Greenville mule got a Yankee's goat

The 200-year-old Rock House was built by Capt. Billy Young, a hero of the American Revolution

Some of the Union cavalry crossed the 1820 Poinsett Bridge in the mountains of Greenville County

GREENVILLE, S.C.

 The Union cavalry who invaded Greenville on May 2, 1865, came from Asheville, and their routes brought them via two rock-solid monuments of 19th-century craftsmanship: the Poinsett Bridge on the State Road and the Rock House on the Buncombe Road.

 The Rock House was built some 200 years ago by Capt. Billy Young, a hero of the American Revolution. It once was the largest house in Greenville, but it is so secluded that I never knew about it during the decades I lived there. I looked it up during the 150th anniversary of Stoneman's Raid, because the most prominent local victim of the raid was listed by historians as "Capt. Choice of the old Rock House."
 Josiah Choice was 62 years old when the raiders came down Buncombe Road. There are varying accounts of what happened to him. He may have been killed for shooting at a cavalryman who confiscated his horse. The Choice family had a home nearby, so it is possible that "of the old Rock House" described the locale where he was killed, rather than the actual house where he lived.
 About 150 Union cavalry from Stoneman's rear guard were dispatched from Asheville in late April to pursue Jefferson Davis, the fugitive president of the Confederacy.  They rode together through Saluda Gap to the foot of the Blue Ridge, where they fanned out. Some of them followed the State Road across Poinsett Bridge and entered Greenville on the Rutherford Road. Click here to read our 150th anniversary story about the havoc they caused in Greenville. 
 The rest of the Yankees came down Buncombe Road, took Josiah Choice's life, and left us with a great story. It's too good to be true, but The State newspaper in Columbia reported it Aug. 23, 1959, after reporter Virginia Oles visited her Aunt Em, Emily Rosamond Thackston, the great-granddaughter of Capt. Young. Aunt Em's father, William Thackston, had inherited the house from his wife Katherine, the captain's granddaughter. 
 Capt. Young (1759-1826) was known as That Terror To The Tories during the Revolution. Yankees were sometimes called Tories, too, and at least one of the Union soldiers at the Rock House probably was sorry he met Capt. Young's daughter Emily Young Rosamond (1812-1888). This Emily was the great aunt of the Aunt Em who told the story to the newspaper.

Here's Your Mule was a
 popular Civil War song

 As the story goes, by the end of the war, a mule named Susie was the last livestock on the Rock House plantation. All the men were working in the fields, so only Emily was home when a Yankee rode up on a worn-out horse.
 Without so much as a good morning, the soldier went into the barnyard, unsaddled his horse, saddled Susie, and rode off. Emily was especially fond of Susie, so she cried with grief.
 Early the next morning, there was a sudden commotion in the yard. The whole household rushed out to see what was going on. There stood old Susie at the barnyard gate, wearing the Yankee's saddle. However, there was no rider.
 Emily threw her arms around Susie's neck and kissed her. She whispered into the mule's ear, "Susie, you threw that Yankee and came back home!"
 Later that day, the Yankee returned with a noticeable limp. He went to the barnyard, saddled his own lame horse, and rode off without a word of explanation.
 Susie, of course, became a war hero whose story was repeated for generations.

Cowpens: Following the footsteps of liberty

Stoneman's 1st Brigade probably visited the Scruggs homeplace on the Cowpens Battlefield

COWPENS, S.C.

 Americans are notoriously bad at history, but here's one question you can't get wrong: Cowpens figured in (a) the Revolutionary War, (b) the Civil War, (c) World War II, or (d) the Iraq war?
 The answer is ... all of the above.
 Tuesday, January 17, marks the 236th anniversary of the Battle of Cowpens, a brief but fierce fight in 1781 that went a long way toward ensuring American independence. Cowpens became the namesake for two Navy warships: an aircraft carrier nicknamed "the Mighty Moo" that was the first U.S. ship to enter Tokyo Bay in 1945, and a 1991 cruiser that fired Tomahawk missiles at an Iraqi nuclear facility in 1993. (That attack came on the 212th anniversary of the original Battle of Cowpens, which I will assume is only a coincidence.)
 As for the Civil War connection, we turn to Stoneman's 1st Brigade, which crossed the Cowpens battlefield April 29, 1865, in hot pursuit of Confederate president Jefferson Davis. 
 In his official report, Gen. William J. Palmer of the 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry wrote, "I had reached the vicinity of Cowpens battlefield, S.C., on April 29, when I received the order to endeavor to intercept Jefferson Davis, his Cabinet, and the Confederate specie." The orders came from Gen. George Stoneman, by now back in Knoxville, who believed that Davis absconded with up to $6 million in gold and silver specie when he abandoned his capital in Richmond April 2.

Red lines on this 1906 map show how Gen.

Palmer's 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry headed

from Rutherfordton toward Kings Mountain

before doubling back and crossing the Broad

 River at Island Ford. "Nashville" on this map

is actually Asheville. "Cowpens" marks the

location of the town rather than the

battlefield, which is 10 miles north of the

town and just south of the North Carolina

line. I added the blue arrow to show an

April 29-30 expedition by the 12th Ohio

in pursuit of Jefferson Davis.

 Gen. Palmer actually began the manhunt the day before, starting at Hickory Nut Gap southeast of Asheville (labeled Nashville on this map). He marched through Rutherfordton, N.C., headed toward another Revolutionary War battlefield at Kings Mountain. Then he had to backtrack 20 miles to find a way across the Broad River.

 His cavalry made the crossing at Island Ford (near the current U.S. 221 bridge north of Chesnee, S.C.) and headed toward Spartanburg on a road that took them across the Cowpens battlefield.
 As the Yankees scouted for information about Davis, it seems likely that they inquired at the cabin of Robert Scruggs, whose farm encompassed part of the old battlefield. (Sixteen years earlier, in 1849, historian Benson John Lossing had interviewed Scruggs to document details of the Battle of Cowpens for his Pictorial Field Book of the Revolution. Lossing later wrote the Pictorial History of the Civil War, including a clever bridge-burning episode from Stoneman's Raid that he called "one of the most gallant little exploits of the war.")

'Wading through the blood of our children'

Capt. Charles Connor's grave at Rehobeth Methodist Church in Catawba County N.C.

NEWTON, N.C.

Newton had to replace its marker
after it was removed by the state

 Major Henry Connor was campaigning in 1839 for his 10th term in the U.S. House of Representatives when he warned North Carolina voters about the rising militance of abolitionists in Congress.
 In a speech that specifically criticized John Quincy Adams (the former president who was crusading against slavery), Connor declared: "There is reason to believe they will not be particular as to the mode of carrying out their plans, whether peacefully or by wading through blood of our men, women, and children."
 Major Connor's speech was driven both by political hype and personal stakes, considering that by 1850 he owned more slaves than anyone else in Catawba County. But his words were also terribly prophetic. His first-born son Charles would be one of the last to shed his blood for the Southern cause—shot and killed during Stoneman's Raid in Newton, N.C., on April 17, 1865.
 That was eight days after Robert E. Lee's surrender in Virginia. Some accounts say that Charles Connor was with Lee at Appomattox and had just returned home to Catawba County when he was slain. Others indicate that he left the army two years earlier.
 According to a 1911 book called The Catawba Soldier of the Civil War, Connor was just trying to avoid trouble when the Yankees invaded Newton:

     He served with his command along the Roanoke River in North Carolina and Virginia—a very important line between the two armies—but when the end came he was at home.
     A very sad thing occurred in connection with young Connor. Just as the war was closing in 1865, he went to Newton to have a settlement with Mr. Moses, a Jew living there at the time. While there, the Federal troops came into Newton, and Connor and many others fled to keep from being captured, and poor Connor was shot at long range and killed. He was a fine man and but few, if any enemies.

 But another tradition says Connor was single-handedly trying to drive the U.S. Cavalry out of town. Just this past Christmas, newspaper columnist Sylvia K. Ray advocated a mural in downtown Newton: 

     I think it ought to show the spring day in 1865 when the Union Army’s Stoneman’s Raiders came to town and were chased westward along what became West A Street by infuriated Confederate Captain Charles F. Connor in a one-man-versus-several-hundred incident. That was the only time that actual warfare took place in what is Catawba County. Yes, the gallant Confederate soldier from Terrell was shot down by the Yankee fighters as he defended the county seat town.

 As hard as it is to reconcile those stories, it's even harder to positively identify Newton's Confederate martyr. Because it seems there were two Charles Connors.
 They were cousins, they were both Confederate officers, and some historians have gotten them confused.
 Gravestones indicate that Lt. Charles T. Connor was killed in 1865, while his cousin Capt. C.F. Connor lived until 1901. (C.F. may have been known as Charles, though his name was Cornelius Fulton. He was captured April 1, 1865, during the fall of Richmond and was in a Yankee prison at Johnson Island, Ohio, when Stoneman's troops raided Newton.)
 However, the 1911 book, the 2009 historical marker, and the local chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans say it was Capt. Charles F. Connor who was killed in the raid.
 For the purposes of this story, I am blending the 1911 profile (which calls him Charles F.) and a 1935 newspaper column by Connor's son-in-law (who calls him Charles T.) Other than the middle initial, their stories match. T or F, true or false—it's not worth fighting over.

Lt. Charles Connor

 No Confederate soldier from Catawba County had more to lose than Charles Connor. His father, Major Henry Connor, owned 77 slaves and 5,329 acres near Sherrill's Ford on the Catawba River. Much of his estate is now lakefront property on Lake Norman.

 Major Connor was the son of Irish immigrants, became one of the first graduates of the University of South Carolina, and fought in the War of 1812. In the spring of 1839 (the same year of his abolition speech), he married Lucy Hawkins, who was said to be the daughter (or perhaps the niece or granddaughter) of William Hawkins, a Princeton graduate who was governor of North Carolina during the War of 1812.
 The first of their three children, Charles Connor, was born April 3, 1840. Charles was still a teenager when he married Mary Jane Sherrill and acquired 600 acres in a crossroads community called Terrell, about 20 miles southeast of Newton. Their first son, Thomas, was born Jan. 5, 1860. Two daughters were born during the war, Luetta in 1862, followed by Emma.
 After the Civil War erupted and North Carolina seceded, Charles Connor volunteered for the Fifth North Carolina Cavalry. He was elected second lieutenant of Company K in September 1862 and resigned his commission two months later. It is possible that he was promoted posthumously to captain, but it seems unlikely that he was commanding rebel troops when Stoneman's Tenth Michigan Cavalry raided Newton.
 The Tenth Michigan was commanded by Col. Luther Trowbridge. In his regimental history, Trowbridge tells us that Yankees occupied Newton for almost a week: 

About midnight on the 14th, news was received at Statesville of the surrender of Lee's army [April 9]. On the 17th, the Tenth was sent to Newton to guard the fords of the Catawba, and to gather in any stragglers from Lee's army who were seeking to get away without being paroled, being busy at that work for several days. News of the assassination of President Lincoln was received at Newton on the 23rd.

 The map in Trowbridge's book (below) shows that the Michigan troops first went from Statesville to Lincolnton and then circled back toward Newton, entering the town from the southeast. This is an important detail that contradicts the notion that Connor chased the Yankees down West A Street, which is west of the town square. 

 A 14-year-old slave named Martin Luther Bost (1851-1939) witnessed the occupation of Newton. At age 86, Bost shared his memories in a 1937 interview with the WPA Writers Project. 

 "I don't remember much about the war," he said. "There was no fightin' done in Newton—just a skirmish or two. Most of the people got everything jes ready to run when the Yankee sojers come through the town. This was toward the las' of the war. Cose the niggers knew what all the fightin' was about, but they didn't dare say anything. 

 "The man who owned the slaves was too mad as it was, and if the niggers say anything they get shot right then and there. The sojers tell us after the war that we get food, clothes, and wages from our Massas else we leave. But they was very few that ever got anything. Our ole Massa say he not gwine pay us anything, corse his money was no good, but he wouldn't pay if it had been."

 As far as the people of Newton knew, their sons were still bravely fighting Sherman in eastern North Carolina. Lee's surrender applied just to Virginia. The Confederacy was still alive, and Jefferson Davis was still president. Still, the shocking death of Lt. Connor (whatever the circumstances) must have broken their will and convinced them that resistance was futile. They were powerless to prevent the Yankees from burning the Catawba County jail and a Confederate warehouse. 
     Lt. Connor was evidently the only casualty of the raid in Newton. He is among 29 Confederate veterans buried at his boyhood church, Rehobeth Methodist Church near Terrell. 

Inscribed on Charles T. Connor's gravestone: "Kind one, thou art gone without a moment's warning. Thy absence makes thy once happy home a waste." It is telling that his grave has been decorated with flags from both sides (compare this photo to the one above).

 Lt. Connor's 28-year-old widow, Mary Sherrill Connor (1836-1889), held her family together through one tragedy after another. One of her brothers was killed in battle in 1862, and another came home crippled. Her father-in-law Major Connor died just seven months after her husband. She remarried in 1869 to another Confederate veteran, Levi Lockman, and had another daughter. 
 Son Thomas Franklin Connor (1860-1947) founded the Terrell Country Store that stood until 2020 at the old crossroads on N.C. 150 near Lake Norman.
 Elder daughter Luetta Connor (1862-1941) married Rev. William Lander Sherrill (1860-1953), a Methodist preacher who wrote a series of newspaper columns that were compiled into a scrapbook history of Lincoln County. (The Connors' land had been part of Lincoln County before Catawba County was formed in 1842.)
 Rev. Sherrill had vivid memories of Stoneman's Raid in Lincolnton, when he was five. Seventy years later in 1935, he wrote:

      As a five-year-old child, watching as the invading army entered the village, little did I dream that some "rough necked" soldier in that group had the day before in Newton, for no provocation, shot and killed a brave Confederate lieutenant, Charles T. Connor, who had for four years been a gallant soldier of the South. It was a brutal and cowardly act. That young Lieutenant, killed April 17, 1865, left a little three-year-old girl, who grew to womanhood and in 1884 became my wife and still abides with me.

 When he died July 15, 1953 at age 93, Rev. Sherrill was probably the next-to-last eyewitness to Stoneman's Raid, outliving 109-year-old Alfred "Uncle Teen" Blackburn (1842-1951) by 19 months and 106-year-old Ohio bugler William Allen Magee (1846-1953) by six months. The last eyewitness I have found was John Pearson (1852-1954) of Morganton, N.C. 

 Rev. Sherrill lived long enough to see the coming of Lake Norman on his grandfather-in-law's land. During his final years, power company officials were buying acreage in the Catawba River valley in preparation for building the Cowans Ford Dam in 1959. The lake was filled in 1963, 98 years after Stoneman's Raid passed through. 
 Rev. Sherrill and his wife are also buried at Rehobeth—a biblical name that means "place of inheritance" or "place of flourishing." Rehobeth United Methodist Church is less than a mile from Lake Norman, just south of the Terrell crossroads on N.C. Highway 150. 

———

ONE OUT OF THREE NEVER CAME HOME: Catawba County had a population of 10,709 in 1860. Most of the men (2,123) served in the Confederate military, and almost one-third of those did not survive the war. Catawba had 147 killed in action and 477 who died because of disease, in prison, or other war-related circumstances, according to exhaustive research by Derick Hartshorn with the Capt. C.F. Connor Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

NEXT➤ 1865 Boone Raid made the New York Times

CONFEDERATE MEMORIAL DAY: Honor roll of Southerners killed in Stoneman's Raid

The Terrell Country Store, founded in 1885 by Lt. Connor's son, was torn down in 2020.

This map of the Tenth Michigan Cavalry's route indicates that the raiders looped through Lincolnton before invading Newton from the southeast.

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.