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| Elise Bragg outlived her husband Braxton by 32 years. She was 39 when they were captured, and she caught the eye of Union Corp. William Spang, who became an artist after the war. "She was good looking, had black hair and eyes, in fact the perfect type of a Southern brunette," he wrote. |
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| Sgt. Levi Sheffler |
The fireman was Sgt. Levi Sheffler, who recognized Bragg even though the general had tried to disguise himself by shaving his beard and removing insignia from his uniform.
Corp. William Spang confiscated a trunk that belonged to Mrs. Bragg. "She opened her batteries by reminding us who we were and said that she had never been so insulted in all her life as to have her effects searched by a set of Yankee hirelings," Spang wrote. "While she was giving vent to her eloquence, she was at the same time tearing up a letter of dispatch into very small pieces, and by the time her tirade was exhausted, the ground was covered with small bits of paper, reminding me of 'the beautiful snow'."
E.L. Palmer helped escort the Braggs on the 10-hour ride to Union headquarters, and he never forgot how she gave the guards another earful: "Now, gentlemen, you left your homes, where you had all you wished, and came into our country, and brought misery and sorrow to us by all the cruel circumstances of war, with its destruction of life and property. You have made us helpless, hopeless, and comfortless to a degree from which we can never recover. Would you not, as well as we, have been better off without this terrible invasion and subjugation? We have no heart, no hope, no country we care to call our country."
Palmer later wrote: "These words, coming from such a distinguished lady, seemed to call for a reply, but I felt that silence was the most appropriate under the circumstances."
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| Gen. Braxton Bragg: Did the unibrow blow his cover? |
Bragg prospered until the outbreak of the Civil War. He was lukewarm about secession and initially declined Davis' offer to become a Confederate general.
In 1863, he commanded a significant rebel victory at Chickamauga, Ga. But Bragg is more widely known for several defeats—including Perryville, Ky., Chattanooga, Tenn., and Fort Fisher, N.C.—and became a scapegoat for the fall of the Confederacy.
Bragg accompanied President Jefferson Davis when the Confederate government fled by train from Richmond to Danville. Confederate Lt. John Wise left us an eyewitness description. "Mr. Davis sat at a car window. The crowd at the station cheered. He smiled and acknowledged their compliment, but his expression showed physical and mental exhaustion. Near him sat General Bragg, whose shaggy eyebrows and piercing eyes made him look like a much greater man than he ever proved himself to be."
Meanwhile, in 1862 Federal troops confiscated the Braggs' beloved plantation home, called Bivouac. The Freedman's Bureau used it as a shelter for ex-slaves before selling it at auction. It's no wonder that Mrs. Bragg was so indignant about being captured by "Yankee hirelings."
Stripped of his reputation and fortune, Gen. Bragg died in 1876 at age 59. Elise lived until 1908, and her obituary noted that she fell into her final sickness on the 45th anniversary of Chickamauga.
The U.S. Army honored him in 1918 by naming its North Carolina post as Camp Bragg (now Fort Bragg, the nation's largest Army base).
Confederates, though, never forgave him, as reflected in the subtitle of Earl Hess's 2016 biography: Braxton Bragg: The Most Hated Man in the Confederacy.
The U.S. Army honored him in 1918 by naming its North Carolina post as Camp Bragg (now Fort Bragg, the nation's largest Army base).
Confederates, though, never forgave him, as reflected in the subtitle of Earl Hess's 2016 biography: Braxton Bragg: The Most Hated Man in the Confederacy.
Thank you for this story. Sgt. Levi Sheffler is my husband’s great-great grandfather and we have kept this story in our genealogical files!
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