Lincoln said his mother was born in 1784.
 John C. Calhoun was born in 1782 and would have been a 26-year-old bachelor in 1808 when Lincoln was conceived. In 1811 he married one of his cousins, Floride Bonneau Colhoun, and they had 10 children. Their fourth child, Anna Maria Calhoun (1817-1875), married Thomas Green Clemson (1807-1888). After he outlived his family, old Tom Clemson specified in his will that Calhoun's Fort Hill plantation would become the Clemson Agricultural College of South Carolina. To this day, Mr. Clemson's will guides the selection of the university trustees.

This marker was erected in 2019 by the Belton Area Museum Association

Craytonville: A crossroads for Stoneman's Raid
 The Craytonville crossroads also had what-if implications for Stoneman's Raid. A battalion of the Fifteenth Pennsylvania Cavalry commanded by Medal of Honor winner Lt. Col. Charles Betts rode through Craytonville on May 2, 1865, on their way from Laurens to Anderson in search of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Some of them were involved in a brief skirmish with rebels.
 If the westbound Yankees had turned south at Craytonville, they could have captured Davis 20 miles away in Abbeville. That same day, Davis was at the home of Armistead Burt, where he presided over the last cabinet meeting of the Confederacy. Davis eluded capture for eight more days.
 By the way, Jefferson Davis' father, Samuel Davis, was also among those implicated in The Many-Sired Lincoln. If that had been true, the rival Civil War presidents would have been half-brothers. 

The paternity case for John C. Calhoun

 Would you think more highly of John C. Calhoun if you knew he was Lincoln's daddy? It's an interesting premise that some of Calhoun's apologists tried to advance in the context of the "Lost Cause" following the Civil War.
 Among them was Armistead Burt (1802-1883), a five-term U.S. Congressman who was Davis' host at Abbeville. Burt had married Calhoun's favorite niece, Martha, so he knew the family secrets. According to some accounts, he confided with friends that he believed President Lincoln was the son of Calhoun and the Craytonville barmaid, Nancy Hanks.
 Judge Felix Alley of Waynesville, N.C., attempted to legally prove that Calhoun was Lincoln's father in his 1941 book, Random Thoughts and the Musings of a Mountaineer. (Flip to page 371). He made an interesting point when he said the Nancy Hanks of Craytonville was the niece (rather than the daughter) of the South Carolinians, Luke and Ann Hanks. If that was the case, it's possible that the Nancy Hanks in Craytonville was from the Virginia family identified by DNA tests. On the other hand, Alley thought Nancy's mother Lucy was actually a Shipley, and this was disproven by DNA.

 Judge Alley's research appears to be well-documented, but TIME magazine scoffed at his conclusions:

Last week a judge of North Carolina's Superior Court handed down his considered opinion that Abraham Lincoln was the illegitimate son of South Carolina's fire-breathing State's-righter John C. Calhoun. Since the day Lincoln was nominated for the Presidency, amateur historians of North Carolina's Great Smoky Mountains have tried to prove that he was illegitimate. The Calhoun theory was not new. When it was first advanced, in 1911, it was soon shown that the Nancy Hanks in the case eventually became a respectable Mrs. South.

 The Great Smoky Mountains Colloquy published "The Curious Paternity of Abraham Lincoln" in 2008, referencing several publications that traced Lincoln's roots to the Oconoluftee Valley near Cherokee, N.C.
 If you dare to Google, you can find even more. Here is a link to one account that appears to have been written in the 1960s. It is probably based on a series of newspaper articles by D.M. Knotts published in Columbia, S.C., in 1911, which in turn may have been based on 1893 stories in the Charlotte Observer. It is fascinating to read, but it is unsigned and includes several glaring historical errors, so I can't vouch for any of the testimonies or details. In particular, it refers to Abbeville courthouse records where Calhoun agreed to pay Hanks $100 per year to support an illegitimate son born February 12, 1809 (Lincoln's birthday). What's more, the legal witnesses included none other than Thomas Lincoln.
 Such a document would be a blockbuster, but as far as I know it does not exist. Many of Abbeville's historic court records were destroyed in a fire in 1872. 

NEXT➤ First in war, last in peace, and still sipping taxes

I have overlaid red arrows on this 1845 map to show Calhoun's 50-mile route from Abbeville to Pendleton via Craytonville (labeled as Creytonville). Northwest of Pendleton, "J.C. Calhoun" marks the site of Fort Hill, which was Calhoun's plantation and is now the campus of Clemson University.
 
Blue arrows show the route of Stoneman's 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry. On May 2, 1865, they passed through Craytonville en route from Laurens (labeled as Laurensville) to Anderson. They missed a chance to capture Jefferson Davis, who was fleeing via Abbeville (yellow arrows).

To see the entire map, click here. It was drawn before the creation of Oconee County in 1868, Saluda in 1896, Greenwood and Cherokee in 1897, and McCormick in 1916.

Pennsylvanian's pen was mightier than sword

  Nothing humanizes a war quite like the letters and journals of ordinary folks who went through it. When Ken Burns produced his PBS epic on the Civil War, he drew deeply from the writings of people such as South Carolina's Mary Chesnut and Maine's Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain.
  In Stoneman's Raid, the defining voice I hear is that of Capt. Henry K. Weand (1838-1914), a lawyer from Norristown, Pa., who eventually became a judge. He kept a meticulous, wry, and eloquent journal that has been preserved in Charles Kirk's 1906 book on the Fifteenth Pennsylvania Volunteer Cavalry.
  I've designated Capt. Weand as the war correspondent for The Stoneman Gazette. He is quoted frequently in our daily reports on Stoneman's Raid. Here are a few more of his random observations and insights, starting and ending in graveyards: 

March 22 (Mossy Creek TN)

Crossed the Holston River today and went into camp at Mossy Creek, where we had a hard fight over a year ago. Here, in a rude graveyard, Lieut. Harvey Lingle, killed in that battle, sleeps his last sleep. His old company sodded and planted flowers on his grave.

March 30 (North Wilkesboro NC)

Rained hard all night and everything was wet when we moved, early in the morning, down the stream four miles to a point opposite Wilkesboro, crossing Reddies River. The water rose so rapidly that the balance of the command could not cross, and we were on this side alone, but in no danger, unless the enemy should come at us in boats.

March 31 (North Wilkesboro)

Still raining, but it is impossible for the men to get any wetter than they were yesterday.

April 1 (Elkin NC) 

We miss our “hard-tack” very much, now that it is all gone. In place of it, flour and cornmeal are issued, which usually is mixed with water and fried, but if we stop long enough the colored women bake it for us, and how good it tastes!

Capt. C.M. Stigleman, who used this poster
 to recruit volunteers in Jacksonville, Va.,
 surrendered the town in regulation form.

April 4 (Jacksonville/Floyd VA)
At noon we entered the pretty village of Jacksonville, where we were met by two citizens—a lawyer and a doctor—who, in regulation style and with the aid of a large white flag, surrendered the town to us. It was not necessary for them to have done this. It looked to us ridiculous, as just now anything we wanted we took. But these people have been so deluded by their papers that they are under the impression that to burn houses and rob them of all we can carry off is our mission here, and they are relieved when they find the mistake.

April 5 (east of Big Lick/Roanoke VA)
We marched to Buford’s, camping at 10 p.m. near the Peaks of Otter. Mr. (Henry) Buford had relatives—Colonels and Generals—in both the Northern and Southern armies, and treated us courteously. Before breakfasting with him he took several of the officers into his yard, where there was a great slab of granite, on the side of which was inscribed “Peaks of Otter,” and on the upper surface were two depressions used as basins. We washed in these, so we could say we had bathed our faces in the “Peaks of Otter.” This granite slab had been intended a few years before as Virginia’s contribution to the Washington Monument, but had been broken in bringing it down from the peaks. (Buford was related to Gen. John Buford, who had died of typhoid at Stoneman's house in Washington, and was descended from Abraham Buford, who fought in the American revolution.)

April 8 (near Martinsville VA)
If we are working hard we are living well. There are chickens, ham, eggs, and biscuit for the men and plenty of forage for the horses.

April 10 (Winston-Salem NC)
At 6 p.m. we reached Winston and Salem. Each has a name of its own, but the two towns are really one. Here we met with the most cordial reception, very different from the usual greetings we receive. The ladies cheered us, and brought out bread, pies, and cakes. The towns were settled by Moravians from Bethlehem, Pa. The people showed much enthusiasm at the sight of the flag we carried, and many were the touching remarks made about it. Old men wept like children and prominent citizens took off their hats and bowed to it. Some women got on their knees, while we heard such expressions as “Look at the old flag!” “God bless it!” “Let me kiss that flag.” “Once more the flag goes through our town.” It was a charming place and they were good Union people, but we had no time then to do more than acknowledge it. 

April 11 (Conrad's Ferry, near Cooleemee NC)

In crossing the South River in the darkness and rain, the horses swimming, one man was captured. He had lost his horse, and the mule he rode would not swim, and while he debated what to do, the rebels came up and settled the question for him.

April 17 (Lincolnton NC)
The advance guard entered the town without any disturbance, but when the column appeared a half hour after, with General Palmer at its head and the buildings of the town in sight, one shot was fired from the side of the road in front which came near ending the career of our General. Without waiting for an order to do so, the orderlies under Sgt. James Agnew dashed forward. The bushwhacker running across the field was in plain sight, and in a few moments our men were across the fence and had him surrounded. The prisoner, a beardless boy of 15 or 16, was taken along, the General ordering that he be brought to him as soon as we were quartered in town. To this hearing his mother came also, and her pleadings for the boy’s life were so strenuous that the General told her to take the boy home and keep a better watch over his actions.

April 19 (Lincolnton NC)
We buried Corp. George French today with military honors, in the Episcopal graveyard, and several of the ladies in the town contributed wreaths of flowers to place on the coffin. [French had been killed by a bushwhacker the day before and was the last casualty of the 15th Pennsylvania regiment.] It is pleasant to record this of them, and also of the change in their feelings toward us in twenty-four hours. They say we are not destructive and are so gentlemanly, and wish their own soldiers were more like us.

NEXT➤ Breaking News: The original Stoneman Gazettes

How to hack Confederate secrets

President Lincoln and his youngest son Tad were hailed by freed slaves as they walked the streets of Richmond on April 4, 1865—Tad's 12th birthday. Richmond had been abandoned just two days earlier by Gen. Robert E. Lee and Confederate President Jefferson Davis, and it was up to Gen. Stoneman's cavalry to make sure they didn't escape. (Illustration by Thomas Nast)

   CHRISTIANSBURG, Va.

     Stoneman's raiders rode into Christiansburg near midnight on April 4 and caught the town asleep.
     The one Confederate on duty was the telegraph operator, and before he could tap S-O-S, the Yankees had a pistol to his head.
     There are several versions of what happened next. According to a lengthy report on the raid written by one of Stoneman's men, Gen. George Stoneman himself personally took charge of the situation:

     Immediately proceeding to the telegraph office, which the operator, in his haste to save himself, had left in perfect order, the General took possession, and succeeded in “calling” the Lynchburg operator, who at first was a little suspicious and answered back, “How are you, Yanks?” The reply was made, “You must be drunk, there are no Yanks any where around here.”
     Lynchburg—“What has become of the Yankees you have been telegraphing about all day as approaching?”
     Christiansburg—“Oh that was nothing but country rumors, and were found to be false.”
     Lynchburg was soon satisfied, and then proceeded to give the Christiansburg operator a lecture for sending rumors over the line, as they generally turned out false, ending it by saying that “during the day is has been reported through town that Sheridan was coming this way, but no one believes it now.” He then sent several messages, military and civil, one of the military messages of considerable interest ot the General, as it informed him of the intended movements west of him. The line refused to work soon after, and it was judged that it had been cut, and, as all supposed, it afterward proved true, that Major Wagner had arrived near Salem, and was tearing up the road and burning bridges.

     A more likely scenario* is recorded in the journals of our unofficial war correspondent, Capt. Henry Weand of Norristown, Pa. Here's his account of what happened that night in Christiansburg: 

     There had been assigned to the brigade a young telegraph operator, John J. Wickham**, who, when opportunity offered, rendered valuable assistance. Before reaching Christiansburg we had learned that the office of the telegraph company was in a freight car at the farther end of town, and before the Regiment reached that place, Lieutenant Hinchman, with a small detachment with Wickham, was sent to capture it and learn what he could of the movements of the rebels from the dispatches he could gather in.

     Making their way round the town in the evening they reached the car without discovery, and captured the operator at his instrument. Wickham began calling “Lynchburg,” but recalling the fact that the operator there would know a stranger was telegraphing, forced the Christiansburg operator to send the messages. He asked if they had any news of the Yankees, and kept up the conversation for some time, until a pointed question by Wickham, about the rebel forces, aroused the suspicion of the Lynchburg man, who said, “I believe I’m talking to the Yankees now.”
     Wickham then took the key and told him truthfully who he was, and at that the Lynchburg man let out with all the “cuss” words he was able to recall, and even these could not express his feelings at having given any information that could give aid and comfort to the enemy.
     Especially was his blasphemy heaped upon the poor operator who had been forced to send the messages. But here Wickham stopped him, and wired back that he should not blame him, as a fellow with a pistol at his head is apt to say just what the fellow who holds the pistol wants him to say. That ended the telegraphing, but the operator at Christiansburg thanked Wickham for the message he sent, as it would put him right with his associates in the rebel service.

     The fact that Stoneman inserted himself into this episode (whether or not he was actually there in person) tells you how important this was. For 10 days after leaving Jonesborough, Tenn., he had been offline, so to speak. He still had no way to contact his headquarters back in Tennessee, but now he had gained priceless intelligence from the enemy.
     Neither of those accounts decodes what Stoneman learned from those telegrams. But historian Clint Johnson tells us in his book, Pursuit: The Chase, Capture, Persecution, and Surprising Release of Confederate President Jefferson Davis: 

The Federals, mindful that telegraph operators recognized each other's tapping signatures, forced the Christiansburg telegraph operator to contact his counterpart in Lynchburg to learn war news. The Lynchburg operator willingly volunteered the news that Lee had abandoned Petersburg and Richmond. The questions kept coming until the Lynchburg operator finally tapped out: "I'm talking to the Yankees, aren't I?"

     In fact, President Lincoln had made a surprise appearance in Richmond 150 years ago today, on Tuesday, April 4, 1865, walking the streets of the Confederate capital and sending a powerful message that the war was all but over. Robert E. Lee's retreat was common knowledge in Lynchburg but was breaking news in Christiansburg. (On April 5, one of Stoneman's men found a Lynchburg newspaper that confirmed Lee's retreat.) 
     Stoneman now knew that Lee was coming his way. Providentially, he already had dispatched 220 men toward Lynchburg (the Wagner battalion that he assumed had cut the lines at Salem). Lynchburg was just 20 miles from Appomattox, where Lee was headed. 
     Conversely, Lee also now knew that the Yankees had him surrounded. Stoneman's cavalry had headed him off at the pass. The mountain railroads that could have been his escape route were going up in smoke.  
       Stoneman's relatively small army would have been no match for Lee, but the beleaguered Confederate general didn't know that. Five days later at Appomattox, he surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia.

* ONE MORE PERSPECTIVE: The telegraph episode was also described by Captain Frank Holcomb Mason of the Twelfth Ohio Cavalry in an 1890 book called Sketches of War History. He wrote: "The telegraph office was captured, and a Union soldier, taking his seat at the operator's desk, exchanged military questions and confidences with the operator at Lynchburg for an hour or more before the trick was discovered." Capt. Mason was close to Stoneman and had high respect for him, so if the general had been personally involved in the telegrams, Mason certainly would have said so.

** JOHN JERVIS WICKHAM (1844-1898) was a native of Ireland who grew up in Beaver, Pa., and served three years as a telegraph specialist in the Union army. According to his obituary in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "In June 1862, while serving as a cipher expert at the headquarters of the Twenty-third brigade, he was captured with the command by the rebel general, Forest, in action at Murfreesboro, Tenn. He was a prisoner of war for a number of months, his last place of confinement being Libby Prison." Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest's cavalry defeated and captured Wickham's brigade to capture a Union supply post and hospital. After the war, Wickham became a lawyer and was a Pennsylvania Superior Court judge when he died at age 54.

NEXT➤ Some bridges you just hate to burn

Sgt. Angelo Wiser's map shows the April 4 march from Hillsville to Christiansburg via Jacksonville (now known as Floyd)