The 1865 Stoneman's Raid Ends

Follow Him to the Ends of the Earth

Joshua Beau Blackwell

• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781614234968
• eBook ISBN: 9781614234968
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: American Civil War History
• Index: History

The dramatic story of the cavalrymen tasked with capturing Jefferson Davis, and the terror and plunder that followed.
 
In the spring of 1865, George Stoneman's cavalry division departed Salisbury, North Carolina, with one objective in mind: returning home. However, after the collapse of the Confederacy, the mounted division was ordered to apprehend the exiled Confederate president Jefferson Davis, even if it meant "follow[ing] him to the ends of the earth."
 
By May, the raid had transformed into an uphill struggle of frustration, pillage, revenge, terror and wavering loyalty to the flag as the troopers crashed down on the civilian populations that lay in their path with demonical ferocity. Taking into account local folklore and traditions surrounding the raid, historian Beau Blackwell follows the column's course as it sacks the city of Asheville, canvasses the Palmetto State, plunders Greenville, terrorizes Anderson, and ultimately tramples the soil of Georgia.
 
Includes illustrations

1

“False to Their God and Traitors to Their County”

“Fast!” The irritatingly sharp ring of the word carved through the stagnant afternoon air generating a patience-shattering effect that is all but foreign to those unaccustomed to monosyllabic commands. “Faster, we must dig faster!” The young men who scratched away at the rocky red soil of the Cherokee foothills were nearing completion of an emergency excavation that was biblical in scale. The wiry old man who was aiding the frantically diligent workers by cascading the obvious upon them, as if the slogans espoused from his jowls were indispensable directives, was given the birth name Logan Carson. To Carson, however, it was more agreeable to his demeanor to address him by the self-given moniker of “colonel,” although his military heritage was slightly north of dubious. Pacing like a jackal over a hole that one observer reminisced was large enough to have concealed a piano, Carson was noticeably consumed by wrenched nerves, knowing that the notorious body of raiders was rapidly approaching via a stagecoach road that dissected his property as it snaked its way to Asheville.¹²

These two excavators, slender and white, with sun-tarnished skin, who had somehow managed to avoid the Confederate draft or convinced the local powers that they were indispensable to the homefront, were approached by Carson due to the one unequaled quality that they possessed as manual laborers at this midnight hour of the conflict: their skin color. Knowing full well that the self-anointed senior officer had problems with human property, his slaves having earlier gone so far as to betray the old man’s identity to unknown riders in an effort to facilitate his capture, Carson suspected that had the plantation’s black males been entrusted with the cache, they would have been all too eager to divulge its resting place once the Union raiders inquired of its location. Understanding that his hirelings were more than capable of completing the task at hand, the aging colonel knelt down, placing his hand on a spade, and asked his niece to accompany him into the forest behind the main house as he thrust a small linen-wrapped bundle into her milky white hands.¹³

Excruciating for his weathered years, the heart-pounding pace was exhausting. Hurdling ancient water oak roots, passing his arms through tacky cedar limbs and forcing his battered knees through the ascent of practically impassable laurel thickets, the old man led his young female pack mule toward their destination. “Here, this is the spot.” The satisfaction of the revelation rested on his shoulders like a warm blanket and alleviated the tension cramp that clenched within his arches after a dozen or so minutes of walking through the moist, dark soil that crowned the terrain of the forest. Filling his lungs with a deep sigh of satisfaction, a relieved exhale muddled his pacified lament: “This must be the spot. It will never cross their heathen minds to come this far.”

Intermittent daylight created a foreboding landscape that unnerved even the most weathered of mountaineers. Roots, which sent countless fingers jutting deep into the iron-stained mountain soil, broke the horizon and snaked along their course until once again submerging into the rolling terrain. As the afternoon sun became disoriented in the thick canopy of the eastern Appalachian forest, the bark-covered obstacles breathing in the open air took on the appearance of logs bowing before the soil as it capitulated to the earthy deep. As the glistening sunlight saturated the fragrant April breeze, the colonel placed the tip of his iron spade at the base of a root-encrusted bank and pressed firmly with his foot against the foundation of the implement. As the wafts of odorous particles generated by the disturbed earthy topsoil filled his nostrils, the old gentleman knew that his cache would be safe at last.

The hole that was carved out in the peculiar soil was distinctly remembered by the aging paternalist’s niece. Less than a foot long, half as wide, as well as deep, the minor slit was not of the magnitude of the canyon that was being completed just a few hundred yards away, but the contents of the grave were exponentially greater in value. While salt-cured winter hams were being stacked one on the other like cordwood in the summertime and the piano-sized cavern swelled with occupants, the faltering folding money that embodied the renegade investments of the colonel was neatly tucked inside the narrow sliver, finally entombed from the tempered hands of the Federal picklocks by the efforts of his iron spade. Following the concealment of the worthless Confederate scrip that marked his collapsing fortune, a few handfuls of bark kissed by the sweet aroma of southern Appalachian moss were scraped from the north side of neighboring trees and strategically piled atop of the freshly turned dirt.¹⁴

“Dear lord, please!” Staring at his earth-stained hands, which had just that very moment completed a cementation of the emerald green thatch upon the broken ground, the schizophrenic appeals of a troubled soul resonated in the darkness: “Please, I have always been a loyal servant—spare my hearth from the Babylonians.” Rising from his decrepit knees, the old man turned and began to retrace his steps to his plantation home without summoning his niece. Lumbering through the old growth of the groves, alone in his thoughts, the old man attempted to dissect any contingency in his wrecked mind. “They will search the house, yet I suspect that they are on a time table, a schedule that will not take kindly to the hardships imposed upon delay. They won’t search the grounds; there is not enough time to comb the grounds.” His thoughts were queerly interrupted by a unique hum in the distance—the sounds of men engaging in the desperate struggle of life or death on the horizon.

Upon returning to the manorial grounds, it became all too apparent that his foresight was well founded. With the rumbling sounds of skirmishing in the distance filling the spirals of his ears, Carson stared at the fresh earth slathered where the massive cavern used to be and instantly knew that without garnish, the ruse would be a wasted effort. Without delay, the quick-thinking colonel ordered the refuse from his property strewn over the ground. Following the completion of the dilapidated heap, the monument to the wastefulness of man was topped with pine straw and fallen leaves to complete the illusion. Inspecting his earthen masquerade like a painter perusing a well-invested canvas, the only thought that gamboled through the old man’s mind was that with any luck, his efforts would pay off.¹⁵

Typical of strategies utilized by the social hierarchy of western North Carolina, the forlorn actions taken by the Carson family were the only aesthetics of security that could be mustered as the Home Yankee column under General Gillem made its return trip toward the ominous spires of the Blue Ridge. Although the plantation’s stock of hams was secured and a cache of paper-thin Confederate currency was abandoned to rot in the company of the forest roots, the house itself became an inviting beacon of pilferage that drew the troopers to it like moths to a flame. Although long in the tooth for an opportunity to further stuff the embossed saddlebags that draped from the sides of their mounts, their approach was inconveniently slower than the enterprising troopers would have liked. The agitating blister that impeded an otherwise serene ride through the hill country was a handful of local infantrymen who intended to defend their homes from the same fate that had befallen Salisbury.

The engagement that echoed through the ears of the Carson family was the result of a simple reconnoiter by components of a brigade of infantry that had taken up residence in Asheville under the auspices of General James Green Martin. As the ragtag Confederate infantry withdrew along the cut of a creek bank in skirmish formation, a courier riding past the Carson House informed the colonel of the developments that were transpiring a mere mile away. Aside from the traumatizing information that a skirmish was being conducted along his property line, the owner of the freshly christened battlefield was also informed that the blue riders slowly ebbing toward his doorstep were rounding up any adult males they could place their hands on and kidnapping them under the false pretense of prisoners of war.¹⁶

Understanding that the burden imposed on his aging body by a long uphill forced march into loyalist Tennessee would amount to nothing less than a death sentence, Carson heeded the advice of the rider and the pleas of his family to vacate his holding. Tethering his precious draft animals to his mount, the old man procured enough victuals to satisfy his appetite for the duration of his exile and led the train of animals into the surrounding hillsides in a desperate search for reprieve from an exhaustive demise. No sooner had the patriarch retreated from his kingdom than the dreaded blue riders came into view of the abandoned family. The dusty column rapidly advanced along the stagecoach road toward Marion in hopes of circumventing a possible Confederate rally near the village’s outskirts.¹⁷

The first squad that arrived on the property was all business and only demanded to know the whereabouts of the family’s livestock. To their request, the stalwart Mrs. Carson lied that their chattel hands had taken them down the road in an attempt to keep them from the hands of the raiders. Falling for the ploy, the advance guard continued its course along the road. However, any sigh of relief that could have been breathed was ill timed. Within a matter of minutes, several companies arrived on the property, bearing the same unrelenting questions. This collection of troopers did not follow their brethren on to Marion, electing to instead bivouac in the yard that surrounded the main house. In spite of the isolation from friendly males, as all of the free and bonded men had vacated the property, the women of the Carson family made it through the evening unmolested.¹⁸

With the sun resuming its daily course on the morning of April 18, General Gillem arrived on site ill-tempered and famished. Barging into the Carson home, Gillem demanded of the reluctant host that he and his staff be fed at their expense. Understanding that the skills cultivated over the decades spent mastering the role of plantation matron left her with major inadequacies in culinary ability, the aging wife of Colonel Carson insisted that this request was impossible as her cooks had all run off after first word of the troopers’ presence in the region. The dilemma was of no concern to the cantankerous general, as he insisted that the blueblood remove herself from his presence in an effort to prepare the meal with her callus-free hands or his men would be turned loose on the house without restraint.¹⁹

Collapsing in the face of the threat, Mrs. Carson dutifully prepared subpar fare for Gillem and his closest officers. Understandably taken aback by the bland biscuits, whose only seasoning was the charred encasement that held back a still miry flour and water porridge, the dissatisfied general followed through with his threat even though the matron of the house had given an honest effort to pacify his hunger. Opening the door and leaving it ajar as a signal to his more daring wolves, Gillem left the property, bound for Marion. What followed was an unsightly, masterful demonstration in the science of vandalism that has been seldom repeated.²⁰

Not wasting any time, the more brazen riders entered the home uninvited, corralled the defenseless women and sequestered them in the very dining room their commanding officer had just abandoned. The ferocity of the ransacking was monumental, as not a single drawer or trunk was left undisturbed. While the house was being turned upon its ear in search of traditional loot, a chaos-induced frenzy resulted in many family valuables of no monetary value being either pilfered or destroyed. A purloined item of particular disbelief to the women was the property of a centennial slave by the name of Aunt Lucindy.²¹

Unimposing as any ragged scrap of cloth, a shawl that had been passed down to her by a provenience long forgotten had been stored in a trunk in an upstairs bedroom in an effort to protect it from moths. Perhaps for no other motivation than sure meanness, the ancient shawl, having only accrued sentimental value, was draped over a trooper’s shoulders as he vacated the house. Following the burglary of every valuable worth carting away from the home, a keg of molasses was brought from a storehouse. Placed in the front sitting room, the barrel was tilted on its side, and a swift axe blow drove the bung into the barrel. Afterward, two troopers lifted the barrel and began to maliciously pour its contents over all of the furniture and carpeting they could cover until the sticky extract was completely expended.²²

Stopping along the stagecoach road on the outskirts to Marion to rest his mount, Gillem received the unexpected news that organized Confederate resistance was still to be found in the region of western North Carolina. While the Federal advanced guard reported to the increasingly twisted general that the Swannanoa Gap was being heavily fortified, General James Green Martin was desperately consolidating all the available forces in the southeastern mountains of North Carolina and erecting fortifications east of Asheville. Moving a brigade of infantry and artillery under Confederate general John B. Palmer into the steeply inclined roadway, the busted backs of the entrenching command were augmented by Robert Love’s sizeable battalion from William Holland Thomas’s famous legion of mountaineers and Cherokee Indians. The fortifications were unprecedented for the mountains, and upon receiving reports from his scouts concerning these unexpected developments, Gillem called for a council to reassess the raiders’ course into the city of Asheville.²³

Faced with the unacceptable prospect of a full frontal assault against a well-entrenched veteran infantry during what could very well be the last week of the war, Gillem set his mind to work. The strategy that sprung from the old Tennessean’s brain was an elaborate cavalry march along the right flank of the Confederates that would take his saddle-weary troopers over fifty miles out of the way in a protracted hook around their enemy’s devilishly fortified position. Knowing full well that the Confederates were more concerned with the problems presented by the presence of loyalist mountaineers than they were with enemy combatants originating from the North, the conniving general took advantage of the defenders’ fears. Leaving the Third Brigade in front of the defenses at Swannanoa Gap, the Confederates would have their hands full, as John K. Miller was instructed to probe the works, feint throughout the various gaps of the region and be aggressive with the isolated homes along the surrounding ridges in an attempt to dislodge the entrenched Confederates without pushing a general engagement. While Miller was conducting this deadly ballet just a few miles east of Asheville, Gillem would take the Second Brigade on its roundabout venture behind the Confederate lines.²⁴

Originally hailing from eastern North Carolina, James Martin was appalled by the treatment of his adoptive Asheville at the hands of the Second and Third Brigades. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

The first destination along the protracted and convoluted tour of the southeasternmost hills of the Blue Ridge was the unsuspecting sleepy hamlet of Rutherfordton, North Carolina. Gillem’s descent on the town was relatively uneventful, with no surviving reports of malicious canvassing; however, the surrounding rural communities were deeply affected. Taking time to disperse his men into fragments throughout Rutherford County, the steep rolling green countryside was infested by splintered patrols of men as they feinted toward the South Carolina border. The end result of the saturation of the county was that every suitable mount, buggy, valuable, raiment and black male was pilfered or following the command on its venture toward the blue wall. After two days ...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction. The World on Its Ear
• 1. “False to Their God and Traitors to Their County”
• 2. “We Have Now Entered Upon a New Phase of the Struggle”
• 3. “The Tennesseans in Their Present Condition Do Not Add Any Strength to the Union Forces”
• 4. “If You Can Hear of Davis, Follow Him to the Ends of the Earth, if Possible, and Never Give Him Up”
• Epilogue. “We Are Suffering More from Our Own Raiders than We Possibly Could from Yankee Discipline”
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography
• About the Author