At dawn on Wednesday, April 5, the main body of the Cavalry Division of East Tennessee focused its destructive power on the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad. As one of the best-constructed and maintained roads in the South, it had a well-ditched roadbed. Stone ballast supported every joint along the rails. However, it would not stay that way for long, because Stoneman and Gillem planned to destroy as much of the line as possible. Gillem ordered Palmer’s brigade to burn bridges, railroad ties, and destroy stores east of Christiansburg while Brown’s brigade wrecked tracks and rail facilities west of town. As these parties ranged along the road, a reserve was established in town. This force probably included most of the Third Brigade, already weakened by the detachment of Miller’s men.
Their task began at daylight. Christiansburg, a pretty town with a “fine seminary,” felt the hard Federal hand first. Commissaries had the town’s black women bake bread while unit surgeons moved their patients into Confederate hospitals. Meanwhile, Federal soldiers discovered and destroyed quartermaster’s stores and burned some loaded railroad cars. “We took our first lessons here in destroying railroad tracks,” recalled one veteran. The Christiansburg depot was torched, and the adjoining tracks were wrecked. Ohio cavalrymen E.C. Moderwell explained that the process for ruining a railroad track was simple, but it was also hard work. “We usually took all the fence rails from both sides of the track and piled them on one rail of the rail road, forming a continuous pile, then set the fence rails on fire,” he wrote. “The heat in a short time, by expansion, distorts the rail into all sorts of shapes, and the fire burns off the one end of the ties. To one who has never seen a rail of iron subjected to this treatment the effects are truly wonderful. The rail very often assumes a zigzag shape, resembling a letter Z …. A regiment of men could in this way destroy from three to five miles an hour.” Meanwhile, Brown’s brigade marched west. Their objective was Central Depot [today Radford, Virginia], a small railroad town that housed key railroad facilities, including a roundhouse that usually contained several engines and cars. Even more crucial was the nearby bridge over the New River. Known also as the New River Bridge or Long Bridge, the 700-foot span was covered by a tin roof and supported by metal piers sunk in the riverbed. In May 1864, Union troops had burned the bridge’s wooden frame but had left its metal piers intact. Within five weeks the bridge had been rebuilt with fire-resistant green timber, so destroying it would pose a formidable challenge to Brown’s raiders. To read what happened next, see Chris J. Hartley, Stoneman's Raid, 1865. Excerpt from Stoneman's Raid, 1865, (c) Chris J. Hartley
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April 4, 1865 dawned dry and clear. “Boots and Saddles” brought the Federals tumbling out of their blankets at daybreak. There was no time for breakfast; officers ordered everybody into the saddle immediately. Stoneman wanted to get to Jacksonville, a village about forty-five miles northwest of Danville, as quickly as possible.
At about 6:00 a.m., the weary cavalrymen began the third week of the raid. Fortunately, the scenery helped some to forget their empty stomachs. “Beautiful country through this valley,” Septimus Knight declared. Not everybody in the column was comfortable, however, especially Eber Hendricks of the 10th Michigan. His foot was still sore from the coffee pot accident back at Deep Gap. “It is with great discomfort [that I] keep my place in the ranks,” he complained. Rumors of the approaching raiders swept through the countryside. In response, blacks ran away and whites hid their valuables. Everyone chattered or whispered nervously about the raiders. At their Jacksonville home, young Waitman Stigleman realized something was wrong when his father passed him in the hall without noticing him. “He was very pale and had a look on his face which frightened me,” Stigleman recalled. Entering the room his father had just left, he found his mother crying. She ran to her son and held him close. “The news has been brought to your father that the Yankees are coming,” she said. “They will burn up the town and take everything we have. They are welcome, if they just spare my husband.” The boy’s father, Col. William Stigleman, was the highest-ranking officer in Floyd County, so he planned to meet the raiders and formally surrender Jacksonville. Unfortunately for the locals, there was a complication. As some Federal cavalrymen approached the town, a dozen young men fired on them. “This had inflamed the Yankees. They were terribly incensed,” young Stigleman recorded. The angered troopers returned the favor and killed Confederate Lt. James Madison Howard. The rest of the rebels retreated, chased by the Federal contingent. In town, Unionist citizens trembled. To read what happened next, see Chris J. Hartley, Stoneman's Raid, 1865. Excerpt from Stoneman's Raid, 1865, (c) Chris J. Hartley A red sun announced the dawning of April 3, 1865. Behind Mather, the Blue Ridge Mountains barred the way of the Cavalry Division of East Tennessee. The column got an early start – some men marched as early as 2:00 a.m. – and left Mount Airy for thin air and high country. The direction of the march surprised Michigan trooper Steven Thomas. He told his wife, “It soon became apparent that we were not going to Salisbury at present for we struck out in the direction of Virginia.”
It was about 6:30 a.m. when Betts led the 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry across the state line. “Pass the Virginia line and now we are on the sacred soil,” wrote one trooper. They ascended to Fancy Gap without incident. At about 10:00 a.m., Betts encountered Mather’s recalcitrant detachment roughly four miles from Hillsville. Betts was furious that Mather had not captured the train. “His conduct in not capturing a wagon train is inexcusable and he was placed under arrest,” the angry colonel reported. To finish what was left undone, Betts ordered Lt. Samuel Phillips after the train. Phillips took Companies G and E and galloped off. They met with speedy success. Near Hillsville, the Federal troopers spotted and cornered the wagon train. After a brief fight, the blue-clad raiders captured the prize. “I had charge of the advance. We killed one rebel,” trooper Antes wrote in his diary. The number of wagons they captured remains uncertain. Most Federal sources claim that twenty-two wagons were captured, but Gillem’s report cited only seventeen wagons and one forge. Regardless of the total, the conveyances furnished a much-needed supply of forage. The troopers burned the empty wagons and turned over the animals to the quartermaster. After navigating Fancy Gap, the column stopped to feed and then set their sights on Hillsville, the seat of Carroll County, Virginia. April 3 marked the first time that an organized body of Union soldiers had penetrated this part of Virginia, and the locals trembled. “There was much apprehension and alarm among the citizens as to the treatment they might receive at our hands,” a veteran recalled. As advance guard, the 15th Pennsylvania introduced the locals to Mr. Lincoln’s army. Described by the raiders as a “little village” and a “quiet inland town,” Hillsville did not welcome the cavalrymen warmly. A young disabled man by the name of Burnett, mounted on a gray mare, met them outside of town with gun in hand. He came determined to fight, but one look at the fearsome, dust-covered warriors changed his mind. Burnett kicked his horse’s flanks and tried to get away, but a Pennsylvanian shot Burnett’s horse. Now dismounted, the young man crawled into a culvert under the road. He held his breath and hoped to avoid discovery, but the Federals found his hiding place. The troopers pulled the young man out and ordered him to lead the advance. To read what happened next, see Chris J. Hartley, Stoneman's Raid, 1865. Excerpt from Stoneman's Raid, 1865, (c) Chris J. Hartley Lt. Col. Charles Betts thought that the plan of the campaign changed dramatically on Sunday, April 2. According to the Pennsylvanian, a minister shared information straight from Richmond suggesting that Robert E. Lee was planning to give up Richmond and march to Pennsylvania. This, Betts recalled, prompted Stoneman to strike at the rail lines in southwest Virginia instead of marching east to join Sherman. This story, however, has no basis in fact. As Ohioan Frank Mason recalled, not even Stoneman’s brigade commanders understood their leader’s plans. The only change that occurred on April 2 was that the Yadkin River finally became fordable. At last, Stoneman could carry out George H. Thomas’s March 18 orders directing him to capture Christiansburg. From that point, Stoneman could destroy railroad track and drop bridges on the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad, and even threaten Lynchburg.
The division therefore went to work. Per Gillem’s instructions, Palmer dispatched men to Rockford early on April 2. Extant records do not say how much of his brigade went, but there is no doubt that the town felt the presence of Union troopers that day. Septimus Knight of the 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry was probably among the group. According to his field diary, he left Elkin at 8:00 a.m. The march began like any other; as the column wound its way toward Rockford, the men kept their eyes open for anything that could help their cause, including replacement horses. A ride of about eleven miles brought the Federals to Rockford. Formerly the proud seat of Surry County, the once-prosperous town had played host to the likes of James K. Polk, Aaron Burr and Andrew Jackson. But Rockford was now in decline; fifteen years before, the county seat had moved to Dobson. Only Rockford’s location along the Yadkin River made it important to Stoneman. While the division turned northward, a strong presence in Rockford would provide a strategic bulwark against any threats to the Federal rear and flank. A rumor suggested that the Rockford home guard tried to defend the town, but this was false. The only action the locals took – and this was true throughout much of Surry – was to hide animals and bury valuables. Federal outriders also made their way to Siloam, another Surry County community, where violence erupted. Lt. Col. William Luffman, commander of the 11th Georgia Infantry Regiment, was recuperating from a wound at the home of Maj. R. E. Reeves, another Confederate veteran. Early on April 2, the Spring Place, Georgia, native was taking a bath when he and his host heard a ruckus in the yard. Luffman looked outside and saw a knot of Federal troopers. “Great heavens, Major, the Yankees are upon us!” Luffman yelled. Grabbing his carbine, the colonel ran outside and saw a Federal sitting on his own horse. To read what happened next, see Chris J. Hartley, Stoneman's Raid, 1865. Excerpt from Stoneman's Raid, 1865, (c) Chris J. Hartley Meanwhile, in Palmer’s camp, the sound of “Boots and Saddles” broke the early morning stillness of April 1, 1865. Colonel Betts began day twelve of the raid by ordering his Pennsylvanians to once again test Roaring River. This time the raging stream proved fordable. Pickets were called in – one, Frederic Antes, was relieved at about 9:00 a.m. – and the eastward procession began anew. The day was pleasant and warm; the sky above was clear; and the countryside made a favorable impression. Betts described it as “a very woody country, with few houses,” and “a very barren country with but few inhabitants.” Weand was particularly taken by the terrain. “On April 1st we marched through an immense pine forest. It was the finest piece of timber land I ever saw.”
By 4:00 p.m., the Federals had put about ten miles of empty countryside behind them, and the quiet streets and modest buildings of Elkin were at hand. The town impressed one horseman as a “small but thriving” community that fortunately for them was not thriving with Confederate defenders. On Big Elkin Creek, a tributary of the Yadkin that flowed through town, sat the only structure of military value: the Elkin Manufacturing Company, a small cotton mill that had been in business for almost twenty years. Owned by the Gwyn family, the concern employed about sixty people, mostly young single women who boarded with local residents. The mill had manufactured Confederate uniforms for most of the war, so it was conceivably a legitimate target. Forty-year-old Richard Ransome Gwyn managed the mill. A frail man who had not fought in the war, Gwyn tried to protect his operation. According to tradition, he met the Federals at the mouth of Big Elkin Creek and offered them the hospitality of his home. He also offered to secure food for his guests. Palmer accepted and established his headquarters in Gwyn’s home, which sat on a hill near the factory. The Pennsylvanian was apparently pleased by this gesture, and also by the fact that Gwyn was a fellow Mason. To this day, some say that Palmer placed a guard around the cotton mill to prevent its destruction. The men also enjoyed their visit to Big Elkin Creek – particularly their opportunity to fraternize with the factory’s female employees, who welcomed the visitors with “quite a reception.” Flirting became the main pastime at the mill. Meanwhile, the men found ample supplies inside the factory, the local general store, and a nearby grist mill. Quartermasters lost no time in seizing and distributing bacon, flour, butter, honey, lard, molasses, chestnuts, and tobacco. It was a case of perfect timing, because rations had not been issued in a week. The only problem was finding the time to prepare the food. A Pennsylvanian wrote, “We miss our ‘hard-tack’ very much, now that it is all gone. In place of it flour and cornmeal are issued, which usually is mixed with water and fried, but if we stop long enough the colored women bake it for us, and how good it tastes!” Palmer recognized that the haul at the mill would not satiate his ravenous brigade, so he sought other food sources. He found a couple of other mills in the area and put them to work, and soon had three mills grinding meal. His troopers also added about five hundred bales of cotton to the list of captures. Thanks to these foraging successes, the people of Elkin suffered comparatively less than their neighbors in Wilkes and Watauga. Old Man Dickie Gwyn, Richard’s father, was one of the few who made an unwilling contribution to the cause. Federal troopers took all the corn, fodder, and straw from his home, Cedar Point, which sat on a hill west of Big Elkin Creek. The raiders did not molest Gwyn’s bacon or his horses, and his cattle escaped as well. Thus satisfied, the Federals camped for the night in and around Elkin. Mallaby’s signal corps unit, still divided by the river, did its job and kept communications open. The signalers south of the Yadkin left the Wilkesboro area at 7:30 a.m. and reached Jonesville around noon. Meanwhile, across the river, the flagmen said goodbye to their lady friends, but only after enjoying a good breakfast and picking up horses to replace the ones they had left on the other side of the river. These cavalrymen also followed the Yadkin River eastward, crossed Roaring River at a deep ford, and finally caught up with the 10th Michigan. By 1:00 p.m., the two detachments were able to raise their flags again and start sending messages. When suppertime rolled around, Frankenberry was able to take a break. Camping beside Palmer’s headquarters near Elkin Factory, the Pennsylvanian tore into a supper of fried meat and a large biscuit. As he ate, Frankenberry listened to the mill grinding away and admired the hundreds of bales of cotton stacked nearby. For more, see Chris J. Hartley, Stoneman's Raid, 1865. Excerpt from Stoneman's Raid, 1865, (c) Chris J. Hartley George Stoneman remained stymied by the Yadkin River. Indeed, of all the geographic obstacles the Cavalry Division of the District of East Tennessee would face on this raid, the Yadkin River posed the greatest challenge. This was not the first army that the river had frustrated; eighty-four years before, during the Revolution, Cornwallis’s British army had struggled across it while en route to Guilford Court House. Today, March 31, Stoneman’s planned move into Virginia remained frustratingly impossible, but the return of good weather promised to make the Yadkin passable again. “The rain had ceased and the afternoon was bright, having the appearance of Spring,” recalled a 13th Tennessee man. This fine day, Buzby added, meant that “everybody was in better humor. The ‘wounded,’ after a good night’s sleep, awoke quite refreshed,” he recalled. The Pennsylvania trooper could not resist sharing the experiences of the previous day. Hopping on to Camelback, Buzby somehow made it across the river and described the review to Colonel Palmer. “Palmer rarely indulged in a good laugh, but did this time,” Buzby recalled.
After a leisurely breakfast, Mallaby’s signallers established communications between the separated columns. Frank Frankenberry and two comrades paddled across the river in a dugout and set up a signal station on the porch of a house overlooking the river. By mid-afternoon, Palmer was ready to report to his superiors. “No enemy to be seen this [side] of the river,” he signaled. With his way clear, Palmer suggested that he move the First Brigade past Roaring River to Hickerson’s Plantation, about six miles from Elkin. From south of the river, Stoneman and Gillem signaled back and affirmed Palmer’s plan, and pointed the Second and Third Brigades eastward as well. Sliding the division in that direction would position it for a quick northward march. Stoneman also signaled that the two brigades on the south bank would march on Jonesville. They expected to capture the town on April 1, while Palmer was to take Elkin, opposite Jonesville. There he was to camp and secure forage. With that the march resumed, at an easy pace. Since the rainy, muddy days had spread out the Second and Third Brigades, the leisurely march allowed the column to close up. They also scooped up the area’s abundant forage; thus, despite the obstinate river, Stoneman’s Yadkin Valley detour had been a success. The troopers even took time for other duties – specifically, an inspection. The division’s inspector general inspected the arms of the 11th Michigan to ensure readiness for anything that might come their way. The early halt also gave the men time to ponder their leaders’ strategy. Like Beauregard, Johnston, and Stephen D. Lee, Stoneman’s men assumed they would strike Salisbury, which was now within reach. Instead, Stoneman only sent a few detachments toward different points on the North Carolina Railroad to create confusion. One such group, which included three companies of the 11th Kentucky Cavalry, rode into southern Yadkin and northern Iredell Counties to burn the factories located along Hunting Creek. This was the industrial center of the region: several cotton factories, including the Eagle Mills, Buck Shoals and Troy facilities, went up in smoke, along with eight hundred bales of cotton and one thousand bushels of wheat at Eagle Mills alone. It was a lightning attack, because the machines at Buck Shoals were still running when the match was applied. The troopers did pause long enough to share cloth with the workers before lighting the fire. Only Wilfred Turner’s Turnersburg cotton mill escaped, even though the Kentuckians may have ridden within a half mile of the mill. The reason for its escape is uncertain. According to one account, Turner asked Col. S.A. Sharpe, commander of Iredell’s Home Guard, for help. Sharpe posted his men on a hill along Rocky Creek. The home guardsmen built breastworks and stacked up cotton bales for protection, and this position may have dissuaded the Federals from making an attack. Another explanation had it that a local took a group of slave children to the raiders. “See these children?” he reportedly said. “If you burn that mill, you will the take bread out of their mouth.” Yet another source claims that Masonic ties of the defenders and the attackers saved the Turnersburg mill. Thursday, March 30, 1865, dawned with the cavalry division camped around the small town of Wilkesboro. The torrential spring rain continued, soaking everything. Water trickled inside Colonel Trowbridge’s rubber cloth coat and awoke him, so he began making breakfast. This did not ease his misery. “If you would have a picture of some of the minor discomforts of a cavalry raid,” Trowbridge wrote, “imagine … sitting on a log in the woods, near a sputtering fire, with a tin plate on [your] knees, a tin cup of coffee … on a stump …, making a breakfast of fried bacon and corn pone, while the breakfast was fast being cooled and the coffee rapidly diluted by the incessant rain.” Fortunately, an officer appeared and rescued him. “Why, Colonel, what are you doing here? They have a good warm breakfast for you down at that farm house. There are about thirty of the fellows there and they are keeping a place for you,” the man said. The grateful Trowbridge wondered if the man was an angel.
After breakfast, the 10th Michigan stayed put on the north side of the Yadkin. Besides staying dry, Trowbridge’s main objective for the day was to collect the men who were still missing from the previous night. Lt. Col. Charles M. Betts’ 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry exerted only slightly more effort. Despite the storm, the troopers marched at about 8:00 a.m. “Raining and roads very heavy,” read Company A’s morning report. Three or four miles down the road they approached the Reddies, a tributary of the Yadkin. Finding a very deep ford, the troopers waded across. Betts ordered his men to camp on the other side, still north of the Yadkin at a point roughly opposite Wilkesboro. Stoneman’s objective that Thursday was to reunite his part of the division with the 15th Pennsylvania and 10th Michigan north of the Yadkin. Once joined, the division could resume its journey toward Christiansburg. Col. William J. Palmer took the lead and ordered his brigade’s last regiment, the 12th Ohio Cavalry, across the river to join the other two regiments. Palmer marched with the 12th as it headed for the nearest ford. Trooper Howard Buzby, astride Camelback, followed Palmer. Buzby had campaigned with Palmer often and knew him well. When deep in thought, Palmer would press one or both heels in toward his horse’s flanks, as if he were trying to squeeze out an idea or a plan, yet without touching the horse. As the column passed through Wilkesboro – Buzby called it “quite a village” – he saw Palmer doing just that, with both heels; something apparently disturbed his boss. Soon he understood. The Yadkin River, Buzby said, was “running wild,” and was fast becoming a dangerous obstacle. As the Ohioans braved the river, Palmer ordered Buzby to stay on the south bank and guide the other two brigades to the ford. Buzby watched the Ohioans struggle across. It was still early; the column stretched back into Wilkesboro. The rain showed no signs of letting up. Pvt. Joseph Banks, who described the storm as “powerful,” noted with alarm that the river was rising fast. Soon the crossing became a ford in name only, forcing some men to swim their horses. That was no easy task. “Almost any horse can swim, but you must let him have his head, ease up off the saddle and swim a little yourself,” wrote Buzby. “Some never reached the other side…. It was a fearful sight.” A few men may have drowned in the attempt, but the 12th made it across. Once on the north bank, the exhausted Ohioans bivouacked and searched for forage. For more, see Chris J. Hartley, Stoneman's Raid, 1865. Excerpt from Stoneman's Raid, 1865, (c) Chris J. Hartley It was wet and nearing dusk when the Ohioans approached the village. Evening came early because of the dark rain clouds overhead; the heavy precipitation that characterized March 1865 throughout the South had found the raiders again. Despite the weather, some of the local young men, fearing conscription, had spent the day plowing "vigorously" in the fields. In town, a new conscription officer and some thirty-six Confederate soldiers went about their business. Forty-year-old Calvin J. Cowles, a local herb dealer, had just finished writing a letter when the Federals "came dashing into town and turned everything upside down. . . . They came in with a yell and ran completely through the place frightening a small body (36) of Confederates out of their wits and out of the place. In about half an hour they entered my yard . . . and they met me pistol in hand pointing threateningly at my breast commanding me to open my store which I did as quickly as possible. They 'prowled' the store but did not take my money – burned the Gray House and all my fence convenient to the road – took half my corn and all my fodder – took 4 mules and Nat and the mare – took Nels and Jim off with them. . . . The boys took the … Gilbert saddle and rode off right before our eyes not even saying 'goodbye.'"
Wilkesboro was the home of Lt. Col. J.A. Hampton’s 68th Battalion of Home Guards. Hampton and his men never had a chance; according to Cowles, the Ohioans rushed in "like an avalanche." Local tradition suggests that a skirmish broke out on Barracks Hill between the 12th Ohio and the home guard. If it did, the fight did not amount to much. One cavalryman, Maj. E.C. Moderwell, recalled only that the Federals rounded up a few prisoners and some commissary stores in Wilkesboro. Another Ohio trooper recorded that the town had been evacuated when the troopers arrived. Only Gillem, who was not present, dramatized the event when he reported that the cavalry “drove the enemy” from town. As darkness fell on March 29, the 12th Ohio Cavalry firmly held Wilkesboro. The regiment would remain in Wilkesboro for the night. A few miles away, the 15th Pennsylvania continued its now downhill trek to Wilkesboro, following the 12th Ohio. As the day lengthened the weather worsened, extinguishing whatever light remained. Streams, hills and dales, and both Lewis Fork and the Yadkin River barred the way. Finally, about 10:00 p.m., the regiment halted at a plantation about four miles from Wilkesboro. In the heavy rain, they camped in a freshly plowed field. But if the weather was miserable, the fine plantation offered a cornucopia. Even the unit’s worn-out horses got their first feed of grain since crossing the state line. Their hosts, the Gray family, welcomed the raiders pleasantly, and expressed their hope for peace. The night’s work was not done for Howard E. Buzby, however. Buzby, a member of Colonel Palmer’s escort, rode off to find Stoneman. Buzby applied his Texas spurs to his horse, Camelback, and pitched into the blackness. When he found the commanding general, he reported, “[Colonel] Palmer sends his compliments, etc.” Stoneman offered no orders, other than instructions not to get too far ahead. Buzby returned to camp, delivered this message to Palmer, and then promptly fell asleep on his blanket. Last of all came the frustrated 10th Michigan. Trowbridge’s men marched all day to overtake their missing comrades, but only wildlife kept them company. “I do not remember that we saw, during the whole day, a single person of whom we could make a guide or from whom we could gain any information as to the country,” he wrote. As the day ended, the colonel’s dilemma worsened. “Night came on, and it was so dark we could scarcely see our horses heads,” Trowbridge complained. One of the men in the column testified to the difficulty of the rainy march. “This was the worst night march I ever experienced. The rain poured in torrents[,] dark as Egypt in a mountain region[,] the road frequently lying on the verge of awful precipices where to have gone off would have been instant death to both rider and horse,” he wrote. For more, see Chris J. Hartley, Stoneman's Raid, 1865. Excerpt from Stoneman's Raid, 1865, (c) Chris J. Hartley Rumors preceded Stoneman's Federal cavalry raiders, indicating that a force of ten, fifteen, thirty, or even sixty thousand was on its way. In preparation, residents of Boone, the county seat of Watauga County, “toted” their hams to mountain pastures, set them on boulders, and covered them with moss.
Although nestled deep in the mountains and distant from any front, Watauga County and the rest of western North Carolina had witnessed untold strife. In fact, there was a direct relationship between East Tennessee and Western North Carolina – the two areas were mirrors of each other. When the war began, many residents of Western North Carolina supported the Confederate cause. About twenty thousand men from the region flocked to the Confederate banner. But as in East Tennessee, mounting hardships bred Unionism. Casualties at the front, depredations of foragers from both sides, the Conscription Act, inflation, and the Confederate government’s tax-in-kind policy – which required farmers to turn over one-tenth of their crops to the government – left many mountain residents hungry and destitute. Wives begged their soldier husbands to come home. As dissent grew, Western North Carolina became the dominion of guerillas, deserters, and raiders. This was an ugly internal war, and both sides had blood on their hands. As a result, Unionism peaked around the time George Stoneman arrived. For the balance of the war, Watauga County had been better prepared than most to deal with such internecine conflict. The local home guard, Maj. Harvey Bingham’s 11th Battalion, was uniquely able. Bingham, a Caldwell County native in his twenties, was a twice-wounded, discharged veteran of the 37th North Carolina Infantry Regiment. Invited to take command of the local home guard, Bingham wisely recruited other discharged veterans wherever possible to lend backbone to his force. He ultimately raised two home guard companies from Watauga and neighboring Ashe County, and stationed them at Camp Mast. Although an unimpressive array of Mexican War surplus tents, shacks, and works, Camp Mast became one of the Confederacy’s few secure positions north of Asheville. Bingham kept one company on alert constantly, while the men of the second company stood down and went home. This system proved effective, and Bingham made his presence felt in battling Keith Blalock and other Unionists. In February 1865, however, the tide turned. About one hundred Unionists surrounded, hoodwinked, and captured Camp Mast, ejecting a home guard company from the war and sending the local force into disarray. The Boone home guard meeting on March 28 was an effort to regroup in the wake of the Camp Mast debacle. This was not just a gathering of green teenagers and old men beating their chests. Many of those present were furloughed, paroled or recuperating Confederate soldiers, home from the front. Organizationally, the men wisely emphasized experience, and elected new leaders with that in mind, including Lt. Elijah J. Norris, a twenty-one-year-old veteran of the 18th Tennessee Infantry who bore scars from five wounds. The men agreed that the reconstituted company’s task was to keep order and prevent depredations. The first opportunity for the unit – officially Company B of the 11th Battalion North Carolina Home Guards – came all too quickly. Boone was a town of several log cabins, a handful of larger homes, a courthouse, an inn, and a general store, surrounded by laurel tree-covered hills and high mountains. It was about 11:00 a.m. on March 28 when Keogh and his men rode into town. At that moment, about one hundred home guardsmen were drilling at the muster grounds near the courthouse. More men watched from the upper story of the home of Jordan Councill, another home guard captain.[v] Suddenly, gunfire erupted. According to one account, it started when someone accidentally fired their weapon. However, it is more likely that the surprising sight of blue-clad cavalry in town sparked a deliberate reaction. Some of the home guardsmen had been off duty when Camp Mast surrendered. Some had escaped the surrender. Others were just Southern sympathizers, ready to serve. All were still smarting from the rough handling they had taken. They resolved not to be beaten this time – but they did not realize the power of the force headed their way. For more, see Chris J. Hartley, Stoneman's Raid, 1865. Excerpt from Stoneman's Raid, 1865, (c) Chris J. Hartley On the morning of March 27, Stoneman issued orders based on the plans gruffly laid the night before. His goal: to make a rapid push across the Watauga River and into North Carolina, reuniting his division in the process. At about 8:00 a.m. on March 27, a clear, warm Monday, the First and Second Brigades left their camps. For a few miles, their route paralleled the Watauga River. Behind them, the Iron Mountains passed into the distance; ahead loomed the Stone Mountains, the last obstacle between the raiders and North Carolina. Frank Frankenberry called it a “romantic road. Mountains on each side … and a small stream by the road side.” About five miles down the road, at a crossing of the Watauga River, officers called a halt. After a three-hour pause to rest and feed their hungry horses, the march resumed. Only a few homes lined the rugged route; a lonely wood road that trailed off into the wilderness was the only intersecting road they passed. That afternoon, the Federals stopped to feed again. Stoneman, wisely taking precautions to ensure he knew what – or who – awaited, sent a company ahead on a scout.
This was the second patrol of the day. At 8:30 a.m., Sgt. William F. Colton took one hundred men from the 15th Pennsylvania’s First Battalion up the Stone Mountains to secure a key gap. The veteran sergeant endeavored to execute the orders with his usual efficiency, but en route he stopped to feed the contingent’s horses. Palmer had ordered him to do just that, but it was the wrong thing to do. By 1:15 p.m. the chore was finished and the men were ready to continue, but Stoneman appeared as the troopers were moving out. Asking what Colton’s orders were, the general probed, “Were you ordered to feed?” Colton answered that he was. “Well, sir, either you have disobeyed your orders or my orders were misconveyed to you. You can halt here and report to Colonel Palmer.” With that Stoneman abruptly rode off, apparently to find another force to complete the task. A chastened Colton later confided to his diary, “It was cutting, but what could I say?” A few minutes later, he received other orders and was unable to complete the mission. Colton could only hope for an opportunity to redeem himself. Around noon on March 27 in Elizabethton, Miller’s Tennesseeans left town on Gillem’s orders to follow the rest of the division into North Carolina. They rode southward through Valley Forge, found Stoneman’s winding column at Doe River Cove, and fell in. They made it as far as present-day Butler before camping for the night. Once again, some Tennessee troopers scattered to visit friends and family in the vicinity, but others gave military needs a higher priority. Stoneman’s troopers fortified Fort Hill, located near Butler, and established a post to relay signals from the North Carolina mountains back to Tennessee. At the front of the column, the 15th Pennsylvania led the way, followed by the 10th Michigan and 12th Ohio. Stoneman and Gillem marched with the Second Brigade. The road, although narrow, winding, and steep, was a good one. Some citizens showed their colors and turned out to help, building fires and standing watch at fords and tricky places in the road. A local named Henderson Smith grabbed a torch and guided the 15th Pennsylvania over the unfamiliar route. Palmer sent orders back for the cavalrymen to pitch in and build fires too. Yet despite all these precautions, nighttime marching on a mountain road was still dangerous. At one troublesome spot, an artillery caisson tumbled over an embankment and into the depths, lost forever. A few horses and mules also fell to their deaths. An ambulance followed the caisson and fell into the blackness, and three men were disabled on the treacherous roads. One of the three men was probably Henry Birdsall of the 11th Michigan. “I turned a somersault off my horse backward,” he wrote. “Hurt me considerable but I got over better than could have been expected.” The march was both surreal and beautiful. Wrote one veteran, “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.” Another veteran described it even more vividly. “The fires were lighting up everything about, and the troopers looked like mounted specters, moving silently along. On the one side were the troopers, taking up nearly the whole road; on the other was the dark ravine below, with the tree tops coming up nearly on a level with the road,” he wrote. Another cavalryman wrote, “There were places on the western ascent where it was necessary for men and horses to scramble almost perpendicular cliffs, and the memory of that cold night on top of the mountain is very vivid yet.” And so the march continued. “We kept moving along, walking and leading our horses, stealing a little rest when the column would stop,” wrote a veteran. In the darkness, the extra horseshoes the men received at Morristown clanked annoyingly against each other. Some tired of the noise and tossed the extra shoes aside. Finally, when the division’s lead elements cleared the pass at the top of the mountain, Stoneman and Gillem relented. Between midnight and 5:00 a.m., depending on the troopers’ location in the long column, the exhausted raiders finally paused. As one trooper remembered it, “I was unfortunate in having to stop where the road was narrow and badly washed in gutters,” he recalled. “I crowded up the bank to the side of the road, gathered a few crooked sticks, laid them across the gutter and lay down with my horse standing beside me. My feet extended over the path at the side of the road. I was disturbed several times by orderlies passing over my feet, but soon got used to that.” But if rest was scarce that night, progress was evident. Angelo Wiser marked the First Brigade’s headquarters at the Reese home, a mere two hundred yards from the North Carolina line. The Tennessee phase had ended successfully. Confederate defenders were back on their heels. Before the raiders lay new objectives and new obstacles. The next chapter of Stoneman’s raid was about to begin. To find out what happens next, see Chris J. Hartley, Stoneman's Raid, 1865. Excerpt from Stoneman's Raid, 1865, (c) Chris J. Hartley |