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.

Yankee raider plundered heart of a Carolina girl

Thirty years after the Civil War skirmish at her family home, Caty Moore Callahan Long (1847-1904) and her second husband Billy Long (1848-1914) sat for this 1895 portrait. Caty's son Lige Callahan was not present; his wife Lizzie Black Callahan is standing in the center, along with their young daughters: Minnie, Fannie, and Hattie. Billy Long is holding Caty's grandson Tom Callahan. Also standing are the Long children: Caroline, Janie Ellison, George and Ezekiel. Tom was the last of Lizzie's children born in a cabin on the Moore farm, so this picture was taken about the time that Lige moved his family to Piedmont.

Lige with his pet goose

Lige Callahan
(from a family reunion booklet)

Meet the unlikely son of the 'Battle of Anderson'
 

PIEDMONT, S.C.

 I love it when legends turn out to be true.
 I've reported a few legends in the pages of The Stoneman Gazette, including some from the so-called "Battle of Anderson," where I had heard a legend that a wounded Yankee later returned to South Carolina to thank the Southern belles who saved his life. 
 More recently, I was delighted to hear from several members of the family, who filled me in on the rest of the story, which is far better than the legend. Not only did the Yankee return, but he married a young lady who lived on the farm where he was wounded—and they had a son. After the devil caught up with the Yankee, so to speak, his widow married the son of a Confederate veteran who fought at Bull Run. So Caty Moore Callahan Long was connected to the first and last combat of the Civil War. 

The marker in Williamston (left) is 10 miles from the actual site of the fighting. 

 There were at least three skirmishes in Anderson County on May 1, 1865 as Stoneman's raiders converged on Anderson in pursuit of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Two were near Craytonville and Pendleton.
 The one that figures into this story was near Williamston, halfway between Anderson and Greenville. It's the only one that has monuments—a state historical marker in Williamston which commemorates "one of the last engagements of the war," and also a stone erected at the actual site by the Sons of the Confederate Veterans which calls the skirmish "the last unit action of the war east of the Mississippi River."
 The site of the skirmish was a farm on Old Williamston Road, just off I-85 at Exit 35, about a mile north of Shiloh Methodist Church. This was the home of Thomas B. Moore (1803-1873). Part of the Moore family farmhouse still stands on the property.

 This is where a squad from the 10th Michigan Cavalry encountered a group of teenagers from the Columbia Arsenal, which was a prep school for The Citadel in Charleston. Neither side was looking for a fight, but gunshots soon rang out. 
 Both sides sustained wounds. Cadet James Spearman of Newberry was shot in the hand. A Michigan cavalryman was shot from his horse and apparently abandoned by his squad as they disengaged from the fight.

 His identity is something of a mystery. After searching regimental records, I concluded he was James O. Callaghan, from Grand Rapids, Mich., who enlisted at age 41 and would have been one of the oldest members of Company E. Yet some family members say that DNA tests indicate he was from Kentucky. The 11th and 12th Kentucky Cavalry were part of the raid, but I have not found their rosters. 

  We will call him Callahan, because that's the name of his descendants. Some of the Southerners were eager to finish off the fallen Yankee, but the Moore family rescued him and saved his life. He recovered in a wayside hospital in Greenville, which was occupied by Union forces after the war. At some point, Callahan returned to the scene of the battle, was charmed by the farmer's teenage daughter, Emily Catherine Moore (1847-1904), known as "Caty." They moved (possibly eloped) to Texas, where their son was born in 1867. They named him Elijah, after Caty's grandfather, and called him "Lige."

 James Callahan was scorned by his in-laws, and not just because he was a Yankee. He was often drunk and abusive toward Caty. He eventually disappeared, possibly at the hands of Caty's brother, John Moore (1830-1905), a ruffian known as "Devil John." (A dastardly deed by John Moore against Billy Long is described in this 1882 clipping from the Anderson Intelligencer.
 The family rarely talked about Caty's first marriage, according to Jimmy Orr, the great-great-grandson of Caty and her second husband, Billy Long. "It was considered shameful for many years," Orr said. Modern generations were not even sure of Lige's father's name until they found "James Callahan" listed on Lige's 1937 death certificate.
 According to family stories Orr heard from his grandmother and great-aunt in the 1990s, one night Devil John Moore rode home with Callahan's horse and told Caty "he must have drowned in the river." When Caty wanted to remarry, her brother assured her that she did not need to worry about the return of James Callahan.
 Lige's descendants compiled a family history for a reunion in the late 1990s. It includes two stories of the demise of James Callahan. One says that he lost all his money while gambling in a town on the Mississippi River and then left his family behind. Another tale says that Caty and James made it to Texas and setttled on a farm, where dust storms and domestic abuse made her life miserable. The 1870 census shows that Caty and Lige had returned to South Carolina and were living with her parents.

Lt. John Long

 Around 1872, Caty married Billy Long, the son of a Confederate soldier named John Ezekiel Long (1826-1905), who was a 1st Lieutenant with the 4th S.C. Volunteers and fought in the First Battle of Bull Run (Manassas) that began the Civil War. On the morning of July 21, 1861, Lt. Long's unit bravely thwarted a Union flanking move on Matthews Hill—ensuring a Confederate victory and signaling that the war would not end quickly.
 Caty and Billy Long had four sons and four daughters while also raising "Lige," who inherited his father's temper and often did not get along with his half-siblings. Caty died of tuberculosis at age 57 in 1904, and Billy Long died at age 65 in 1914. In her will, Caty left the Moore homeplace to her daughter, Janie Long Ellison; perhaps because she didn't trust Lige to manage it well. She left Lige just one dollar, and he vowed he would never touch it.
 In 1887, 20-year-old Lige Callahan married 18-year-old Carrie Elizabeth "Lizzie" Black, the daughter of a Confederate veteran. She had Native American blood, and many of their children had black hair and dark complexions. Their five oldest children were born in a cabin on the Moore farm, and the rest were born in the town of Piedmont. Today they have dozens of descendants, including including Mitchells, McCalls, Hoopers, Robinsons, and Callahans. 
 Like many men of his generation, Lige went to work in the new cotton mills that sprang up quickly across the South. The Piedmont Manufacturing Company opened in 1873 on the banks of the Saluda River, and the town of Piedmont grew up around the mills. (Seven years later, the nearby mill town of Pelzer was founded by Ellison Adger Smyth, who probably was one of the cadets who fought at Moore's Farm.)

 The 1910 census lists Lige as a cotton mill slasher living at 2 Anderson Street in Piedmont. (A slasher operated a machine that starched the fabric as the yarn was woven.) The address probably should be Academy Street, which was a driveway connecting Anderson Street to the town's original school.
 Most of Lige's children also worked in the mill, and none of them made it past seventh grade in school. 

Lige Callahan's 6-room house still stands
 at 2 Academy Street in Piedmont

 In the 1920 census, Lige was listed as a mill operative living at 2 Academy Street, and in 1930, he was a carpenter living on McElrath Street, near the iconic footbridge that connected the Piedmont mills until it was destroyed in a 2020 flood.
 Lige became a skilled carpenter, even though he was handicapped by a clubbed foot, could not read, and had a weakness for alcohol. He was a member of the Masonic Lodge, played the fiddle, smoked a pipe, raised a garden, and kept a pet goose that would fly to meet him when the mill whistle sounded at the end of his shift.
 In 1910, Lige told the census that he was born in South Carolina (perhaps protecting a family secret), but in 1920 and 1930 he said his birthplace was in Texas. One family tradition said he was born in Sherman, Texas, a town on the Oklahoma border. 
 Lizzie Callahan suffered a stroke at age 53 in 1924 and was in a wheelchair until she died in 1930.
 When 70-year-old Lige Callahan died of kidney disease at Greenville's St. Francis Hospital in 1937, he had 28 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. His son Dub filled out Lige's death certificate, verifying his father's name, James Callahan, and his birthplace in Texas, without specifying the town. Lige and Lizzie are buried at Shiloh United Methodist Church, about a mile south of the Moore family homeplace and just a few yards away from what is now the northbound shoulder of I-85.
 Their sons were:

1. Jim Callahan (1888-1960), possibly named for his Yankee grandfather, never married, taught himself to read the Bible.
2. Tom Callahan (1895-1950), known as the best weaver in the Piedmont Mill.
3. Donald "Dub" Callahan (1903-1960), made a career in the Piedmont Mill, became a 33rd-degree Mason like his father, married Anna Hunnicut and had one son.
4. Elijah Callahan Jr. (1911-1994), a carpenter who married Faye White, had two children. When little Ligia was 12, he repaired a broken fiddle for his father. 

 Their daughters were:

1. Minnie Mitchell (1891-1973), eloped with Henry Mitchell and raised 10 children on a farm in Greenville County. I'm grateful to her great-granddaughters Heddie Fogle Adams and Shannon Owens Wyatt for sharing the family history and helping me cross-check details.
2. Fannie Hooper (1892-1930), married a mill co-worker named William Hooper, died while giving birth to her sixth child.
3. Hattie Robinson (1893-1985), eloped with co-worker Chris Robinson, raised 10 children in Lige's old house at 2 Academy Street in Piedmont.
4. Lessie Fleming (1897-1973), married World War I veteran Henry Fleming. They spent much of their life in Florida and the Charlotte area.
5. Ressie Patat (1901-1966), married Emory Patat. They raised four children in Athens, Ga.
6. Dessie "Det" McCall (1905-1966), married Cleo McCall, who was a sailor in World War II, settled in Pickens County.
7. Mary Callahan (1908-2001), stayed in Piedmont to care for her mother and father in their last years, then worked in the mill.
8. Kate Callahan (1914-1923), named for her grandmother, died of diphtheria at age nine.

 RELATED ANDERSON STORIES

➤ Anderson: 'They wished to ruin us'
➤ The Battle of Anderson, revisited
➤ Emmala's War: Audacity of the 'cute Yankee'
➤ Emmala's War: 'Many drunken demons'
➤ Emmala's War: 'A ruined, humiliated people'
➤ How to stop the Yankees? With a winefest
➤ One of the Confederacy's last martyrs fell here
➤ Craytonville: A crossroads for Stoneman's Raid
➤ 'Angel of mercy' behind Anderson's monument

The battle of Anderson, revisited

This is the 163-year-old flag that the Arsenal cadets rallied around in the "Battle of Anderson." It is displayed at The Citadel Museum in Charleston, S.C. (Photo courtesy The Citadel Archives and Museum)

PIEDMONT, S.C.

 Where was the last battle of the Civil War? Depending on how you define a battle, it might have been in Anderson County. 

 There were three brief skirmishes in the county on May 1, 1865, as thousands of mounted Yankees converged on Anderson to pursue fugitive Confederate President Jefferson Davis. One was near Craytonville, where locals fired on the 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry. Another was near what is now La France Mill, where Col. W.R. Jones' Pendleton Mounted Infantry challenged Yankees from Michigan, Kentucky, or Tennessee. 
 The third incident happened at Thomas Moore's farm halfway between Anderson and Greenville. Historical markers describe this as "one of the last engagements of the war" and "the last unit action of the War between the States east of the Mississippi," the units being a squad from the 10th Michigan Cavalry and the Arsenal Cadets, also known as Company B of the State Battalion. Mercifully, none of those skirmishes resulted in a loss of life.

Memorial in Waynesville, N.C.

 However, the gunshots in the Anderson countryside were not the last hostilities of the war. One of the Arsenal cadets who fought at Moore's Farm, McKenzie Parker, was killed by Stoneman's raiders May 3 in downtown Anderson, as was Texas Ranger A.C. Wall in a midnight skirmish May 9 in Madison, Ga. About May 23 in Greenville, one of Stoneman's Tennessee regiments came under fire from a loosely organized Home Guard. 
 Waynesville, N.C., also makes a claim to the last shot of the war on May 6, 1865, when Thomas' Legion (composed largely Cherokee Indians loyal to the Confederacy) killed James Arwood of the Union's 2nd N.C. Infantry. 
 There were even two Yankees killed by friendly fire May 10 in Irwinville, Ga., during the capture of Jefferson Davis, when two Union lines mistook each other for Confederate bodyguards.

The marker on the left is in downtown Williamston and implies that "one of the last engagements of the war" took place in nearby Mineral Spring Park. Actually, the skirmish happened 10 miles away at Thomas Moore's farm.

 Some of the details of the so-called battle of Anderson weren't easy to nail down when I wrote about it during the 150th anniversary of Stoneman's Raid in 2015. Since then, I've come across some old newspaper accounts and eyewitness reports from the Confederates.
 The Arsenal Academy was a school in Columbia that was essentially a prep school for The Citadel in Charleston. In 1865, when Charleston anticipated an attack from Gen. William T.  Sherman, The Citadel sent its flag to Columbia for safekeeping. Then Sherman decided to attack Columbia instead of Charleston, and the Arsenal cadets took the flag and began marching through the countryside to elude the Yankees.
 They eventually wound up in Greenville, where they helped guard a gun factory until they heard of the approach of Stoneman's cavalry. Knowing that Robert E. Lee had already surrendered, they weren't looking for a fight, so they began retreating toward Newberry. They stopped to rest at Thomas Moore's farm in northern Anderson County, near what is now the town of Piedmont. The farm was in the Williamston Township, even though it was 10 miles from the town of Williamston. Piedmont and Pelzer did not exist at the time, though one of the cadets, Ellison Adger Smyth, would put Pelzer on the map by building a cotton mill there.
 The 10th Michigan Cavalry was riding from Spartanburg toward Anderson, where they were to rendezvous with other regiments from Stoneman's Raid and pursue Davis "to the end of the earth." Their route brought them through the Golden Grove community south of Greenville.
 On their way to Anderson, the Michigan cavalry divided into squads to try to pick up the trail of Jefferson Davis—who was actually taking a more southerly path via Greenwood and Abbeville. Guided down a country lane by a freed slave, the Union cavalry stumbled upon the cadets at Moore's Farm.

Route of the 10th Michigan Cavalry. They were in Lincolnton April 12, Newton April 17, Asheville April 26, Spartanburg April 30, Anderson May 1-2, and Athens May 5.

Gen. Stoneman had left the raid two weeks earlier, and military discipline had broken down under Gen. Simeon Brown. Many of the Union soldiers saw no purpose in pursuing Davis, now that most Confederates had surrendered. By the end of the war, the Michigan, Kentucky, and Tennessee regiments in Stoneman's raid had a terrible reputation, which was borne out by the way the Yankees pillaged and terrorized Asheville April 26, Anderson May 1-2, and Athens May 5.

 Two renegades from Michigan lost their lives through their mischief in Anderson County. The dates they died indicate that they had abandoned the pursuit of Davis. By May 3, their regiments had left South Carolina and were in Georgia. 

• Alanson Wesley Chapman of Hillsdale, Michigan, accidentally shot himself May 5 near Pendleton while looting the Boscobel plantation of Rev. John Bailey Adger. The preacher's memoirs include vivid details. "Chapman had stolen a fine young mare, and in mounting her, his short carbine swung around. The hammer hit the pommel of his saddle as the muzzle jabbed him under the chin, and he fell dead in the yard." His fellow Yankees began going through the pockets of their dead comrades to take his loot." When Adger saw watches Chapman had stolen from his home, he declared, "The hand of God is on you men." They returned the watches to him, and Rev. Adger gave the soldier a proper burial. "I could do no less for any man who died at my door," the preacher said.
• David "Harry" Morrison was killed May 9 between Greenville and Easley in retaliation for the May 1 murder of civilian Matthew Ellison. Morrison, 18, was buried on Turner Hill near what is now the intersection of U.S. 23 and S.C. 153. Family members later reclaimed the bodies of Morrison and Chapman. 

 It's no wonder that the 10th Michigan Cavalry missed their opportunity for fame in the pursuit of Jefferson Davis. In fact, the 10th Michigan Cavalry was still over 100 miles behind Davis when he was captured by the 4th Michigan Cavalry, who had come through Alabama.

Capt. John Peyre Thomas

 On the day of the "battle of Anderson," the Michigan outfit may have been looking for places to plunder, and Moore's farmhouse would have been a likely target. In that case, it might have been every man for himself, which would explain why the squad abandoned their wounded comrade, James Callahan, on the field of battle, rather than fighting to rescue one of their own.
 The superintendent of the Arsenal, Capt. John Peyre Thomas, wrote a history of South Carolina Military Academy in 1893, where he described the events that led to the Anderson skirmish. After the surrender of Gen. Robert E. Lee April 9 in Virginia and Gen. Joseph Johnstone April 26 in North Carolina, he said his cadets were "the only organized body in arms in the state, and perhaps in the South, this side of the Mississippi River."
 Capt. Thomas doesn't mention it, but historian Thomas Bland Keys wrote in his paper "The Federal Pillage of Anderson: Brown's Raid," that a local militia led by Lt. W.P. Price fought alongside the cadets. 
 With so many armed men roaming the countryside, and with Southern blood boiling in defeat, it didn't take much to spark a shootout. From Thomas' book: 

 

 In another passage, Capt. Thomas described the flag as "blue Lyons silk" decorated on one side with the coat of arms of the state of South Carolina and on the reverse with the names of S.C. Revolutionary War battles—Fort Moultrie, Cowpens, King's Mountain, Eutaw Springs. The banner was a gift from the Washington Light Infantry (named for a cousin of George Washington), an organization that is still active in Charleston.
 When I first heard about the cadets rallying around the flag, I thought it might be "Big Red," the famous 5x7-foot banner that was captured by a Union soldier after the war and kept for decades in an Iowa museum. Since 2018, "Big Red" has been displayed at the Holliday Alumni Center at The Citadel, and the state governors have been negotiating a permanent loan that would keep the flag in Charleston.
 At Moore's Farm, the Yankees realized they were outnumbered. They soon retreated and took another route to Anderson. According to Louise Ayer Vandiver's history of Anderson County, the cadets' stand prevented the Yankees from burning the nearby trestle on the Greenville & Columbia Railroad. 
 The wounded Yankee later returned to marry Thomas Moore's daughter. 

Cavalry vs. Calvary: Not a hill to die on

Etched in stone: Note the spelling correction on the seventh line of this marker

 Forty years ago, a British country singer named Paul Kennerly wrote a concept album dealing with the Civil War from a Southern perspective. "White Mansions" is far from politically correct, but it has become a cult classic. The characters were portrayed by  Waylon Jennings, his wife Jessi Colter, and John Dillon and Steve Cash from the Ozark Mountain Daredevils.
 One of my favorite songs on the album was about two warhorses, "The Union Mare and the Confederate Grey" (click to listen). Kennerly betrays his roots by using "grey" instead of "gray," which is how we usually spell it down South.
 But the greater faux pas in the song is in the way Waylon Jennings sang it. In an otherwise outstanding performance, he pronounced cavalry as calvary:

Two horses were trotting. They pranced and they ran.
Each one was commanded by a calvary man.
Two horses stood grazing where their dead riders lay.
A Union mare and a Confederate grey.

They nuzzled each other, as they teased and had fun.
They bathed in the warm rays of the old Southern sun.
No more senseless orders for them to obey.
So they acted like lovers, this mare and this grey.

Now these are such sad times that we're all living in.
For killing your brother is the mightiest sin.
How happy we'd be if we acted the way
of the Union mare and the Confederate grey.

Two horses were trotting. They pranced and they ran.
Each one was commanded by a calvary man.
Two horses stood grazing where their dead riders lay.
A Union mare and a Confederate grey.

 At least when Joan Baez recorded "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," she got "cavalry" correct when she changed "till Stoneman's cavalry came" into "till so much cavalry came."
 It's a common mistake. The Civil War memorial in Tampa, Fla., used Calvary instead of Cavalry, and it cost the veterans' committee $1,635 to fix the cast metal plaque.
 Cavalry was originally misspelled on the stone that marks the site of the May 1, 1865, skirmish in northern Anderson County, S.C. Jimmy Orr, who worked with the Sons of Confederate Veterans to install the monument in 1998, says he is unsure if the error was his or the engravers. "We Baptists are obsessed with Calvary, for obvious reasons," he said.
 Toward the end of Stoneman's Raid, during the pursuit of Jefferson Davis, it is said that some of Stoneman's cavalry camped at Calvary Episcopal Church in Fletcher, N.C. This account of Gen. Stoneman sparing the church is a myth, as the general was no longer with the raid by the time they passed through Henderson County. We don't know much about the general's faith, but we do know he had a unique perspective on the desecration of Southern churches.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

Yankees published this 4-column extra May 6, 1865, while they occupied Athens.

 
 If you are reading The Stoneman Gazette on your phone or tablet (like many in our audience), we invite you to try us the way newspapers were meant to be read—with more than one column.
 Open our page on an old-fashioned computer screen (or switch your iPhone to "View web version") and you'll discover a right-side column that features a search engine, a timeline that guides you day-by-day and town-by town along the path of the raid, and birthdays and biographical links for hundreds of folks who have graced our pages. This is also where we give proper credit to all the fine historians whose work we've plundered.
 Our broadsheet edition also features section tabs where you can explore topics we've covered, such as Faith, Music, Sports, Tech, and Travel. Looking for a table of contents? Start here.
 In other words ... there's more to The Stoneman Gazette than meets the iPhone.  

 

(If you're not pun-shy, you're also invited to visit my other blog. —Tom Layton)

✭✭✭

THREEDOM OF THE PRESS: The Athens newspaper (above) was one of three issues published by Union troops during Stoneman's Raid. Others were in Salisbury, N.C., and Spartanburg, S.C.

Salisbury's markers may not be replaced

The markers on the left and right have disappeared

SALISBURY, N.C.

 Salisbury was the military climax of Stoneman's Raid. On April 12, 1865—three days after Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox, Va.—about 4,000 Union troops captured the town, destroyed its notorious prison, and burned a large storehouse of Confederate war supplies.

 North of the town at Fort York in Davidson County, a band of Confederates successfully defended the Yadkin River railroad trestle in one of the last Confederate victories of the Civil War. 
 Now, two historical markers that commemorate those events have disappeared. A third marker in downtown Salisbury still stands. 
 We've written before about how Stoneman's Raid markers have disappeared. Some speculate they were taken down by offended Southern loyalists—but that wouldn't explain the Fort York marker, since it was a Confederate victory. They could also be victims of scrap-metal salvagers or souvenir hunters.
 The cast aluminum markers cost $1,790. Ansley Wegner with the state historical markers association is quoted in the Salisbury Post as saying the state may not replace them, since there are 19 markers for Stoneman's Raid among the 1,612 markers statewide, which she suggested might be considered duplication.
 In fact, there are more state markers for Stoneman's Raid than for any other event in our history. Since the raid spanned 24 counties in western North Carolina, I could argue that 19 markers is not enough. 
 Including Civil War Trails markers and other local monuments, I am aware of 42 displays in North Carolina that commemorate Stoneman's Raid (or maybe 43, if you count this homemade marker in Rural Hall.

Boone honors its fallen 'Home Yankees'

New stones mark the graves of John Maricle, Henry Evans, and William Bradley in the Boone Cemetery. The haversack and canteen on Evans' grave were placed by the George Stoneman Camp #6 of the Sons of Union Veterans as part of memorial service used a century ago by the Grand Army of the Republic.

 

BOONE, N.C.

 Three blue-eyed Yankees who died in Boone during the final days of the Civil War were honored Sunday, April 8, when new military gravestones were unveiled in the cemetery where they were buried 153 years ago.
 Historian Eric Plaag said the memorial ceremony was "an occasion to do right by these three men, by whom history and local sentiment have often not done right."
 Two of the Union soldiers were from North Carolina and the third was from Kentucky. They died of sickness while serving with the 2nd North Carolina Mounted Infantry, a Union regiment which occupied Boone in April 1865 in the days after Stoneman's Raid.
 Many Southerners felt betrayed by such "Home Yankees" and never forgave them for the hardships their families suffered during and after the war. The three were buried in a segregated section of the Boone cemetery, and over the years their original gravestones have been vandalized and stolen.
 These veterans deserved better. They were loyal to their country, had no stake in slavery or secession, and were not involved in the raid of Boone on March 28, 1865, when Stoneman's troops killed three local men, injured six others, and captured 68.
 The three Union soldiers are buried less than 50 yards from Jacob Mast Councill, whose father Benjamin Councill owned the land that became the town cemetery. Dr. Plaag explained the significance: "In late March 1865, Mr. Councill hauled up this hill the coffin containing the body of his son, Jacob Mast Councill, who had been murdered in cold blood by Union occupiers. Two weeks later, Mr. Councill consented to his land being used for the burial of three other men, this time from the same army that had killed his son. May we all be accorded such respect."

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.

Emma's War: Teaching the Yankees a lesson

This illustration by Steve Jenkins portrays Emma Rankin grabbing the reins of a Union cavalryman as she protects the Carson House, where she was employed as a teacher. Mary Carson stands defiantly on the porch, and I presume that's her husband Col. Logan Carson on the left, though he stayed in the shadows during most of the four days and three nights that Stoneman's troops looted the plantation. If you've never heard of Miss Emma, you really ought to read her story. If not for her tenacity and courage, the Carson House might not have survived Stoneman's Raid. The 225-year-old house near Marion, N.C., now stands as a museum to antebellum life in the Blue Ridge foothills. Want to visit the Carson House? Tours are Wednesday through Sunday.

Revisiting the death of Jacob Mast Councill

 History has given us conflicting accounts of the death of Jacob Mast Councill, the Boone civilian who was one of the first casualties of Stoneman's Raid. My co-worker Terry Harmon and local historian Eric Plaag have sorted through the details in a Facebook thread you can read here or below. 
 Councill was one of three local men killed when the Union troops invaded Boone on March 28, 1865. Some think he was part of the local Home Guard and died defending the town. Others say he was farming when the Yankees rode up and executed him as he pleaded for his life.
 The names Mast and Councill are prominent in Watauga County. Boone was originally known as Councill's Store, named for Jacob's uncle, Jordan Councill Jr. 
 Jacob's home was located in downtown Boone on the same block where the Mast Store now stands. Jacob and his infant daughter (who died previously) were the first two people buried on a hilltop that is now the Boone town cemetery. Within a month, three Union soldiers were laid to rest nearby. 
 The Stoneman Gazette is indebted to Terry for sharing his historical and genealogical research with us. He is the author of Watauga County Revisited in the Images of America series, as well as other collections of local history. Terry works with Samaritan's Purse and supports hundreds of our employees working around the world.

Memorial Day: 'Your Dear Son is Dead'

Union private Oliver Stebbins

 The Civil War was nearly over when John and Charlotte Stebbins of Three Rivers, Michigan, sent their oldest son Oliver to join the Union Army.
 He enlisted Feb. 17, 1865, in the 11th Michigan Cavalry, which was one of the eight brigades assigned to Stoneman's Raid. They rode out of Knoxville, Tennessee, on March 21, 1865—Oliver's 18th birthday.
 For the next four weeks, Stoneman's troops were beyond the reach of mail or telegraph, so we can assume that Stebbins' family heard nothing from him. They must have rejoiced to hear of the fall of Richmond April 2 and the surrender of Gen. Robert E. Lee April 9—certain signs that the war was ending and that their son would soon be coming home.
 Then came the following heartbreaking letters, the first two from a fellow Michigan soldier named John Schroder. [The crude spelling and wording is preserved from the original letters. I have inserted a few explanatory notes in brackets.]

Chattanooga, Tenn. April the 23 1865

Mrs. Stebbins,

I will let you know about your Oliver he is sick in the Hospital here. he was brought here with the Measles he has got over the Measles and has got Nuemonia in his side and the Bronchetis in the other side it is a hard case I have been here sick with the Measles and am just getting over them I am doing all that I can for your Dear Son he is very thirsty and wants watter every little while I watched him all last night and if he was in his right mind I assure you he will get well my bed is right beside his if he wants any thing he cals on me but I dont know whether he is in his right mind or not I see that he has something to eat every meal for I giv it to him myself I belong to the same regiment that he does. I will write you again in two or three days No more at present

John Schroder Co J 11th Michigan Inf Chattanooga, Tennessee