Connecting the Shots: 1861-1865

Anderson Intelligencer, May 30, 1900

 Could the same man have fired the first and last shots of the Civil War? That's the implication of some recently unearthed newspaper clippings.

 The Anderson Intelligencer of May 30, 1900, reprinted a story from the Greenville Mountaineer, signed anonymously by "Old Coins," who interviewed eyewitnesses to document the last "battle" of the Civil War, which involved Stoneman's raiders on May 1, 1865—three weeks after Robert E. Lee's surrender in Virginia. The clipping quotes a veteran of the skirmish, Butler Dyer:

Mr. Paul Allan, of Charleston, was one of the Citadel cadets and who was the man who fired the first shot of the war on the steamer "Star of the West," was also a member of this company, and fired the last shot at the enemy on this occasion, thus having the somewhat remarkable experience and distinction of having inaugurated and finished the sanguinary conflict of '61 to '65.

 The Bamberg Herald of May 19, 1921, carried an account from The Greenville News, where the skirmish was documented by Louise Ayer Vandiver, who authored the Traditions and History of Anderson County in 1928. Mrs. Vandiver (1865-1938, born in Union, S.C., during Stoneman's Raid) collected historical clippings, and her source may have been the 1900 account. 

Among the Confederate party was young man named Paul Allen, a Charlestonian, who, it is said, fired the first shot at the Star of the West, having been a Citadel cadet at the time, and who, just to complete his record in a satisfactory manner, fired the last shot at the retreating Federal cavalry in this final skirmish on the lonely road away off in Anderson county, ending, as he had begun, one of the greatest wars in all of history. 

 Mrs. Vandiver goes on to identify Andersonians who were part of that skirmish, including James L. Dean, D.S. McCullough, F.A. Silcox, J.B. Lewis, G.W. Sullivan, and E.A. Smyth. Ellison Adger Smyth became the founder of Pelzer Mills and helped make Greenville the "Textile Capital of the World." We previously reported Smyth's role in the Anderson skirmish. Smyth (1847-1942, raised in Charleston) also claimed to have witnessed the first shot on Fort Sumter.

 Sullivan (1847-1928) later became mayor of Williamston, which may help explain why the "Confederate Skirmish" historical marker was erected there in 1964, rather than nearer the actual site. 

 John Baylis Lewis (1848-1929) became an Anderson businessman. 

 The Stoneman Gazette previously reported how a Georgia rebel boasted of loading the first gun fired at Fort Sumter. 

More Civil War coincidences

 The possibility that the same man might have fired the first and last shots of the war reminded me of these coincidences.

 The war began and ended on farms owned by the same man. The first battle in 1861, called First Manassas (by the Union) or First Bull Run (by the Confederates), was waged on a plantation owned by Wilmer McLean (1814-1882). Seeking to protect his family from combat, he moved to Appomattox Courthouse, Va., where in 1865 generals Robert E. Lee and U.S. Grant met in his parlor as they negotiated the terms of surrender.  

 Among the Confederate veterans at Bull Run was Lt. John Long, serving with the 4th S.C. Volunteers. His son Billy Long married Caty Moore Callahan, whose father owned the farm where the Anderson skirmish occured. 

 Here are a few more coincidences that we reported previously.

The latest victims of the 'Late Unpleasantness'? 

Jay County, Indiana

 Two Confederates were killed during Stoneman's Raid after Robert E. Lee's surrender April 9, 1865.
 On May 3, 1865, in Anderson, South Carolina, McKenzie "Theodore" Parker of Charleston, was killed during a confrontation with Stoneman's rear guard. A week later in Madison, Georgia, Texas Ranger A.C. Wall was shot by Stoneman's 12th Ohio cavalry.
 Several Union soldiers died in Anderson during the post-war occupation. Some were at the hands of Manse Jolly, including a Lt. Chase from Michigan. And in October, three federal soldiers from Maine were ambushed and killed at Brown's Ferry on the Savannah River.

 The last Confederate funerals were in our century. After the submarine Hunley was recovered in 2000, the remains of the crew were interred in 2014 in Charleston. In 2020, Jack Buttram was reburied after his remains were found on a battlefield in Mumford, Alabama, near Talladega. Buttram, 39, died April 23, 1865, in the "Battle of Mumford," when local civilians made a stand against the 2nd Michigan Cavalry. That unit was returning from Wilson's Raid, which had captured Jefferson Davis May 10, 1865, in Irwin, Georgias. Stoneman's Raid was also involved in the pursuit of the Confederate president.

 Indiana claims that private John Williams was the last man to die in the Civil War. He was killed May 13, 1865, in the Battle of Palmito Ranch on the Rio Grande River in Texas.

 On May 19, 1865, during the Union occupation of Eufala, Alabama, the 1st Florida Cavalry was ambushed at Hodby's Bridge, resulting in the death of Corporal John Skinner.

Anderson Intelligencer, April 30, 1900

 

Greenville: 'Prepare to Meet Your God'

A noble Yankee from Tennessee:
Union Capt. Isaac Taylor

 

GREENVILLE, S.C.

 The Stoneman Gazette has unearthed more information about the skirmish in Greenville, S.C., in May, 1865, that I believe was the last Civil War clash east of the Mississippi.

National Tribune, Sept. 5, 1889

 This clipping was published July 18, 1889, in the National Tribune, a weekly newspaper catering to Union veterans. I found it reprinted Sept. 5, 1889, in the Anderson Intelligencer.

 It is a letter written by Isaac Taylor, a Union captain from Tennessee who was ordered to execute four Confederates accused of mistreating and robbing some of Stoneman's sick and wounded soldiers as they were being evacuated to Knoxville.
 Convinced that the rebels were innocent, Capt. Taylor defied his orders and made a noble last-minute decision to spare their lives.
 I believe that Taylor is describing the same incident that was documented in 2002 by Greenville historian John McLeod, though there are some discrepancies in their stories, and it is possible there were two similar incidents.
 Taylor gives the date as May 24 (rather than May 22 or 23) and the location as 25 miles from Greenville at the foot of the Blue Ridge (not Crescent Ridge near downtown Greenville). He says there were four Confederates (rather than three) facing the firing squad. The 1903 history of the 13th Tennessee Cavalry says it was Lt. T.C. White (rather than Capt. Taylor) who was ordered to carry out the executions.
 Capt. Taylor vividly described the scene as the rebels awaited their fate:

They were informed of the order and given 10 minutes in which to prepare to meet their God. I had passed through many battles and trials, but this was the most trying ordeal of my life. The utter despair depicted on their countenances, while great rivers of perspiration ran down their pallid faces, makes me shudder yet when I think of how near four innocent men were to being murdered by the command "fire" given from my lips.

 Then the surgeon (Dr. James Cameron) recognized a gesture from one of the rebels as the Masons' "Grand-Hailing Sign of Distress." Dr. Cameron was a Mason, and so was Col. Miller, the brigade commander who had ordered the executions.  This made Miller reconsider the charges, and he set the captives free.
 The Civil War is full of stories like this where lives were spared after enemies discovered they were brothers in the secret society of the Masons. In fact, there is a Masonic Memorial at Gettysburg called "Friend to Friend" (pictured below) that honors these traditions. Several similar accounts are found in the annals of Stoneman's Raid. No doubt some are apocryphal, but I think this one is credible, since it is reported by both sides. 

Emporia (Kan.) News, Jan. 24, 1884

 Capt. Taylor (1843-1892) grew up in eastern Tennessee, which was predominantly pro-Union and opposed to secession. When the war began, he enlisted with an Illinois regiment. In 1863 he joined the Union's 13th Tennessee Cavalry, commanding Company B and serving as Acting Assistant Adjutant General under Col. John Miller. The 13th Tennessee was one of eight Yankee regiments that marched with Stoneman's Raid in the spring of 1865. They fought at Wytheville and the Yadkin River bridge and were involved in the pursuit of Jefferson Davis.
 According to this 1884 newspaper tribute, he was the first man in Carter County, Tennessee, to make a stand for Negro suffrage, and he was among the first Republicans elected to the Tennessee legislature. 
 Republicans fell out of favor at the end of Reconstruction, so Capt. Taylor moved to Hartford, Kan., where he built a mill, became president of the local bank, and served as an Indian agent.
 He wrote to the National Tribune in 1889 hoping to make contact with his forgiven enemies:

I disobeyed orders, turned them over to the brigade commander at noon with a full statement of what had occurred, and he discharged them. They were happy, but I cannot believe that they were more so than I was. A Masonic sign saved their lives, and no doubt, saved me from great remorse. If those four ex-Confederates, or any of them, are living, I would be very happy indeed to hear from them.

 Earlier in 1889, Taylor had written to the National Tribune in another attempt to reconcile with the enemy. He said he was seeking to find the rightful owner of a Virginia regimental banner "he captured from the rebels in South Carolina in the spring of 1865." The 13th Tennessee passed through the northwest corner of South Carolina twice during Stoneman's Raid, but I am not aware of any fights they had there with Virginians.

 Taylor died three years later at age 49, and I don't know if he ever heard from any of those rebels. Although he was not familiar with Masonic rites during the war, he evidently apprenticed later, because his obituary says his funeral was conducted by the Knights Templar with Masonic honors.
 According to a biographical sketch in the History of the 13th Regiment, Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry: 

Captain Taylor was an officer of the highest courage, never evading any duty or danger, but was always among the first to reach the danger line when there was fighting to be done. He possessed fine social qualities and a high sense of honor that endeared him to all who knew him.

The Masonic Memorial at Gettysburg portrays Union Capt. Henry Bingham
comforting Confederate Gen. Lewis Armistead, who was
 mortally wounded during Pickett's Charge.

 

 

The fallen Gen. Armistead is portrayed in this Gettysburg scene, painted by James Walker and displayed in the Johnson Collection at the Spartanburg County Library in S.C. 

New York Times, Feb. 20, 1870

NEXT➤ The ghost of Della Barnes

1865 Boone raid made The New York Times

     The New York Times has been expanding its digital library, and today I discovered it now includes a little story on Stoneman's Raid in Boone.
     The invasion of Boone was on the front page April 3, 1865, but was overshadowed by the fall of Richmond and Petersburg. The "VICTORY!" headline foreshadowed Robert E. Lee's surrender April 9. In the same triumphant spirit, The Times wrote, "Gen. Stoneman's command is now well into North Carolina and will be heard of soon in the heart of rebeldom."

     The Times' primary source was the report Gen. Stoneman sent back to his Knoxville headquarters from Boone. (There were no reporters embedded with the raid.) This story says the Union cavalry captured Boone on March 27, instead of the March 28 date that has been accepted by historians. It also overstates the casualties (Stoneman reported nine killed, but researchers have found only one Confederate soldier and two civilians who died.)

     If you would like to revisit The Stoneman Gazette's coverage of the Boone skirmish, start here, or type Boone in the searchbar at right, or explore the links at the bottom of this post.
     The Times also included information relayed from two Virginia newspapers, the March 29 Lynchburg Virginian and the March 31 Richmond Whig (which had grown "disgusted with the Confederate habit of lying.") These describe Stoneman's previous movements in eastern Tennessee from a Confederate perspective. 
     The reference to the evacuation of Bristol is interesting, because Stoneman feinted in that direction before turning south and crossing the mountains toward Boone. He wanted to force the Confederates to commit their troops to defend the Tennessee valley, and this story shows his ploy worked. This news would have reached Lynchburg via train or telegraph along the Virgina & Tennessee Railroad. On April 5, Stoneman cut that lifeline.
     (The town described as Taylorsville is now known as Mountain City. The commander mentioned is Major Myles Keogh, Stoneman's Aide-de-Camp. The Kentucky officer is Major George F. Barnes, whose story I will save for Halloween.)
     Here's an easier-to-read digital transcript of the clipping above:

NEXT➤ Memorial Day: Stoneman's toll

 RELATED BOONE & WATAUGA COUNTY STORIES

Jan. 25: The month they drove old Dixie down

Feb. 1: Abraham Lincoln and the Horn of Freedom

March 23: Stabbing the Confederacy in the back

March 26: 'A Yankee gentleman can steal butter'

March 27: Stoneman's midnight ride takes a wrong turn

March 27: Rallying the Home Guard to fight the Yankees

March 28: Blink and you'll miss the 'battle' of Boone

April 6: Meanwhile, back in Boone

April 17: Historical marker finally finds its way home

Scoop! One of Stoneman's newspapers

CREDIT: University of Georgia archives

 When I began researching Stoneman's Raid, I was fascinated to discover that the Union troops published newspapers in three towns they briefly occupied: Salisbury April 12, Spartanburg April 30, and Athens May 6, 1865.
 I contacted historians in all three towns but was unable to find any of these newspapers during the 150th-anniversary run of The Stoneman Gazette. That was disappointing but not surprising. Confederate publishers did not keep Yankee scrapbooks. In fact, they often erased history as they shaped the myth of the Lost Cause. For example, the publisher of the Salisbury newspaper squelched any mention of Stoneman's Raid in a 618-page history of Rowan County that he published 16 years after the war. (Stoneman's scribes did not ignore him, as we shall see!)
 So I was pleasantly surprised to hear recently from a diligent librarian at the University of Georgia who was able to track down this copy of the Athens paper (click here to enlarge the image). Even better, it includes stories from the other two editions.
 You may not be impressed, but this old newspaperman feels like he has found a buried treasure.
 Each story warrants its own discussion, which we will do in subsequent blogs. Follow the links below.
 The scanned copy is smudged and hard to read, but I think this is what it says:

Scoop! Sly Stoneman chides rebel church

     Gen. George Stoneman was no abolitionist, but there was at least one time when he deserves credit for doing the right thing, if not necessarily for the right reason.
     On June 5, 1865, The New-York Times reprinted a story from Brownlow's Knoxville Whig and Rebel Ventilator, a federally funded and wonderfully named newspaper, describing an episode when Stoneman favored the education of black children over the edification of white Presbyterians.
     Stories like this occasionally emerge as old newspapers are digitized. I haven't found this one in any other account on the worldwide web, so until someone tells me otherwise, The Stoneman Gazette is claiming this as a historical scoop:

(Clipping from The New-York Times, June 5, 1865, Page 1, Column 6)

     My fellow grace-filled Methodists and ink-stained wretches of the press will enjoy the rest of this story:
     William Gannaway Brownlow was a circuit-riding Methodist preacher in the 1820s who made newspapers his pulpit starting in 1839, when he published the Tennessee Whig in Elizabethton. In 1863, the Federal government actually provided "the Fighting Parson" with a press and funding to publish Brownlow's Knoxville Whig and Rebel Ventilator as a pro-Union voice in eastern Tennessee during the war. As far as I know, nobody complained about freedom of the press or separation of church and state. They must have had beeen preoccupied with something more important.

'The Fighting Parson'

     Brownlow was elected governor of Tennessee in 1864, and just two days after he was inaugurated—on April 7, 1865—he got the state legislature to ratify the 13th Amendment to abolish slavery. Stoneman's second in command, Gen. Alvan Gillem, was an elected member of that legislature, but since he was on duty with the Army in Virginia, he was not able to vote on the amendment.
     Brownlow pushed for Tennessee to become the first Confederate state readmitted to the Union, which indeed happened July 24, 1866. 
     The following is from a profile of Brownlow written by a University of Tennessee historian:

     Seemingly never in doubt about his own rectitude, Brownlow regarded anyone who disagreed with him about religion or politics as an enemy. The circuit-riding Methodist parson turned to the press to spread his harsh anti-Presbyterian, anti-Calvinist, anti-Baptist rhetoric, and to branch out into politics. Brownlow’s speeches and publications drew both attention and anger. Founded in 1855, Brownlow’s Knoxville Whig expressed its owner’s fervently held views on the inferiority of blacks and his unalterable opposition to secession.
     In 1861, Brownlow’s criticism of the Confederacy led the government to shut down the Brownlow’s Weekly Whig for two years. On December 6 of that year, Brownlow was arrested on a charge of high treason against the Confederacy. Brownlow spent much of 1862 touring the North, giving pro-Union, invective-spiced lectures. When he returned to Knoxville in the fall of 1863, the federal government provided him with a press, some type, $1,500, and a government printing contract. On November 11, 1863, the first issue of the weekly Brownlow’s Knoxville Whig and Rebel Ventilator rolled off the press.
     Brownlow used the paper to attack the secessionists as “the negro-worshipping aristocracy [and] the cotton and tobacco-planting lords.” He declared that the “halter” (noose) should be used against the rebellion’s leaders, and he backed Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation. Thus, the political trajectory of Brownlow’s editorials had changed from southern Whig in the 1840s to radical Republican by the mid-1860s. In 1864, Brownlow was a force in the convention that abolished slavery in Tennessee and that led to the creation of a new state government. The Unionists won control of the Tennessee legislature, and Brownlow was elected governor in April 1865. Hatred of Brownlow and the Unionists became more intense as laws were passed to disenfranchise those who supported the Confederacy and to give blacks the vote.
     When Brownlow became governor, he turned over the editorship of the Whig to his son, John Bell Brownlow. In February 1866, the title reverted to Brownlow’s Knoxville Whig. In 1869, the paper was sold, and Thomas H. Pearne became editor. It was renamed the Weekly Knoxville Whig, but after only one edition the owners changed the name again to the Knoxville Weekly Whig. After resigning as governor in 1869 and despite his fragile health, Brownlow served a six-year term in the United States Senate. He returned to Knoxville in 1875 and joined William Rule’s weekly Knoxville Whig and Chronicle as editor-in-chief. William Gannaway Brownlow died on April 29, 1877, at age 71.
     Brownlow’s pugnacious editorial stances and willingness to meet violence with violence made him famous and earned him the nickname, “The Fighting Parson.” In the 1830s, before he started newspapering, he was sued for libel and shot in a religious dispute. In the years that followed, Brownlow was shot at through a window in his home, shot in the leg during a fistfight, beaten at a camp meeting after his derringer misfired, and severely injured by two attacks with clubs. One of his newspaper’s slogans sums up both his journalism and his life, “Independent in all things—Neutral in nothing."

NEXT➤ Warhorses: Indispensable yet disposable