The longest raid begins with a single debt

KNOXVILLE, Tenn.

 One hundred and fifty years ago on a chilly and rainy Tuesday, March 21, 1865, Gen. George Stoneman sent a message from Knoxville to Gen. Ulysses Grant near Richmond: "I have the honor to report that my whole command is on the road."
 Grant probably growled. Stoneman took longer to get his cavalry on the road than Sherman took to march across Georgia from Atlanta to the sea.

Gen. George Stoneman, 1863

 Grant knew Stoneman's weaknesses and did not have high expectations. During the Battle of Atlanta in July 1864, Stoneman had been captured by the Confederates when he tried to liberate the Yankee prisoners at Andersonville—a raid that was well-intentioned but ill-conceived if not insubordinate. He had also been blamed (unfairly, it seems) for the Union's 1863 defeat at Chancellorsville. Grant wanted him relieved of duty. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton called him "one of the most worthless officers in the service."
 But Stoneman had influential friends, and Gen. Sherman arranged to a prisoner swap that freed him (along with Confederate Gen. Daniel Govan). Soon, Stoneman was back in the saddle in Tennessee, carrying a grudge. He wrote:

I owe the Southern Confederacy a debt I am anxious to liquidate,
and this offers a propitious occasion.

 Whatever his flaws, the 42-year-old Stoneman was an experienced and skilled soldier. His embarrassing capture in Georgia overshadowed the fact that he stood and fought to the end, giving most of his troops time to escape. He was trained at West Point, where he was a roommate of Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, the Confederate hero who had been mortally wounded at Chancellorsville.
 The week before Sherman took Savannah, Stoneman successfully raided the Virginia towns of Saltville and Wytheville, where he destroyed the Confederacy's vital sources of salt, iron, and lead.
 On January 31, 1865, Grant assigned Stoneman to invade South Carolina and force the Confederates to defend a third front. By the time Stoneman could organize and outfit three brigades of cavalry in Tennessee, Sherman had already sliced through the Carolinas, devastating Columbia and Fayetteville. Meanwhile, Grant was closing a trap on Robert E. Lee's army in Virginia. The end of the Civil War was in sight. 
 So Grant and Gen. George Thomas remapped the mission and sent Stoneman into western North Carolina and Virginia. Grant was still worried about Lee escaping into the Blue Ridge mountains, and he wanted Stoneman to slam that door. 
 Grant wondered if it was too late for Stoneman's Raid to make a difference.
 When Sherman completed his march across Georgia on December 21, 1864, he sent a message to President Abraham Lincoln: "I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the City of Savannah."
 What could Stoneman possibly deliver? Robert E. Lee by Palm Sunday?
 We shall see. 

NEXT➤ Meet George Stoneman

Editor's note: Covering Stoneman's Raid

KNOXVILLE, Tenn.

     There were no reporters* embedded with Stoneman's Raid, and if there had been, they would have had no way to file stories, since Gen. Stoneman was usually operating deep in enemy territory without telegraph connections.  
 However, northern papers did have war correspondents covering the armies of Grant and Sherman. For example, here is The New York Times' story on the Confederate capture of Gen. George Stoneman during Sherman's 1864 siege of Atlanta. (The text comes from a digital scan, which is a wonderful new tool for historians, though not flawless, as readers will see.)
 As a major general, Stoneman was the highest-ranking officer the Confederates ever captured. He was held in relative comfort in Macon and Charleston, compared to the appalling conditions at the Andersonville prison that he was trying to liberate when he was caught. Two months later, Stoneman was freed in a prisoner swap negotiated by Sherman. 
 News moved slowly back then. Stoneman was captured July 31, 1864, and it was not until Aug. 15 that The New York Times had the story, datelined Aug. 9 from Nashville and signed by a reporter named Handel. The second half of the story is a breathless letter dated Aug. 3 from Lt. Col. R.W. Smith, who escaped when Stoneman was captured.

 As we follow the progress of Stoneman's Raid, remember that his army was not usually concentrated in one place. To surprise and overwhelm the enemy, his troops were in almost perpetual motion, rarely pausing to camp for more than a few hours. If one brigade napped, another might leapfrog them. Stoneman liked to march overnight and attack at dawn.
 On the road, his 4,000 mounted soldiers could stretch 10 miles. On April 5 in Virginia, he unleashed simultaneous raids nearly 100 miles apart. On April 11 in North Carolina, he attacked six locations at once. So if our datelines don't always correspond to where the news is happening, you can blame Stoneman.
 Careful readers may also notice a few occasions that the date within the story is not exactly 150 years ago. This happens with a few stories that I considered timeless, and I took the liberty of rescheduling them so they would not be lost behind breaking news the same day. For example, so much happened on March 28 in and around Boone that I've spread the stories over four days. To avoid confusion, out-of-sequence stories generally do not have datelines.

 Though there were no reporters assigned to Stoneman's Raid, the cavalry included at least one future newspaper editor (Ohio Capt. Frank Mason) and a couple of experienced printers. Pennsylvania Capt. Henry Weand kept journals so rich that I commissioned him as the unofficial war correspondent for The Stoneman Gazette. You'll find excerpts from his journal in many of our stories.
 The raiders published their own little "extras" on confiscated presses in Salisbury, N.C.; Spartanburg, S.C.; and Athens, Ga. I was delighted to find this special edition of Southern Watchman.

NEXT➤ The longest raid begins with a single debt

The Stoneman Gazette: Not just whistling Dixie

My Civil War kin include Jackson Griffin

and his son John Griffin, who both died

in Virginia fighting for the South. John

was buried in Virginia, but he and his

father have gravestones at Little River

Baptist Church in the Level Land

community of Abbeville County, S.C.

Just like my forefathers, the

Confederacy was born and buried

in Abbeville. For the birth story, see

this account by my friend Terry Dickson.

We'll write the obit May 2.

 I mentioned George Stoneman in an online discussion, and my friend Terry Harmon posted a revelation that the Yankee general was his seventh cousin, five times removed. 
 To which another good Southerner replied, "I don't believe I would go around telling too many folks about being related to Stoneman."
 It's been 150 years, and Stoneman's name is still a cussword to many of my neighbors here in the Blue Ridge Mountains. 

 Being unfamiliar with Stoneman (and unrelated to him, as far as I know), I googled him a few months ago to learn more about the man behind the historical markers that you can find all over western North Carolina. I expected him to be our little version of Sherman, and I wanted to walk the earth he scorched and maybe tell a couple of stories. I figured a dead Yankee could be good material for my other blog.
 I never expected him to become a blog of his own.  
 The first curiosity I found was that he was in the obscure original version of a popular song from my youth, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. As I explored the history books and 150-year-old newspapers, I discovered connections with Tom Dooley and Doc Watson, Mark Twain and George Custer, a 109-year-old ex-slave and slave-owning Siamese twins, Caesars Head and Yosemite, the first ballgame played on Tobacco Road, the first shot fired at Fort Sumter, the last Confederate left standing, and a mother lode of Madeira wine hidden in my hometown. Not to mention a 3D photograph from 1862. 
 I found a trail of terror that runs from my home in Boone, N.C. (where we caught Stoneman stealing Mrs. Sarah Councill's last pot of butter) to my roots in Anderson, S.C. (where some of his renegade soldiers took our beloved town doctor and his wife and strung them up by their thumbs). Stoneman's Raid didn't spill a lot of blood, but he left plenty boiling. 
 I was surprised to see how insecure Stoneman was, and how much his raid was about settling grudges and salvaging his reputation. And I cringed when I realized what riding horses for thousands of miles can do to a man.
 We'll unfold all those stories over the coming weeks.
 As a son of the South, I was predisposed to hate Stoneman. My family tree includes at least three Confederate soldiers, two of whom died in Virginia. Back when people had favorite albums, mine was White Mansions, which tells the story of "the War of Northern Aggression" through Southern voices.

 At the same time, I'm not here to continue fighting the Civil War. I'm not defending the rebel flag or the Lost Cause. I believe in forgiveness, which goes both ways.

 In other words, I'm not just whistling Dixie.

 Stoneman had few friends. I don't particularly like him, either, but I have enjoyed trying to get to know him. He is a fascinating character that I can't dismiss as a curse word or a historical footnote. And the stories of people caught up in Stoneman's Raid—slaves and masters, soldiers and prisoners, arsonists and firemen, marching bands and fighting preachers—are enough material for a daily newspaper. We'll present eyewitness serials written by Emma Rankin in Marion and Emmala Reed in Anderson. And before we're done, we'll find Yankees reconciled with Jefferson Davis' daughter. 
 Those are just some of the stories that compelled me to launch The Stoneman Gazette, marking the 150th anniversary of Stoneman's Raid. Lord willing, we'll have a fresh tale or two on this blog every day from from March 21, the day Stoneman marched out of Knoxville; to May 13, the day his cavalry learned that the manhunt for Jeff Davis was over.
 We'll spare you the heavy military tactics and gruesome battlefield scenes. There was not much of that during Stoneman's Raid, anyway. Some of the soldiers were excellent correspondents, and we will hear from them on both sides. If I catch them exaggerating, as old soldiers often do, I'll let you know. 
 We'll also spare you the footnotes. I'm a journalist, not a historian or a scholar. I've tried to be conscientious about double-checking sources, but on a subject as contentious as the Civil War, the sources often disagree. If you see something in these pages that needs to be corrected or supplemented, let me know. That's one of the beauties of a blog—the ink never dries. Feel free to comment, but please keep it civil.
 It's hard to break news on the Civil War anymore, although I've found a few stories in recently digitized newspapers or long-forgotten books that may shed some new light. (Find these under the SCOOP! tab on our masthead.) More often, I've plundered the published work of some good historians (see the acknowledgments in the sidebar) and tried to put old news in a fresh perspective. 

 Gen. Sherman said that war is hell, and Gen. Stoneman came close enough to smell the brimstone. He was foremost a soldier bound by orders, and he accomplished his mission with vengeance, daring, cunning, and restraint. Down in Georgia, Sherman set a searing example of how to wage "total war," by making folks on the home front suffer as much as their sons on the battlefield. In that context, we can be thankful that Stoneman was no Sherman. His troops torched dozens of railroad bridges but rarely burned houses. Awful as it was, Stoneman's Raid could have been worse.

 It is possible that Stoneman's Raid forced Robert E. Lee's hand and shortened the Civil War. It is also possible that the war might have ended just as quickly without him, which would mean that all his destruction was in vain.
 Newspapering is different when you know how the story will end. I hope you enjoy reading The Stoneman Gazette as much as I am reporting and writing.

NEXT➤ Editor's Note: Covering Stoneman's Raid

'Tomorrow at 12 o'clock I have to die'

Divided loyalties cost Joseph Honeycutt his life.

HIGH POINT, N.C.

 Stoneman's Raid was part of Ulysses Grant's plan to hasten the end of the Civil War. Gen. Grant knew that every day Gen. Stoneman was delayed, more men would die in vain—on both sides. 

 It's hard to imagine a death more pointless and pathetic than that of Joseph Honeycutt, a 41-year-old father from the Oakboro community of Stanly County, N.C. He was a cobbler in the Confederate army and part of the 7th North Carolina Infantry, commanded by Gen. D.H. Hill, Stonewall Jackson's brother-in-law. Their unit was based in Petersburg, Va., until Hill had a falling-out with Robert E. Lee. On February 26, 1865, they were reassigned to High Point, N.C., primarily to hunt down deserters. On April 12, they were among the rebels who tried to defended Salisbury against Stoneman's Raid.
 Probably about the time of this transfer, Honeycutt and D.M. Furr left their unit, intending to go home to Stanly County. They were caught, court-martialed and executed as a warning to deserters.

 One hundred and fifty years ago, Honeycutt wrote this farewell letter to his family:

March the 3rd, 1865

My Dear Wife:

I have to state to you the sad news that tomorrow at 12 o'clock I have to die. I have to be shot to death for starting home to see my wife and dear children and was arrested and brought back and court-martialed and am to be shot at 12 o'clock. Me and D.M. Furr have to die, but thanks be to God, I am not afraid to die. I think when I leave this world I shall be where Mary and Martha are. Dear wife, don't grieve for me. Try and not. I dreampt last night of seeing you, but I shall never. You shall see your hubby no more. I want you to raise my children in the way that they should go. My dear son, Julius, this is my last order to you. I want you to be a good boy and try to serve God and be a good man. Farewell, Julius, I must leave this world. And my son, Ephraim, try and be a good man and serve God. My dear daughter, Haseltine, I bid farewell to you. Be a good girl and go to preaching. Farewell my dear son, Joel. You have no daddy now. Be a smart boy and mind your mother. My dear Nancy, I bid farewell to you. I want you to keep what things I have and pay my debts. And I want Julius and Ephraim to have my tools and I want them to take good care of them and remember me. I have a little looking glass that I want to send to Rebecca. I want her to remember. I have a good blanket I will get and send home. Will send my things with Lefler and try and get him to send them home if he will and I have 25 or 30 dollars and I shall spend $5 of that in the morning before I suffer. Dear wife, that is four months service. I can't write like if I was not in trouble. I don't mind death like I do to leave my family for I have to suffer so much here that I don't fear. I don't want you to grieve for me, for I feel like I am going home to die no more. I hope I shall be with shining angels and be out of trouble. I have a little book I want Joel to have and remember me. It has some pretty lines. I want you to send the children to school, and son Julius, I can't hear from you any more. I sent him a letter, but got no answer. I pity poor Julius, for he has had no chance. I have got no chance to write for I have to close my letter.

March the 4th, 1865

A few lines to Daniel Lefler and Jane Lefler. I bid farewell to you and my dear mother; I bid farewell to you and fathers and brothers and sisters. I must leave this world. Farewell, Julius my dear son; farewell, Joel, my dear son. I want you all to meet me in Heaven.

(signed) Joseph Honeycutt

To Nancy Honeycutt, farewell, farewell.

PS—I want to have my funeral preached at Pleasant Grove. I want Columbus Foreman to preach it and sing "I Am Going Home to Die No More." This is the 4th day of March at nine o'clock. I must soon be in eternity. I don't desire this, but I am not afraid to die. I want you to get all of the children's funerals preached that are dead. Nancy, I want to see you one more time if I could, but we can't meet anymore. I want you all and the children to meet me in Heaven.

 I haven't been able to find out much more about Joseph Honeycutt, and some doubt the authenticity of the letter. I found it in a 1960 book called the Civil War Treasury. As far as I know, the letter first appeared in the Oxford (N.C.) Public Ledger in 1908.
 There are a number of Honeycutts buried at the Pleasant Grove Baptist Church in Oakboro, but I haven't found a record of Joseph among them. He may have been a Union supporter who was forced to serve with the Confederacy.
 The preacher he mentions is Christopher Columbus Foreman (1828-1890), who is buried at Silver Springs Baptist Church in nearby Norwood. 

NEXT➤ The Stoneman Gazette: Not just whistling Dixie

'Tomorrow at 12 o'clock I have to die'

Divided loyalties cost Joseph Honeycutt his life.

HIGH POINT, N.C.

     Stoneman's Raid was part of Ulysses Grant's plan to hasten the end of the Civil War. Gen. Grant knew that every day Gen. Stoneman was delayed, more men would die in vain—on both sides. 

     It's hard to imagine a death more pointless than that of Joseph Honeycutt, a 41-year-old father from the Oakboro community of Stanly County, N.C. He was a cobbler in the Confederate army and part of the 7th North Carolina Infantry, commanded by Gen. D.H. Hill, Stonewall Jackson's brother-in-law. Their unit was based in Petersburg, Va., until Hill had a falling-out with Robert E. Lee. On February 26, 1865, they were reassigned to High Point, N.C., primarily to hunt down deserters. On April 12, they were among the rebels who tried to defend Salisbury against Stoneman's Raid.
     A few days after they arrived in High Point, Honeycutt and D.M. Furr left their unit, intending to go home to Oakboro, 35 miles south of Salisbury. They were caught, court-martialed, and executed as a warning to other deserters.

     One hundred and fifty years ago, Honeycutt wrote this farewell letter to his family:

March the 3rd, 1865

My Dear Wife:

I have to state to you the sad news that tomorrow at 12 o'clock I have to die. I have to be shot to death for starting home to see my wife and dear children and was arrested and brought back and court-martialed and am to be shot at 12 o'clock. Me and D.M. Furr have to die, but thanks be to God, I am not afraid to die. I think when I leave this world I shall be where Mary and Martha are. Dear wife, don't grieve for me. Try and not. I dreampt last night of seeing you, but I shall never. You shall see your hubby no more. I want you to raise my children in the way that they should go. My dear son, Julius, this is my last order to you. I want you to be a good boy and try to serve God and be a good man. Farewell, Julius, I must leave this world. And my son, Ephraim, try and be a good man and serve God. My dear daughter, Haseltine, I bid farewell to you. Be a good girl and go to preaching. Farewell my dear son, Joel. You have no daddy now. Be a smart boy and mind your mother. My dear Nancy, I bid farewell to you. I want you to keep what things I have and pay my debts. And I want Julius and Ephraim to have my tools and I want them to take good care of them and remember me. I have a little looking glass that I want to send to Rebecca. I want her to remember. I have a good blanket I will get and send home. Will send my things with Lefler and try and get him to send them home if he will and I have 25 or 30 dollars and I shall spend $5 of that in the morning before I suffer. Dear wife, that is four months service. I can't write like if I was not in trouble. I don't mind death like I do to leave my family for I have to suffer so much here that I don't fear. I don't want you to grieve for me, for I feel like I am going home to die no more. I hope I shall be with shining angels and be out of trouble. I have a little book I want Joel to have and remember me. It has some pretty lines. I want you to send the children to school, and son Julius, I can't hear from you any more. I sent him a letter, but got no answer. I pity poor Julius, for he has had no chance. I have got no chance to write for I have to close my letter.

March the 4th, 1865

A few lines to Daniel Lefler and Jane Lefler. I bid farewell to you and my dear mother; I bid farewell to you and fathers and brothers and sisters. I must leave this world. Farewell, Julius my dear son; farewell, Joel, my dear son. I want you all to meet me in Heaven.

(signed) Joseph Honeycutt

To Nancy Honeycutt, farewell, farewell.

PS—I want to have my funeral preached at Pleasant Grove. I want Columbus Foreman to preach it and sing "I Am Going Home to Die No More." This is the 4th day of March at nine o'clock. I must soon be in eternity. I don't desire this, but I am not afraid to die. I want you to get all of the children's funerals preached that are dead. Nancy, I want to see you one more time if I could, but we can't meet anymore. I want you all and the children to meet me in Heaven.

     I haven't been able to find out much more about Joseph Honeycutt, and some doubt the authenticity of the letter. I found it in a 1960 book called the Civil War Treasury. As far as I know, the letter first appeared in the Oxford (N.C.) Public Ledger in 1908.
     There are a number of Honeycutts buried at the Pleasant Grove Baptist Church in Oakboro, but I haven't found a record of Joseph among them. His son Joel (1856-1942) is buried at Oakwood Cemetery near Concord. The preacher he mentions is Christopher Columbus Foreman (1828-1890), who is buried at Silver Springs Baptist Church in nearby Norwood. 
     It's quite possible that Joseph Honeycutt was loyal to the Union but was drafted into the Confederate army.

NEXT➤ The Stoneman Gazette: Not just whistling Dixie

The high feud behind Lincoln's mountain map

Adolph Lindenkohl's topographical map illustrated the upper Tennessee Valley that was the planned route for Stoneman's Raid.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn.

 President Abraham Lincoln used this 1863 map to cast a vision for what became Stoneman's Raid. Pointing to East Tennessee, he told Gen. Otis Howard, "They are loyal there! They are loyal!"
 Lincoln could see that the topography was as friendly as the population. The upper Tennessee Valley was a route ready-made for an invasion of Virginia, complete with a railroad. 
 This was almost certainly the same map that Gen. George Stoneman followed. The detail and precision are remarkable, and the renderings of watersheds and ridges were vital for routing his cavalry through the mountains. 
 To see the map full-size on the Library of Congress website, click here.

 The map was drawn by Adolph Lindenkohl (1833-1904), a native of Germany who became a U.S. citizen in 1857 and served as the Army's senior draftsman from 1862 to 1864. 

 Lindenkohl credits the detail about the mountains to the surveys done by Princeton professor Arnold Guyot in 1856, 1859, and 1860. This may be the earliest map that labels Mount Guyot, Mount Mitchell and Clingman's Dome, whose names were still unsettled at the dawn of the Civil War.

Dr. Elisha Mitchell (1793-1857) and Gen. Thomas Clingman (1812-1897)

 Dr. Elisha Mitchell and his former student, Gen. Thomas Clingman, had a bitter dispute about which of them had discovered North Carolina's highest mountain. The honor was eventually accorded to Dr. Mitchell after his tragic death on the mountain in 1857 and his burial on the summit in 1858.
 On this map, however, the peak we now know as Mount Mitchell is still labeled by its former name, Black Dome. This may reflect Prof. Guyot's reluctance to take sides in the Mitchell-Clingman debate. The point Lindenkohl labeled Mount Mitchell is now known as Clingman's Peak (not to be confused with Clingman's Dome in the Smokies, which is now known by its Cherokee name, Kuwohi). Black Dome is listed at 6,707 feet, as measured by Guyot. It's remarkable that 155 years ago he missed the official elevation of 6,684 by just 23 feet. 

Yadkin County N.C., near Gen. Clingman's home

 In 1861, Clingman was one of the state's leading advocates for secession. He became a Confederate general who was wounded at Cold Harbor and nearly killed at Globe Station, Va. He was recuperating at Shallow Ford Plantation near Huntsville, N.C., when part of Stoneman's 1st Brigade crossed the Yadkin River nearby, April 10-11, 1865.
 The Yankees were busy preparing to attack Salisbury, or otherwise they might have captured Gen. Clingman. They did raid some of the houses around Huntsville and burned a local store. But they spared the houses, including some that stand today. Two Union troopers were shot April 10 as they tried to raid the home of a man named Greenberry Harding, and one of them, Dennis Shea, died April 22 in nearby Salem.
 Many of the town names have been changed since this map was drawn. For example, Taylorsville, Tenn., is now Mountain City, and Taylorsville, Va., is now Stuart, named after Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, who was Stoneman's counterpart in the Confederate cavalry. Both of those towns, as well as Taylorsville, N.C., were in the paths of Stoneman's troops.
 In Virginia, Cranberry Plain is now Hillsville, Jacksonville is Floyd, and Greensville is Galax. In Tennessee, Carter's Depot is now Watauga (near Johnson City). In South Carolina, Limestone Springs is now Gaffney, Pleasant Grove is Greer, Pickensville is Easley and Pickens has been relocated.

NEXT➤ 'Tomorrow at 12 o'clock I have to die'

Cross your eyes and see the Civil War in 3D

FAIR OAKS, Va.

     One hundred and fifty years ago, our forefathers may have lacked electric lights, horseless carriages, or freed slaves, but by golly they had figured out 3D photography.
    That was one of the peripheral surprises from my research of Stoneman's Raid. 
    This double image was taken by James F. Gibson, who apprenticed under Mathew Brady. It shows Col. George Stoneman (right) seated next to Gen. Henry Naglee at Fair Oaks, Virginia, during the Peninsula campaign in 1862. 
    These almost-identical frames were snapped simultanously by side-by-side cameras, mimicking the way we see with our two eyes. If you happen to have a old-fashioned stereoscope, you can easily view it in 3D. 
     If you don't ... well, most of us have a crude stereoscope built in. Hold the image at eye level and arm's length. Cross your eyes so that your left eye is looking at the right image, and vice versa. Wait for it. Soon, the 3D image should come into focus between the two frames.
    It may help to use a larger image than I can show on this blog. Click here.
    Careful! Mama said that if you cross your eyes, your face could freeze like that. 
    And as you sit there disobeying Mama and crossing your eyes, never forget you're facing a tiny camera just above your screen. Somebody may be watching you. In fact, somebody may be watching you from 150 years in the future. 
     Give 2165 a cross-eyed wink!

UPDATE July 20, 2016: I finally figured out how to animate this image so that you don't have to cross your eyes: 

To see lots more 3D images of the Civil War, click here. Another portrait of Gen. Stoneman is posted here.

NEXT➤ Lincoln's map showed the way

To return to our home page, click on The Stoneman Gazette masthead above.

Abraham Lincoln and the Horn of Freedom

 Since the days of Daniel Boone, North Carolina's Watauga County has been a gateway to the West and a threshold of freedom. We celebrate this every summer in Boone with the venerable outdoor drama,  “Horn in the West.”
 Playwright Kermit Hunter's opening lines still thunder:

In the evening West, beyond the last mountain peak, slowly dies the sun in a sea of bronze and crimson. In its setting is the majestic assurance that tomorrow will rise, that a new day will dawn.

Always the hopes and dreams of mankind lie not in the East, but in the fiery land of the sunset. The gaze of man is westward, as if he could glimpse, somewhere beyond the great golden reaches of Eternity—as though he could hear, blowing in the distant sunset, the Horn of Freedom!

 “Horn in the West” is set in America's first great rebellion, the colonial secession from Great Britain. Unresolved issues from the Revolutionary era ultimately led to the second rebellion, the Civil War, where this blog is set.
 In the mountains of western North Carolina, you can find plenty of parallels between the 1780 campaign of British Col. Patrick Ferguson, the villain in “Horn in the West,” and the 1865 raid led by Union Gen. George Stoneman, the antagonist in the song, “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.” Both were cavalrymen who were ordered to crush rebellions and wound up terrorizing the citizenry of the mountains. Ferguson riled the Overmountain Men with threats to “lay waste your country with fire and sword.” Stoneman blazed with the intensity of his orders from Gen. Ulysses Grant: “Leave nothing for the Rebellion to stand upon.” To this day, many up here scorn their names.
 Stoneman's Raiders and the Overmountain Men both marched out of “the fiery land of the sunset,” in this case Tennessee. The Overmountain Men defeated Ferguson in the Battle of Kings Mountain, which turned out to be the tipping point of the American Revolution. The Civil War was all but over by the time Stoneman charged onto the scene, but his raid crippled what was left of the Confederacy and may have hastened the surrender of Robert E. Lee. 

Col. Ferguson was the only native of England who died at Kings Mountain. 
It's customary for Americans to cast stones upon his grave.

 As for the “Horn of Freedom,” there are more parallels evident in how our forefathers responded to tyranny, injustice, and exploitation, whether from King George III or King Cotton. 

 At the height of the Civil War in January 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation to free the slaves in the rebellious states. However, there was no way for the Federal government to enforce the executive order until the rebellion was defeated. For thousands of slaves, their first jubilant steps of freedom were following in the dust of Sherman's march in 1864 or Stoneman's Raid in 1865.
 Just like the Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation had to be fought for before it gained authority. Blood had to be shed, as the Bible says in the book of Hebrews. Battlefields had to be consecrated, as Lincoln said at Gettysburg.

Lincoln's superfluous signature on the 13th Amendment 

 It was 150 years ago when Lincoln took the next step. On Wednesday, February 1, 1865—while Sherman marched from Savannah toward Columbia, Grant besieged Lee at Petersburg, and Stoneman mustered his cavalry in Nashville—Lincoln signed the 13th Amendment to end slavery throughout the United States.
 Lincoln's signature was unnecessary, since the president does not have a constitutional role in the amendment process. As far as I know, the 13th is the only one actually signed by a president. 
 The 13th Amendment would not become part of the Constitution until it was ratified by 27 of the 36 states. That meant it would need to be approved by several of the southern states. By the time Stoneman raided Boone eight weeks later, 19 states had already ratified it. The amendment process stalled after Lincoln was assassinated, and it turns out that Reconstruction governments in Stoneman's path were the final four who made it the law of the land: South Carolina Nov. 13, Alabama Dec. 2, North Carolina Dec. 4, and Georgia Dec. 6, 1865.
 Mississippi could have been the clincher but voted against ratification Dec. 5, 1865. It would be nearly 130 years before Mississippi formally approved the 13th Amendment in 1995.

NEXT➤ Cross your eyes and it's 1863

———————————————

What? You've never seen "Horn in the West"?

Let me know when you're in Boone this summer, and you can be my guest.