Where Stoneman might have been stopped

WILKESBORO, N.C.

 If there was ever a moment the Confederacy had a chance to stop Stoneman's Raid, it was March 30 through April 1, when his cavalry was bogged down in Wilkes County by flooding and moonshine.
 Rebel forces concentrated in Salisbury, 60 miles southeast, were awaiting Stoneman's attack. If they had come out to meet him, who knows what might have happened. They could have delayed or prevented his invasion of Virginia, which closed the back door on Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia.
 Given Stoneman's orders "to destroy and not to fight battles," he might not have put up much of a fight. Over half his forces were on the south side of the flooded Yadkin River, so at the very least he would have had to retreat significantly upstream to cross the river and head north to his primary targets in Virginia. Hundreds of his soldiers were in no condition to fight, after discovering some of the home brew that made Wilkes County famous. 
 Howard Buzby of Germantown, Pennsylvania, described the scene:

The very heavens had opened their floodgates, and the water was coming down in sheets, which accounted somewhat for the appearance of the troops on the outside, and several whisky stills, which had been struck back of the Ridge, accounted for their appearance on all sides. The number of the "wounded" was startling, and a good many were "dead," for corn whisky is fearful stuff. With the rain coming down in torrents and mud knee-deep, and the stuff warm in the stills, our brave allies were driven to drink.

 Fortunately for Stoneman, there was almost no local resistance. Wilkes County was known as the "little United States," and he couldn't have picked a friendlier place to be bogged down. In the 1861 secession referendum, 97 percent of Wilkes voters were loyal to the Union. 
 It's unlikely the Confederacy knew his exact whereabouts, much less that his forces were divided and sauced. But they had every reason to believe he was following the Yadkin to attack Salisbury, so it would not have been hard for them to find him.
 At this point in the war, the rebels were more interested in defending their towns than looking for a fight. If they had counter-attacked and driven Stoneman back, they might have preserved Robert E. Lee's escape route into the Virginia mountains, saved all the supplies stockpiled at Salisbury, and given the South a much-needed moral victory. They wouldn't have changed the outcome of the war, but they probably would have extended it. 
 Stoneman's biographer, Ben Fuller Fordney, wrote that the general had a great fear of finding himself with his command divided by a river, subject to piecemeal attacks by the Confederates. Similar circumstances had been his undoing at Chancellorsville in 1863 and in Georgia in 1864. "He seemed to think that if the enemy came down on his side, he was a goner," Buzby said.

 For two days, Stoneman's divided forces inched down the Yadkin on opposite sides until they reached the twin towns of Elkin and Jonesville. Rather than waste another day, the impatient general dispatched a Kentucky regiment to burn three mills in the Hamptonville area. We'll have a remarkable eyewitness report on that raid tomorrow.
 On April 1 or 2, the flooding finally subsided, and the south-side troops were able to cross the Yadkin. They headed north by multiple routes, and some were involved in a skirmish at Siloam on the way to Mount Airy. By April 3, they would be in southwestern Virginia, where they would be unstoppable.


Guns vs. butter, Chapter 2: 'You'll pay the devil'

 A historical marker in the well-preserved antebellum village of Rockford, N.C., tells an interesting footnote, which reminds me of the story we posted back on March 26 of Gen. Stoneman taking Mrs. Councill's last firkin of butter.

York's Tavern, Rockford NC (circa 1830)

Union Gen. George Stoneman's raiders passed through this area along the north bank of the Yadkin River on April 1-2, 1865. As they rode through Rockford, they stopped here at Mark York's tavern, a Federal-style building constructed about 1830. According to local tradition, York's wife was churning butter in the front yard with her young son, Jasper, at her side. The troopers demanded that she reveal where local residents had hidden animals and valuables when they learned of the raiders' approach. She refused to answer, even after the Federals threatened to take her son away with them, but finally retorted, "And you'll pay the devil." The soldiers gave up and left, and she returned to her churning.

 Another account of this incident explains that Jasper York "was not quite normal." According to an online genealogy, Jasper was the youngest in a family of 18 children. At the time of the raid, he would have been 4 or 5 years old, his mother Nancy was 55, and his father Marcus (who also had nine children by a previous marriage) was about 85.
 

NEXT➤ Guess where North Carolina's last rebel was born

Sgt. Angelo Wiser's map shows Stoneman's march from Wilkesboro to Jonesville via the south bank of the Yadkin River.

Twin fiddling: Tom Dooley and Gilliam Grayson

Is this Tom Dula?
 This is the photo you'll find if you Google him,
 but this is probably someone else.

HAPPY VALLEY, N.C.

 In the Kingston Trio's 1958 classic Hang Down Your Head, Tom Dooley, poor Tom sits on death row and laments, "Hadn't-a-been for Grayson, I'd-a-been in Tennessee."
 James Grayson was a former Union colonel who caught the rebel Tom Dula (pronounced Dooley) and turned him in for the murder of Laura Foster. Neither Grayson nor Dula was directly involved in Stoneman's Raid, but they are entangled in our story nevertheless. 

 Dula was in a Yankee prison on Wednesday, March 29, 1865, when Gen. Alvan Gillem led two of Stoneman's three cavalry brigades down Happy Valley through the Wilkes County settlements where Dula and Foster were raised. Dula had been captured 19 days earlier, fighting against Sherman in the Battle of Wyse's Creek, near Kinston, N.C. 

 Grayson might-a-been riding in Stoneman's Raid alongside his friend Gillem, except that he had resigned from the Thirteenth Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry for health reasons.

 The drama that tied them all together was a promiscuous relationship involving Tom, Laura, her distant cousins Perline Foster and Anne Foster Melton, and who knows whom else. Anne was married, In fact, Tom had been in the same Yankee prison with Anne's husband, James Melton. But that didn’t stop Tom from sleeping with her or the others as soon as he was released from prison and returned home to Happy Valley. 

 In addition to the inherent jealousies, they soon were dealing with the fact that all four had syphilis, which they called "the pock." Then on May 25, 1866, Laura disappeared.

Col. James Grayson

 People suspected Tom, of course, and he fled into the mountains. In July, calling himself Tom Hall, he sought work at Col. Grayson's farm in the Trade community near the North Carolina-Tennessee border, 15 miles northwest of Boone. Tom needed money to replace his worn-out boots. (Wonder if he regretted how he had treated his cobbler, Anne Melton's husband James?)
 Not long after Tom resumed his westward flight into Tennessee, a posse from Wilkes County arrived in Trade seeking Tom Dula. When Grayson realized that Hall was actually Dula, he hunted him down, finding Dula with blistered feet from his new boots. Grayson tied up Tom, brought him back to the Wilkes County jail, and collected $62 for bounty or expenses. 

 After Laura's body was found in a shallow grave Sept. 1, Tom was tried twice for murder. He was convicted and hanged May 1, 1868 in Statesville. His execution was national news. Click here to read the story in the New York Herald. 

 The courthouse records are filled with lurid details that can lead to a number of conclusions. 

 The Kingston Trio called it "the eternal triangle," implying a rivalry between Grayson, 33, and Dula, 21, for the charms of Miss Foster, 22. (That seems unlikely for several reasons, including the fact that Grayson lived 50 mountainous miles away from Happy Valley.) 

 The Wilkes County Playmakers portray Laura, Anne, and Perline all vying for Tom.
 Were Anne and/or Perline involved in the murder? Was Tom covering for Anne? Did Anne manipulate or betray Tom? Was Laura pregnant when she died? Were Tom and Laura planning to elope? Was Tom trying to "do in" whoever gave him the pock (as witnesses testified in court)? For that matter, could it have been one of Stoneman's raiders who brought the pock into Happy Valley? The Foster cousins already had quite a reputation, and one of Gillem's soldiers commented in his journal about the flirtatious young ladies of Happy Valley.

Gillam Grayson (right) and Henry Whittier (rear)
 with the Greer sisters of Boone NC in 1927.

 Even if Grayson never laid eyes on Anne or Laura, there is a good reason he is named in the song.
 Col. Grayson and Gen. Gillem were both members of the Tennessee legislature, and Grayson had such admiration for Gillem that he named his son Alvan Gillem "A.G." Grayson. So did the colonel's brother, Benjamin, a Union private who named his boy Gilliam Banmon "G.B." Grayson. The cousins grew up hearing the legend of Tom Dula.

 G.B. Grayson (1887-1930) was blinded as a child by staring at the sun glaring off the snow. He discovered a gift for music and became an accomplished fiddler, much like Dula.

 In 1927, Grayson teamed up with guitarist Henry Whittier, and in 1929 they went to Memphis to make the very first recording of Tom Dooley. According to music historian Peter Curry, this was one of the most important recordings of the 20th century. 

 Grayson and Whittier sang it with a different melody and several stanzas you didn't hear from the Kingston Trio. But they did record the signature line that honors the fiddler's uncle: "Hadn't-a-been for Grayson, I'd-a-been in Tennessee." Click here to listen to Grayson and Whittier's song.

Doc Watson, 1964

Doc Watson's version of the story

 When Doc Watson recorded Tom Dooley on his debut album in 1964, he included the following insights on the album liner notes. Doc said that his great-grandmother was with Anne Melton when she died at age 31, haunted by visions of the flames of hell.
 Much of Doc's story sounds like folklore rather than history. In particular, Grayson was not the sheriff and was never married to Anne Melton.
 On the other hand, Doc is always worth listening to.

     In the 1860s, when this story takes place, my great-grandparents were neighbors of Tom Dooley's family, and my grandparents, when they were just children, knew Tom's parents. As the story goes, Tom Dooley was not guilty of the murder of Laura Foster, although he was an accomplice in covering up the crime. Instead of the "eternal triangle" mentioned in the Kingston Trio's version, it was a quadrangle sort of thing. There were two men and two women involved in the whole affair. Mr. Grayson, the sheriff, had courted both Miss Laura Foster and Miss Annie Melton, as had Tom Dooley. Almost everyone around affirmed that Annie Melton had stuck the knife in Miss Laura's ribs and then hit her over the head. Tom Dooley, however, actually buried the girl, making himself an accomplice. Annie Melton was with Tom at Laura's burial, so she, too, was strongly suspected and was jailed. While in jail she bragged and told everyone that her neck was too pretty to put a rope around and that they'd never hang her. Of course, they never did.
     Sheriff Grayson had quite a crush on Annie Melton, and he later married her. Near the end of her life Annie became very ill, and on her deathbed she called her husband in and told him something that seemed to really crush his spirit and reason for living. What Miss Annie told her husband was what she had told the neighborhood women—that she had actually murdered Laura Foster and had let Tom Dooley go to the gallows without saying one word on his behalf. Grayson was so upset that he took his remaining family and moved completely out of this part of North Carolina and went over the edge of Tennessee, which was just being settled.
     The murder of Laura Foster happened just at the end of the Civil War, and Tom Dooley, I believe, had been a hero during the war. Dooley was the kind of guy who grows up very quickly; at the age of fourteen, he was the size of a grown man. He went into the Civil War lying about his age and came back a hero. He was an unthinkably good old-time fiddler, and many people think that the original version, which I learned from my grandmother, has such a lilting, happy-sounding tune because the composer had tried his or her best to get into the song a little of Tom Dooley's personality as a fiddler.

 Doc Watson's lyrics were closer to the 1929 Grayson and Whittier version than to the 1958 Kingston Trio hit.

 Here are the lyrics for the three versions: 

 Yet another source of the Tom Dooley song is traced to Frank Proffitt of Watauga County and Frank Warner of Philadelphia. Warner learned it from Proffitt and recorded it in 1952. Proffitt made his own record in 1962. Proffitt's family may have been connected to the Fosters. Click here to read Lisa O'Donnell's account in the Winston-Salem Journal.

 Lee Knight, a renowned folk musician who knew Proffitt, pointed out that Dula is presumed guilty in the Proffitt version, though he claims innocence in the other versions. 

 Proffitt (1913-1965) lived in the Reese community of western Watauga County, which was on Stoneman's midnight route into Boone. 

 

NEXT➤ Where Stoneman could have been stopped

'Stoneman has just swept through the country'

Fort Defiance was built in 1788 by Gen. William Lenoir and was spared by Stoneman's Raid in 1865

PATTERSON, N.C.

    When Walter Waightstill Lenoir opened this letter from Joseph Caldwell "J.C." Norwood, it may have been the first details he had heard about Yankees invading Happy Valley, the land settled by his grandfather. Read it through his eyes, and then we'll sort it out.

Lenoir 2nd Apl 1865

Dear Walter,

We are just through with a scene of alarm & very great danger. Stoneman has just swept through the country with 10,000 cavalry towards Wilkesboro, Salem, Salisbury, Greensboro, Hillsboro & Raleigh — & we fear there will be no adequate preparation made to meet him. 

About dark on Tuesday evening last the heart of the column reached the Factory & in a few minutes the people around were under guard & the command in camp! They were equipped in the very best manner, & under the severest discipline & were not allowed to plunder to any great extent or commit any acts of violence. They left about 3 O’clock next day Wednesday (29th) except 2 companies that were left to burn the Factory — which they did with great coolness and method. They also set fire to the storehouse & grainery &c. Most of the store-house the cotton house Tanery & oil escaped. The little office joining the store was burned — the last of them left by sundown.

They reached Wilkesboro next evening about dark taking it by surprise also — we hear that Just. Findley’s house was burned — but hope it is a mistake — many of them said that a large body of infantry was behind — we suppose has gone towards Virginia. 

So complete was their guard that they were all taken by surprise down the river & lost all of their horses and mules except Genl Patterson’s one little pony which they couldn’t catch & Rufus’ one which happens to be out of the way. I have not seen Rufus being afraid to leave home — A soldier who was there upon their arrival & made his escape gave us the facts about 2 O’clock that night — And went on to the station. 

We did all we could in the way of hiding necessaries & running off negroes & stock but none of them came home. While at the Factory they made cousin Rufus’ room their head quarters & treated him courteously — behaved very seedily at Cousin Ed’s, the Fort & other places — but committed no violence. They told cousin Rufus that the secessionists down the river would fare badly. We suppose that their next stop would be Elkin or Janesboro. 

The force which passed the Factory — six thousand was commanded by Guilam. Stoneman joined him at Holoman’s Ford with 4 thousand. It is said a third column passed through Jefferson & camped over the river from Wilkesboro. I hope that is not so. 

About two days before a considerable number of negro men left for Tennessee — & have not been heard from since including 4 from the Fort. 1 Genl. Patterson’s 12 E. Jones & 5 from here. Elias John Turner Jones and Wash — from the fort-Larkin Erin Jerry & Joe — I have not heard too many went with the cavalry. Some of the officers cursed the negroes & wished them all in Hell.

We had been for some time before under constant apprehension about tory or robber raids & I have been serving on guard at town every third night & have been as much as two weeks with out taking off my clothes. We are always in danger except when a portion of Avery’s command is here which is not very often — Home guard no account.

A few days before these troubles commenced. I rec. your War Song & other piece we were all very much pleased with them especially the song of which I had the girls to make a good many copies & distribute it pretty generally — & I was about to send it to 3 of the papers — but will wait now until the Storm is passed.

Yours affect'y

JC Norwood

     Norwood was trying to make sense of the scene on Tuesday evening, March 28, 1865, when 1,400 Union cavalry came pouring over the Blue Ridge and flooded into the tranquil and seemingly secure Yadkin River valley. Another 600 arrived the next morning.

     The people who lived and worked around Patterson Cotton Mill had no reason to fear the Civil War would come to their doorsteps. Grant and Sherman were hundreds of miles away, and the impenetrable Blue Ridge guarded their back. 
     Where had all these Yankees suddenly come from? 
     It turns out they had fought that same morning in Boone, 20 miles north. As soon as Boone was subdued, Gen. George Stoneman divided his forces and dispatched two of his three brigades under Gen. Alvan Gillem (Guilam in the letter) to head south, cross the Blue Ridge at Blowing Rock, and raid Patterson Mill.  
     The 2nd Brigade arrived about nightfall, helped themselves to a community storehouse of corn and bacon, and left orders for the 3rd Brigade to burn the mill to keep it from being used to support the Confederate war effort. (Rufus Patterson may have been selling cloth to both sides, so it's possible that some of the Union raiders were wearing his products.)
     More than half of the Federal troops at Patterson Mill, including Gillem, were "Home Yankees" from Kentucky or Tennessee. It's interesting that Norwood describes them as being so well-disciplined, because the Tennesseeans under Gillem soon earned a reputation for looting and worse.

Walter Lenoir

     The recipient of the letter, Walter Lenoir, was a lawyer from an influential family—two of North Carolina's counties were named for his grandfathers, William Lenoir and Waightstill Avery. Fort Defiance ("the Fort" in the letter) is the homestead built in 1788 by William Lenoir. It was spared by the raiders and has been turned into a museum that is open for tours. 
     Walter Lenoir opposed slavery and supported Gov. Zebulon Vance in his efforts to avoid secession. After war broke out, Lenoir volunteered as a Confederate private. Within months he rose to captain under Stonewall Jackson, only to lose a leg after being wounded Sept. 1, 1862, in the Battle of Chantilly, Va. 
     The fact that Norwood overestimated the troop numbers tells us how intimidating the cavalry could be. It's intriguing that Norwood anticipated Stoneman's move into Virginia, which is more than the Confederate leaders did. On the other hand, there was nothing to his rumor of a "third column" coming through Jefferson.
     The raid on Patterson Mill raised great alarm in the town of Lenoir, only six miles away. Norwood and his neighbors must have felt like they had dodged a bullet when Gen. Gillem turned east and followed the Yadkin River toward Wilkesboro. But it was only a brief reprieve. By Easter Sunday, April 16, Stoneman's Raid would be back, occupying the town of Lenoir and turning the St. James Episcopal churchyard into a prison camp.

NEXT➤ Twin fiddling: Tom Dooley and Gilliam Grayson

This Civil War Trails historical marker says the raiders burned Patterson Mill on March 30, but most sources, including Norwood's letter, date it March 29.

Blink and you'll miss the 'battle' of Boone

BOONE, N.C.

 The "battle" of Boone was over so quickly that no one was quite sure what happened. The historical marker at the Watauga County courthouse is correct in describing the action 150 years ago as nothing more than a skirmish.
 Gen. Stoneman barely mentioned it in his official report: "We arrived here in the a.m., ... captured the place, killing 9, capturing 62 home guards and 40 horses."
 Boone actually lost only three men. Stoneman had no reason to exaggerate, given his orders "to destroy and not to fight battles," and it is possible that he meant to use the standard military parlance, "killing or wounding 9," which would have been accurate.
 According to Stoneman's second-in-command, Gen. Alvan Gillem, the Union cavalry was approaching Boone at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, March 28, 1865, when they learned from locals that the Confederate Home Guard was assembled at the courthouse. Major Myles Keogh, always eager for a fight, led a detachment from the 12th Kentucky Cavalry up Daniel Boone's old Wilderness Trail (now the route of U.S. 321 and West King Street) and they arrived in Boone about 11 a.m. The weather was fair. The impending battle, not so much.

Myles Keogh, "the Irish Knight"

 The Home Guard was preparing for a rumored attack by a small band of Home Yankees. One account says 100 men were conducting drills at the courthouse when the first "blue-jackets" appeared.
 A solitary gunshot rang out from the Home Guard. It may have been a warning shot, or it may have been a muzzle-loader triggered by accident. That was all it took to provoke Keogh and his Yankees to charge down what is now King Street. By the time the Home Guard realized that they were facing an entire army, it was too late.

 A southern apologist named Cornelia Phillips Spencer described the scene in her 1866 book, The Last 90 Days of the Civil War in North Carolina. Her source was probably Sarah "Sally" Councill, the Boone matriarch who was indignant that Stoneman had taken her last firkin of butter:

The village was completely taken by surprise. No one was aware of the approach of an enemy till the advance-guard dashed up the main street, making no demand for surrender, but firing right and left at every moving thing they saw. Mrs. James Councill [Sally Councill's daughter-in-law], hearing the noise, stepped into her piazza with her child in her arms, and immediately a volley of balls splintered the wood-work all around her. She, however, escaped unhurt. The people of this county had been warmly attached to the Confederate cause, and had bravely resisted East-Tennessee raiders and marauders. The county-seat was therefore, perhaps, especially obnoxious; and whatever may have been General Stoneman's policy, there were subordinate officers in his command who were only too happy in the opportunity to retort upon a defenseless and unresisting population. ... Several citizens were shot under circumstances of peculiar aggravation.

 Sarah Councill's nephew was one of those. Jacob Mast Councill was the clerk of court for Watauga County, which exempted him from the Confederate draft. Spencer describes him as "a prudent, quiet man, who had taken no part in the war." But he was a Councill, and he may have paid for the perceived rebel sins of his cousin James, who evidently was not in Boone during the raid.
 James Councill (the son of Sarah and Jordan Councill Jr.) represented the county at a statewide convention in May 1861 and had voted for secession, even though Watauga had voted 536-72 to remain in the Union. No doubt, certain pro-Union families held the Councills responsible for some of their hardships during the war.
 (In defense of James Councill, we should note that the convention came just after two provocative events: the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter and Lincoln's call for North Carolina troops to help suppress the rebellion. Three months after the referendum where North Carolina voters narrowly rejected secession, 47,323-46,672, the convention delegates voted 120-0 to leave the Union.) 
 According to local historian and Councill descendant Terry Harmon, at the time of the raid Jacob Councill was farming in what is now downtown Boone, near the current location of the Jones House on King Street. There's no indication that he was armed or involved in the Home Guard activities that day. The only accusation against him was from a black woman named Phoebe, who told approaching Yankees that Jacob was "an infernal rebel," according to Spencer.  
 Historian John Preston Arthur wrote in 1915, "He had been ploughing and was putting his harness up when one of Stoneman's men came to the door and shot him dead, notwithstanding his protestations." Other accounts say he was shot in his field as he pleaded for mercy. 
 In a terrible coincidence, Stoneman's rear guard was foraging at the home of Benjamin Councill, Jacob's father, at the very same hour that Jacob was killed. Benjamin's house is the spot boldly marked "Council-rebel" on Sgt. Angelo Wiser's map (below). 
 Warren Green, a twice-wounded Confederate veteran, was killed while holding up his hands in token of surrender, according to Spencer. One source suggests that Green may have been killed by the notorious Union outlaw Keith Blalock, using the raid as cover for murder. This does sound like Blalock, but others discount the story. Another account says Green accidentally fired the first shot of the skirmish and then was killed by Myles Keogh. 
 Warren's cousin Calvin Green was pursued and shot at when he tried to surrender, so he returned fire and shattered the arm of one of the Yankees before he was wounded and left for dead.
 Sheriff A.J. McBride fought the invaders until he took a bullet in the chest. Confederate veteran Elijah Norris also held his ground after yelling for his father Ephraim to run and hide in the cliffs on Howard's Knob. As Ephraim Norris fled, he was killed by a shot in the back. Arthur reported that except for McBride, all of those wounded were shot from behind. 
 Thomas Holder was wounded in the hip. John Brown suffered a broken ankle as he tried to get away. Waightstill Gragg, a Confederate veteran who was in the group that fired the first shot, was also wounded but not seriously. 
 Jacob Mast Councill's home became a morgue as well as a hospital, according to historian Shepherd Dugger, who was an 11-year-old living near Banner Elk at the time of the raid. Sheriff McBride laid face-down on the plank floor as a Yankee surgeon, operating without anesthesia, cut out a bullet that had followed a rib and lodged near his spine. Calvin Green also was treated and somehow survived. 
 Stoneman did not report his own casualties, which were minimal. There is a credible story of a 15-year-old Boone boy named Steel Frazier who killed one or two Yankees and got away. The Union soldier shot by Calvin Green had to have his arm amputated.
 Among the 69 Confederates captured was First Sgt. Finley Patterson Mast, who was later held as a military prisoner in Louisville, Ky. Sgt. Mast was 30 when he enlisted in the 58th North Carolina Infantry in June of 1862—two months after the beginning of the Confederate draft in April 1862. Most Watauga men were pro-Union and were understandably reluctant to join the rebellion, until they had no other choice. After the war, he returned to Watauga County and was a farmer in the Sugar Grove community.
 As soon as Stoneman gained control of Boone and assessed the situation, he dispatched Gillem and the 2nd Brigade south through Blowing Rock and over the Blue Ridge to raid the Patterson Mill north of Lenoir. The 3rd Brigade followed them later in the day and burned the cotton mill on March 29.
 Meanwhile, some of the soldiers set fire to the Boone jail and burned the Watauga County records. Some blame this on Gillem and say that Stoneman reprimanded him for it. However, Gillem was probably miles away by the time the jail was torched. 
 Stoneman spent the night at Sarah Councill's house, which was located where the downtown Boone post office now stands. The 1st Brigade camped in the bottomland that is now the State Farm field and the Boone Greenway, across the New River from the Blair house, which was built in 1844 and is the oldest house in Boone. Col. William Palmer, commanding the 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry, probably spent the night at the Blair house.
 That evening, Stoneman sent this report back to Gen. George Thomas in Nashville: "We arrived here this a.m., the Twelfth Kentucky in the advance, captured the place, killing 9, capturing 62 home guards and 40 horses. We are getting along very well. Last night, in crossing Stone Mountain, one caisson and one ambulance fell over the precipice and were lost, several horses and men disabled. I shall be compelled to alter slightly from the proposed route on account of the great scarcity of forage and subsistence for the men. Our advance is the first indication the people have had of our movements. We shall, with ordinary good luck, be out of the mountains to-morrow."
 That would be the last Thomas heard from Stoneman for three weeks. 
 Stoneman and the 1st Brigade marched Wednesday, March 29, via Deep Gap toward Wilkesboro, leaving Boone to be occupied by a second wave of Yankees. We'll have that story April 6.

NEXT➤ "Stoneman has just swept through the country"

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

April 6: Meanwhile, back in Boone  

April 17: Historical marker finally finds its way home 

The Blair House was built 21 years before Stoneman's 1st Brigade camped on the farmland nearby.

This map drawn by Sgt. Angelo Wiser shows the families and landmarks Stoneman's Raid encountered on their way into Boone. Notice the crossed sabers at Boone, indicating the site of a skirmish. To see the map full-size, click here. The Taylorsville mentioned on this map is now Mountain City, TN.

Myles to go: Stoneman's rock star

Myles Keogh had been promoted to lieutentant colonel
in 1872 when he posed for this portrait in his dress uniform.

BOONE, N.C.

 For Myles Keogh, the road to glory led from Ireland to the Vatican and from Gettysburg to Little Bighorn—by way of Boone.
 The 25-year-old Keogh was Gen. George Stoneman's most trusted soldier and was at the head of the Federal cavalry when they rode into Boone 150 years ago today.
 Major Keogh was a 19th-century rock star who still has a legion of internet admirers ready to defend him if you dare call him a soldier of fortune or say he spoke with an Irish brogue.
 Keogh exuded courage, confidence, and Irish-spring masculinity. "My great weakness," he once said (imagine these words in an Irish lilt, not a brogue), "is the love I have for the fair sex, and pretty much all my trouble comes from or can be traced to that charming source."
 Try it like this:

"Me great weakness is de lahve i 'ave fahr de fair sex, and pretty moehch all me trooehble combs frahm ahr can be traced to dat charmin sooehrce."

 Think Stonewall Jackson with a dash of Michael Jackson. Keogh was fearless and charismatic, loyal yet vain. 
 Understandably, other soldiers were jealous of him. "We did not like the style of Captain Myles Keogh; there was altogether too much style," Ohio Capt. Theodore Allen said. "He was as handsome a young man as I ever saw. His uniform was spotless and fitted him like the skin on a sausage."
 Yet generals almost universally respected him. Two described him as gallant. Another said, "He was a born soldier." Gen George B. McClellan described him as "a most gentlemanlike man, of soldierly appearance" and praised him for his service at Antietam.

 In Stoneman's division, Gen. George Thomas called Keogh "a young officer of intelligence and integrity," and Gen. Alvan Gillem said, "He has garnered high praise from his superior officers. ... He is unsurpassed in dash."
 Even the crusty Stoneman seemed charmed. "Major Keogh is one of the most superior young officers in the army and is a universal favourite with all who know him," the general wrote.
 So how did the cosmopolitan Keogh wind up in Boone?
 In 1860, at age 20, Keogh was among a thousand Irishmen who volunteered to go to Rome to fight in the Papal Wars for Pope Pius IX. At 22, he answered a call from the Catholic Archbishop of New York, John Hughes, on behalf of Secretary of State William Seward, who was seeking to hire experienced European soldiers to bolster the faltering Union army.

Myles Keogh (left) with the staff of Gen. John Buford (seated)

 Keogh and Stoneman became acquainted through the death of Gen. John Buford in 1863. Keogh had endeared himself to Buford with his heroism at Gettysburg. A few months later, Buford became sick with typhoid, the same disease that had killed two of Keogh's siblings. In his final days, Buford moved into Stoneman's rented home on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, where Keogh cared for him as he died. Stoneman led Buford's funeral procession in New York City (attended by President Lincoln) and Keogh personally accompanied the body to West Point for burial.

 (Some of Stoneman's raiders crossed paths with Buford's kinfolk on April 5, 1865, in Virginia near the Peaks of Otter.)

 When Stoneman was given command of the Federal cavalry in 1864, he chose Keogh as his aide-de-camp. The title is French for "assistant in the field" and gave him great authority. The 1862 Army officers' manual says: 

The Senior Aide-de-Camp is attached to the person of the general, and receive orders only from him. Their function are difficult and delicate. Often enjoying the full confidence of the general, they are employed in representing him, in writing orders, in carrying them in person if necessary, in communicating them verbally upon the battlefield and fields of maneuver. It is important that aide-de-camp should know well the position of troops, routes, post, quarters of generals, composition of columns, and orders of corps; facility in the use of the pen should be joined with exactness of expression; upon fields of battle they watch the movements of the enemy; not only grand maneuvers but special tactics should be familiar to them. It is necessary that their knowledge be sufficiently comprehensive to understand the object and purpose of all orders, and also to judge, in the varying circumstances of a battlefield, whether it is not necessary to modify an order when carried in person, or if there be time to return for new instructions.

 Keogh was alongside Stoneman when Confederates captured them July 31, 1864, in Georgia, after they both had horses shot out from under them. They were imprisoned together in Macon and Charleston until Gen. Sherman negotiated their release in a prisoner swap on Sept. 30. "I thank God I was thought enough of by Genl. Sherman to be specially exchanged," Keogh wrote to his sister Ellen. "I should have died in a very short time & as it is I am almost broken down."
 Keogh was Stoneman's point man on his raid the previous December to Saltville, Va., and he was instrumental in organizing and equipping the troops who rode into Boone. Stoneman could ride in the rear of the cavalry because he trusted Keogh to lead the way and make on-the-spot decisions. 
 Keogh made it unscathed through nearly 80 battles and skirmishes during the Civil War. Presumably, he left the raid after Salisbury and returned to Tennessee with Gen. Stoneman, because he is not mentioned in subsequent reports. 
 He became a U.S. citizen in 1869. Following the war, he joined Gen. George Custer in the Indian terrorities. The solitude was hard on him, and like many soldiers of his era, he began drinking too much. He sensed something ominous in the Dakotas. 
 At age 35, Keogh wrote his will and bought a $10,000 life insurance policy. Less than a year later, on June 25, 1876, he and Custer were among 268 U.S. soldiers massacred at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

 Here's an Irish ode to him. 

 Stoneman's horse, Comanche, survived the battle and lived until 1891, and you can see him today at the Natural History Museum at the University of Kansas. 

 Comanche's fate may remind our readers of the story of Little Sorrel, Stonewall Jackson's horse. 

NEXT➤ Blink and you'll miss the 'battle' of Boone

Only Myles Keogh could steal the spotlight from George Armstrong Custer. In this 1875 photo, Keogh is front and center, and the young lady checking him out is Nellie Wadsworth, who was supposedly Custer's mistress. The famous Gen. Custer is at the far right with an unidentified damsel, while Custer's wife Libbie is on the porch eying Long Soldier, a seven-foot-tall Lakota Indian. Tom Custer (far left) was the first two-time winner of the Medal of Honor and is snuggling up to Emma Wadsworth, Nellie's sister. Boston Custer, George and Tom's kid brother, is getting the cold shoulder from Nellie. Also on the porch are James Calhoun (another Medal of Honor winner) and his wife Margaret, who was the Custers' sister. Officially, this is a portrait of the officers of the 7th Cavalry. Unofficially, they represent "the Custer clan." Keogh, Calhoun, and the Custer brothers all were killed June 25, 1876 at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.  The wet-plate photo was taken by O.S. Goff at Gen. Custer's home at Fort Lincoln in the Dakota Territory. I hope you will agree that this picture is worth a couple of hundred words. I find it more intriguing than your average soap opera.

Stoneman's midnight ride takes a wrong turn

It appears that the cavalry followed the Elk River (red arrows) rather than the Watauga (blue arrows), meaning they had to make a midnight climb of 1,500 feet to cross the ridge at Flat Springs.  

POGA, Tennessee?

     Gen. George Stoneman had told his commanding general that he expected to be in Virginia by March 28. One hundred and fifty years ago today, he realized he was going to have to pick up the pace, so he ordered the first of several overnight marches.
     If Stoneman got lost in the mountains between Hampton, Tenn., and Boone, N.C., he wouldn't be the only one. Even today, U.S. 321 can be daunting as it darts along the shore of Watauga Lake and skirts cliffs through the Watauga River gorge. Today's route generally follows a turnpike that was built in the mid-1850s. Parts of the old road (along with the town of Butler, Tenn.) are now submerged in Watauga Lake. 
     At some point during the moonless night, it appears to me that Stoneman's cavalry strayed off the turnpike and wound up having to cross a mountain in the dark. I don't think this was one of Stoneman's feints to confuse the enemy. I haven't found a good map of the original turnpike, and it is possible that it was built over the mountain because the terrain in the gorge was just too rugged and steep. Or maybe the road was washed out. Maybe some of his Tennessee guides thought they knew a shortcut. More likely, they simply missed a switchback and got lost. Stoneman usually rode in the rear and would have been furious if he knew they were off course.
     Capt. Henry Weand from Norristown, Pa., mentioned in his journal that the cavalry's horses went hungry on March 26, which was worrisome considering the mountains ahead. On March 27, Weand wrote:

Moved early to find something for our horses to eat and found a short feed for them on the south bank of the Watauga River. Marched 18 miles and bivouacked on the mountain pass near the top of Stone Mountain at 4 a.m. on the 28th.

Our march this night was one that those who participated will never forget. The road at times ran close to dangerous precipices, over which occasionally a horse or mule would fall, and in like manner we lost one of the artillery caissons, but no man was hurt. Many loyal citizens built fires along the road and at dangerous places, and also at difficult fords over the mountain streams. Looking back as we toiled up the mountain, the scene was grand and imposing as the march of the column was shown by the trail of fire along the road. Occasionally an old pine tree would take fire and blaze up almost instantaneously, looking like a column of fire. It was an impromptu illumination, and the sight of it repaid us for the toilsome night march.

     In the same brigade with Capt. Weand was Sgt. Angelo Wiser, a talented illustrator who drew daily maps of the cavalry's progress. (These are available online at the Library of Congress by clicking here or the link on the sidebar. Stoneman's Raid starts on Page 8. Here are the direct links to March 27 and March 28.)

Sgt. Wiser's map for March 27 shows the cavalry veering southwest away from the Watauga River

     Sgt. Wiser shows the march turning abruptly southwest away from the Watauga River until stopping near the Reese homestead 200 yards from the North Carolina line. (Decades later, the Reese community gave us Frank Proffitt, 1913-1965, who recorded one of the early versions of "Tom Dooley.") Around dawn on March 28, they crossed Beech Creek near Hately's Mill and continued east, returning to the riverside near the Farthing cemetery on the Old Watauga River Road just downstream from Cove Creek. The raiders forded the Watauga River and followed Cove Creek and Brushy Fork through an open valley approaching Boone.
     Sgt. Wiser's map notes for March 27 say:

About 20-odd miles today. The road up mt is very good, but long, winding continually. Traveled up all night and camped about 1 hour before day.

     Sgt. Wiser was about four miles behind the head of the column, and when the skirmish in Boone erupted at 11 a.m. March 28, his regiment had stopped to feed at Benjamin Councill's house in a valley now known as Vilas.
     Capt. Weand said they crossed Stone Mountain, while the 13th Tennessee called it Iron Mountain. The ridge split by the Watauga River was labeled on the 1863 maps as Stone Mountain north of the gorge and Iron Mountain on the south side. Weand is probably referring to Little Stone Mountain, which is south of the Watauga River and north of Beech Mountain near the valley community of Poga, Tennessee.
     What seems likely is that in the pitch dark, the cavalry followed the Elk River, which is basically the south fork of the Watauga. Capt. Weand said the cavalry was traveling on the south bank, so that would have been an easy mistake.
      But the Elk River would have taken them away from Virginia. Once they realized their mistake (perhaps from some of the Tennessee cavalry who knew the countryside) they had to turn east and cross the ridge at Flat Springs, elevation 3,500, between Little Stone Mountain and Beech Mountain. That's a climb of over 1,500 feet from the Watauga River.
     The route through the Watauga gorge would have shortened their midnight ride by at least a couple of miles and spared the troops and horses 1,000 feet of climbing. If they had gone that way, they might have raided Boone at dawn, when Stoneman preferred to attack so he could catch the enemy sleeping. Unless he ran into trouble in Boone, it might be possible to reach Virginia on March 28, just as he had promised Gen. George Thomas.
      In his report from Boone March 28, Stoneman described the toll of the overnight march: "Last night, in crossing Stone Mountain, one caisson and one ambulance fell over the precipice and were lost, several horses and men disabled."
      After the exhausting climb to Flat Springs, the cavalrymen and their mounts were allowed to rest only one hour or so before continuing the march. As they approached Boone, they learned that the Home Guard was assembled, and they readied themselves for the first serious action of Stoneman's Raid.
      At the front of the column was an adventurous Irishman named Myles Keogh and the battle-tested 12th Kentucky Volunteer Cavalry. By the time they entered Boone about 11 a.m. on March 28, they were tired, hungry, and sore, and it wouldn't take much to provoke them into a fight.

NEXT➤ Myles to go: Stoneman's rock star