Civil Defense and the Confederacy

   Mention Civil Defense (Cold War) or Civilian Defense (World War II), and we get pictures of Air Raid Wardens, the Aircraft Warning Service, blackouts, Victory Gardens, and scrap drives. The Office of Civilian Defense was established by Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt on May 20, 1941, an effort to coordinate federal and state responses in regard to protecting civilians and mobilizing them for what became World War II. The program was terminated on June 4, 1945. In 1950, another movement began, this time labeled as Civil Defense, an attempt to try and prepare people in the advent of nuclear war. Many programs under Civilian Defense and Civil War defense were the same.

   Someone recently asked if there was a correlation between what the United States government was doing in the 1940s and 1960s and the Confederate government. Like most historical questions, the answer is no, and yes.

In the Hospital, 1861, by William L. Sheppard.

   Nationally, there was no one in charge of any type of program in the Southern Confederacy. (Really no program like this in the Northern states, either.) Civilian Defense during World War II was run by the governors in various states, who appointed county-level boards and committees. However, in most cases in the South, people in various communities set up what might be termed “civilian defense” on the local level. 

Ladies Aid Societies – at the outset of the war, various Ladies Aid Societies were set up to provide clothing and other necessities for soldiers. Just about every community had these organizations. The Greenville Ladies Association (South Carolina) held their first meeting on July 19, 1861.Their purpose was “to relieve the sick and wounded among soldiers, by forwarding to them linen, underclothing, cordials, bed ticks, socks, etc. Secondly, to make winter clothing for the volunteers of the Confederate Army.”[1] These aid societies were not just confined to large areas. Smaller counties likewise set up Aid Societies with the same goals. In the foothills of western North Carolina, the ladies of Caldwell County likewise formed an aid society in September 1861. They often collected necessities for the soldiers. This included normal things, like socks, shirts, drawers, coats, quilts and comforters, as well as the more unique, like three dozen candles, four bottles of lemon syrup, half a dozen cups and saucers, thirty copies of the New Testaments, and roots like slippery-elm, sage, pepper, mustard, flax-seed, hops, etc.[2] Women will continue to make and donate clothing throughout the war, but many of the uniforms were manufactured via contract or “piece” work. A depot would provide the materials, already cut out, and the ladies would take them home and sew them, returning the finished articles to the depot and being paid by the piece they completed. Sewing, especially during the Great Depression and in the days of the Works Progress Administration, often under the auspices of the Red Cross, was a major producer of locally made clothing and mattresses. Women mailed packages to their loved ones overseas, and took on jobs, making uniforms in factories.

War effort – during War World II, families were encouraged to save by-products from the kitchen, namely grease from cooking bacon, which could be used in manufacturing explosives (glycerin). The government went as far as to set up the American Fat Salvage Committee. During the 1860s, it was not so much bacon grease that was collected, but nitre for making gunpowder. The Nitre Bureau in Richmond ran an advertisement in a newspaper in 1864, asking the public for dead animals.[3] John Haralson famously posted in a newspaper in Selma in July 1863: “The ladies of Selma are respectfully requested to preserve the chamber lye collected about their premises for the purpose of making nitre. A barrel will be sent around daily to collect it."[4]

Hospitals were a kind of novelty at the start of the 1860s. They existed, but they were usually for the poor. Doctors usually made visits to patients in homes. With the excess of patients that the war produced, both those wounded and those who were sick with one of the many camp diseases, hospitals sprang up all over the place. Due to the number of soldiers passing through Charlotte in mid-1862 via the railroad, local ladies stepped up and established a hospital association. They acquired the wash house of the North Carolina Military Institute. The names of the ladies on duty were published in the local newspaper, while two other volunteers visited the homes of the Hospital Association volunteers to collect supplies – food and bandages – to staff the hospitals. The Confederate government later took charge of the hospital, but the ladies continued to volunteer. This was repeated across the South.[5] During World War I and World War II, the Red Cross employed “Grey Ladies,” volunteers who wrote letters, read, and provided other services to disabled soldiers. There were many medical volunteers in Civilian Defense during World War II, beyond the Red Cross, including doctors, nurses, and nurses aids.

Different Civilian Defense jobs,

Ambulance Drivers – along the same lines as those who ministered in hospitals were ambulance drivers. The Richmond Ambulance Corps was established in 1862. This group met the trains bearing wounded at the depot in Richmond, conveying them to various hospitals, and later the receiving hospital, for medical care.[6] During World War II, there were volunteer messengers recruited into Civilian Defense.

Scrap Drives – Outside of Rosie the Riveter, the most iconic image of the United States home front during World War II was of the scrap drives. School children and scout troops collected thousands of pounds of scrap in the way of old iron, tires, records, and paper to be turned into munitions for the war effort. Likewise, there were collections of scraps across the South during the war years. S.D. Rodifer advertised in February 1862 that he was paying the “highest price in Cash” for “Wrought Scrap,” brought to his shop in Selma, Alabama.[7] William L. Brown, in charge of the Confederate States Arsenal in Richmond, advertised in June 1863 that he was looking for “Scrap iron and Lead, Wrought iron and scrap lead.”[8]

Chaplains – one of the volunteer roles for Civilian Defense was that of chaplain, although the role is not clearly defined. During the 1860s, pastors of churches visited local hospitals, worked on collecting foodstuffs and clothing, forwarding the items to the front and at times taking the items to the front themselves. Several churches and denominations sent missionaries and colporteurs to the front with tracts and Bibles.

While not called Civilian Defense during the 1860s, the ideas were certainly woven into the fabric of Southern society.

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[1] C.M. Landrum, Minutes of the Proceedings of the Greenville Ladies’ Association in Aid to the Volunteers of the Confederate Army, 1861-1865, James W. Patton, ed., New York, 1937, 15.

[2] Semi-Weekly Standard, November 13, 1861.

[3] Richmond Dispatch, March 23, 1864.

[4] If you have an actual citation for this oft repeated quote, please drop me a line.

[5] Hardy, Civil War Charlotte, 34-35.

[6] Ash, Rebel Richmond, 14.

[7] The Daily Selma Reporter, February 10, 1862.

[8] Daily Richmond Whig, June 25, 1863.

The French Lady and the Lincoln Assassination

    We don’t discuss much about Lincoln here on Looking for the Confederate War, really only once that I can recall, and it was on Lewis Powell, alias Payne. I had a chance to visit his grave, or at least one of his graves, back in 2021. (You can read more here.)

   A few days ago, I was reading a little book by George Raynor entitled Rebels and Yankees in Rowan County (North Carolina). Raynor has a chapter on Sarah Antionette “Nettie” Gilbert Slater, also known as the French Woman or the Veiled Lady. Raynor believes that Slater once lived in Rowan County, North Carolina. He also believes that she was a Confederate courier and spy in 1865.

Godey's Fashion Prints from the 1860s

   She was born January 12, 1843, in Middleton, Connecticut. Her father, Joseph Gilbert, was a French teacher and made pills. Parts of the family, including Nettie, moved to Kinston, North Carolina, ca. 1858, and then to New Bern, where she met Rowan Slater. He had studied music at Trinity College, then worked as a traveling musician and dance instructor. New Bern was a little more welcoming of his talents than Salisbury. They were married in New Bern in June 1861.[1]

   Slater worked as a purchasing agent for the Confederate government in Goldsboro. In 1863, the moved to Salisbury, settling on the family farm. On July 23, 1864, he enlisted in Company A, 20^th North Carolina Troops. He is listed as present or accounted for until he was captured on April 6, 1865, in the vicinity of Farmville, Virginia. Slater was confined in Newport News, Virginia, until he took the Oath of Allegiance and was released on June 26, 1865.[2]

   For some reason, Nettie decided to head north in January 1865. Raynor speculates that it was to visit her mother who was still living in New York City. She approached Burgess S. Gaither and James G. Ramsey, two North Carolina Confederate Congressmen, for a pass between the lines. They wrote Maj. J.H. Corrington, Confederate provost marshal, recommending a pass. “She has lost her only brother in the Confederate Army and we have no hesitation in vouching for the loyalty of this lady and her high social position and hope she will meet with no difficulty in passing the lines of our army.”[3] Secretary of War Seddon endorsed the request.

   What happened next is not really clear, but Nettie was recruited into the Confederate spy network. She was chosen to deliver messages to Montreal. She spoke French perfectly and could claim French citizenship. Raynor lays out a quick timeline. She made her appeal to go to New York on January 16, and was on her way to Montreal on January 31. Nettie was taking documents to support the claims that the St. Albans raiders were acting under orders. She was escorted by another Confederate agent, August “Gus” Howell. On her return trip, also bearing information, she met John H. Surratt, Jr. in New York, and he accompted her to Washinton, D.C., and the Surratt boarding house. Howell then went with her to Richmond.[4]

   More documents were needed by Confederate agents in Canada, and Nettie was back in Montreal on March 17, making the trip back through New York and Washington to the Surratt boarding  house. From there, they traveled to the Surratt Tavern. Federals had raided the tavern the night before, arresting Howell. John Surratt and Nettie crossed the Potomac River and then headed to Richmond. David Berry ferried them across the river. When Federal authorities questioned Berry, he described Nettie, who was using the alias of “Mrs. Brown,” as “a rather thin delicate woman. I think she had black eyes and dark hair. I do not recollect whether I saw her with her bonnet off. I think she wore her veil down all the time.” (Raynor, Rebels and Yankees, 15.)

   In Richmond she met with state department and treasure department officials who asked her to go to Montreal a third time. She and Surrat returned to Washington and on April 4, set out again. Just what takes place over the next few days is unclear. Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865. Several individuals were arrested, including Mary Surratt, John’s mother. She and three others were quickly tried, found guilty of being accomplices to John Wilkes Both, and were executed. John Surratt fled to Canada. Or, maybe he was already there.

   Raynor wrote that he was unaware of what happened to Nettie. She simply disappeared from history. Yet we do have more of the story. Nettie was arrested on April 30, 1865, and interrogated by a Colonel Ingram. Several witnesses swore that she was a Confederate agent known as the “French woman,” and a major link between the Confederates in Richmond and those in Montreal. Nettie was released.[5]

   For some writers, Nettie’s involvement was more serious. Michael Schein believes that John Surratt and Nettie were lovers, and that she had many aliases, including Kate Brown, Kate Thompson, and A. Reynaud. He also believes that if there was an order coming from Richmond for authorizing the assassination of Lincoln, it was carried by Slater and Surratt. (This has never been proven.)[6] Schein writes that Surratt, using an alias, and Nettie checked in to the St. Lawrence Hall in Montreal on January 10, 1865, at least three weeks before her first trip. Of course, the Mr. T.H. Hendrickson and Miss Slater that registered could be anyone. And why would he use an alias and she wouldn’t? The entire letter by the two Confederate congressmen was just a ruse, Schein claims.[7] Schein’s account seems full of “maybes” that rely on a lot of guesses and circumstantial evidence. He further speculates that Nellie fled with Surratt to Canada after Lincoln’s death. He had taken a round-about trip to rescue his “beautiful young co-conspirator with whom he is in love.”[8] Schein goes on, believing that Nettie left Surratt in late August 1865, returning to New York City.[9] Back in North Carolina, Rowan Slater files for divorce, which is granted on November 19, 1866. He believes that Nettie is dead. According to Schein, Nettie marries William Spenser, her sister’s widower, who also passes. Nettie, according to Schein, lives under the alias of “Sarah A. Long” in New York, passing away on April 20, 1920. “The Government never caught up with her. Whatever her crimes, they died with her,” Schein concludes.[10]

   One of Schein’s sources is an article by James O. Hall that appeared in North and South in August 2000. Hall claims that “Federal detectives sought to find an elusive young Confederate agent they knew only as ‘Mrs. Slater,’ sometimes referred to as ‘the French woman’ or  ‘the lady in the veil.’ The deceives never found her. It was not for lack of trying.” Chamlee, in his book Lincoln’s Assassins, actually cites records from the adjutant general’s office stating she was arrested, interrogated, and released – Records of the Judge Advocate General’s office, Roll 2, Nos. 766-784, National Archives. Hall concludes that Nettie disappeared from the pages of history following the war.[11]

   A lifetime could be spent on the mysterious life of Sarah Antionette “Nettie” Gibert Slater, centered around the last four months of the war. There are primary sources to explore, like those cited by Chamlee, and fanciful writings to debunk, like those of Schein. A good scholarly book on Confederate spies and the secret service as a whole is also needed. I confess that I do not have the books by Ted Boyias, Harold W. Mills, Jr., or Charles Rivers. I do have Tidwell’s Come Retribution: The Confederate Secret Service and the Assassination of Lincoln. Like Schein, there is too much “But it is not hard to draw a logical conclusion” speculation. Tidwell uses this phrase in describing the January 1865 trip of Surratt to Richmond.[12]

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[1] Raynor, Rebels and Yankees, 10-12.

[2] Jordan and Manarin, North Carolina Troops, 6:444.

[3] Raynor, Rebels and Yankees, 13.

[4] Raynor, Rebels and Yankees, 14.

[5] Chamlee, Lincoln’s Assassins, 198.

[6] Schein, John Surratt, 65.

[7] Schein, John Surratt, 66.

[8] Schein, John Surratt, 150.

[9] Schein, John Surratt, 180.

[10] Schein, John Surratt, 181.

[11] Hall, “The Veiled Lady” North and South, (August 2000), 34-44.

[12] Tidwell, Come Retribution, 341.

North Carolina's Mars Hill College and the War

   Mars Hill. That’s an interesting name for a place. In western North Carolina, in the rugged mountains of Southern Appalachia, is the small community of Mars Hill. It is home to Mars Hills University. Like so many other places across the nation, it has a deep and interesting war-time history.

   The area was a crossroads of sorts, with roads connecting Asheville to the south and Marshall, the county seat of Madison County, to the west. Local people wanted their children to have a better education. There was the Burnsville Academy to the west, but it was a several days’ walk, and was run by the Methodists. People in the area decided to form the French Broad Baptist Institute in 1858. They renamed the school Mars Hill College in 1859, choosing to remember a site in ancient Greece where the Apostle Paul debated the leading thinkers of Athens. The school had over 100 students in the 1860-1861 term.[1]

    In September 1862, the Rev. John Ammons, writing from Mars Hill College, implored fellow Baptists across the South to take up collections for missionaries and colporters for the Confederate army. “It is to you then, Pastors, that we appeal,” Ammons wrote. “Ask your congregations to give and they will do it. Let every pastor lay the matter before his congregation and take collections for Army Colportage for N. Carolina.[2]

    The College remained open the first two years of the war, under the tutelage of President Pinkney Rollins. Rollins was a closet Unionist, who after the war, made his views known. “[T]he rebels said he was a traitor, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and most of them refused to patronize him.”[3] Whether it was Rollins’s political views or due to the continuous draw of Confederate forces upon the male population, Mars Hill College closed its doors at the end of term in the spring of 1863.[4] Shortly thereafter, at least 100 Confederate soldiers arrived and took over the buildings. Colonel James Keith and Lt. Col. Lawrence Allen, often associated with the 64^th North Carolina, used the campus as a base for a short amount of time. The two are often connected with the Shelton Laurel war. Most of the 64^th North Carolina was captured when Cumberland Gap was surrendered in September 1864 (read more about that here.)[5]

   The college campus also became home to the headquarters of the home guard of Brig. Gen. John W. McElroy. One amusing incident occurred when a Confederate officer at home on leave conspired with the home guard commander to test the effectiveness of the home guard. That night, the two officers positioned themselves on a nearby hill and “began to fire. The company became frightened; the commander shouted to his men ‘Fall out’, ‘Attention!’ Whereupon one, Ned Waldrop, stated that he would fight if the captain would let him get where he wanted to be. ‘Where do you want to be?’ responded the captain. “Behind the College building, sir,’ was the reply. It was soon learned that the attack was just a joke, or “training.”[6] 

Missing marker at Mars Hill University 

    On another occasion, one member of the home guard who was working at Mars Hill bragged to another worker about his unit killing three brothers and almost killing the mother. A few days later, the mother’s brother, James Norton, arrived at the site and killed the man. Norton was tried for murder, but acquitted.[7]

    Often, the home guard was away chasing dissidents from the Shelton Laurel area. In late April or early May 1864, one group of dissidents from Shelton Laurel, composed of fourteen men and three women, raided across West Fork, possibly into Buncombe County. They killed one man and beat another to “nearly to death.” The group was caught by the home guard at Mars Hill, with only one man and one woman escaping. “The women were armed with revolvers and took a hand in the murder and robbery,” the newspaper reported.[8]

   In late March or early April 1865, portions of George W. Kirk’s command, the 2^nd and 3^rd North Carolina Mounted Infantry (US) visited the college, ransacking the buildings and burning two of them.[9]

    The college rebuilt after the war and continues, as Mars Hill University. There was a North Carolina Civil War Trail marker on campus denoting the war in the area until recently. Maybe once construction is finished, it will return.

  

[1] Carr, “Mars Hill College,” 6.

[2] The Biblical Reporter, October 1, 1862.

[3] McLeod, From These Stones, 65.

[4] Carr, “Mars Hill College,” 5.

[5] Gaston, Partisan Campaigns of Col. Lawrence M. Allen, 16.

[6] Carr, “Mars Hill College,” 2.

[7] Inscoe and McKinney, The Heart of Confederate Appalachia, 270.

[8] Weekly Progress, May 17, 1864.

[9] Carr, “Mars Hill College,” 5-6.

Taking care of Burke County’s Destitute after the War.

   Burke County, North Carolina, has come up several times over the years here on Looking for the Confederate War. You can learn more about the county here and about the Avery brothers here. Morganton, the county seat of Burke County, served as one of the sub- districts for the Freemen’s Bureau after the war. Usually when people think of the Freedman’s Bureau, people think of schools and taking care of former slaves, which was one function of the organization. But after March 1867, it also administered foodstuffs to destitute people, both Black and White.

   Many times, we reach the end of the war in April and May 1865, and we don’t really think about the condition of people for the next few years. Those years are boiled down to Southerners, both White and Black, suffering “untold horrors.” Untold is a large part of it. Destitution in the South became so acute in the spring of 1867 that a joint resolution was passed by the US Congress authorizing the use of unexpended Freedman Bureau funds to purchase food supplies to prevent starvation and extreme want. There were an estimated 53,945 people thought to be destitute in Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, and North Carolina.[1]

   It was the various Freedmen’s Bureau agents in the sub-districts who were responsible for distributing these rations. It is not clear just how word was spread, either by circular or word of mouth maybe, but in late June and early July 1867, people came into Morganton to apply for assistance. Many of the applicants were widows of Unionist men. Margaret Lail, supporting four children, applied. She told the agent that “My husband was a Union man, [and] was shot by one of Patterson’s home guard.” She was awarded twenty-four pounds of pork and 168 pounds of corn. Nancy York, taking care of an aged father and three children, told the agent that her husband William York, possibly of Company B, 11^th North Carolina State Troops, was a Union man, conscripted into Confederate service. He deserted and was “shot in Burke Co., by David Peter, a home guard, for deserting the Confederate army.” They had no land, no cow, no “creature.” She made her mark and received 28 pounds of pork and 196 pounds of corn. Myrah Cook had six children to take care of. Her husband, Edward Cook, was a Unionist, and was shot twice by the home guard. The second time, Cook “was shoot in the woods, where [Myrah] took care of him 8 days when he died.”[2]

   A couple of the destitute who came in had husbands that they claimed had served in the Union army and died during the war. Emeline Couch claimed that her husband, name unknown, was in the Union army when he was killed, “leaving me destitute” with one child. Likewise, Lucinda Summers, with one child, also lost a husband in Federal service.[3]

   The greatest number of applicants were rather tight-lipped about why they were destitute. Elizabeth Simpson, Mary Smith, and Louisa Petit were living with three dependent children. They told the agent that they were “landless and destitute, caused by the war.” They were given 30 pounds of pork and 252 pounds of corn. Likewise, Mary Clark, Rebecca Short, and Mary Brackett, with ten children, were all “widows and destitute, caused by the war.” Fanny Fraklin told the agent that her husband had been injured during the war in the head, and that they were destitute.[4]

   However, many of the destitute who came to Morganton to seek relief were connected to the Confederate army. Huldah Lewis told the agent that her husband was “crippled in the rebel service and [they were] destitute.” Elizabeth Sherill and Rebecca Matthews, trying to support two children, had lost their husbands “in the Rebel army.” Nancy Smith and Macey Bingham had husbands who had died in northern prison camps. Polly Chrisenburg was trying to take care of her aged father and five children. Her “husband had died in the war.” Williams Watts, with his wife, complained that he had “lost all my sons in the Confederate army.” Watts was over 60 years old “and destitute.”[5]

   Henry Goins was one of the few Confederate soldiers to come in. He enlisted at the age of 18 in Burke County on May 10,1861, and was mustered in as a private in what became Company E, 16^th North Carolina Troops. Goins was wounded in the left arm and right elbow and captured at Gettysburg in July 1863. He was paroled later in 1863 and rejoined his regiment in time to be paroled at Appomattox. Goins told the agent that he was “a volunteer in the Rebel army [and] lost an arm and the other [stiffened] at the battle of Gettysburg. Can’t feed myself and am entirely destitute.” Goins was given 16 pounds of pork and 112 pounds of corn.[6]

   If there were any applicants turned away, those files have not been made available to the public online, or they were not kept. Reconstruction as a whole is little understood in many communities. History does not end in the spring of 1865. In local history, the times are viewed as “untold horrors.” Just how much of this history is lost, versus what has yet to be explored, is another one of those horrors. Does your county or community have a history of reconstruction? There are several volumes of Reconstruction as a whole on my shelves. Only one, James W. Hagy’s After the War Over: Reconstruction in Washington County, Virginia, 1865-1870, covers a county. Are there others? These were real people, and their ordeals were real. Remembering them is important.

  Many thanks to Laura Dunning Elliott for helping me find the Burke County records on FamilySearch. Now to just discover some additional western North Carolina counties.

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[1] Beth, “The Freedmen’s Bureau in Alabama,” The Journal of Southern History 91948) 1:79.

[2] North Carolina. Freedmen's Bureau Records 1865–1872, M1909, Morganton Sub-Assistant Commissioner, Roll 32, Applications for rations, Jun-Jul 1867.

[3] North Carolina. Freedmen's Bureau Records 1865–1872, M1909, Morganton Sub-Assistant Commissioner, Roll 32, Applications for rations, Jun-Jul 1867.

[4] North Carolina. Freedmen's Bureau Records 1865–1872, M1909, Morganton Sub-Assistant Commissioner, Roll 32, Applications for rations, Jun-Jul 1867.

[5] North Carolina. Freedmen's Bureau Records 1865–1872, M1909, Morganton Sub-Assistant Commissioner, Roll 32, Applications for rations, Jun-Jul 1867.

[6] Jordan and Manarin, North Carolina Troops, 6:51; North Carolina. Freedmen's Bureau Records 1865–1872, M1909, Morganton Sub-Assistant Commissioner, Roll 32, Applications for rations, Jun-Jul 1867.

Dueling Houses in Elizabethton, Tennessee

   We often talk about the Civil War being a conflict of brother versus brother or family versus family. Some stories are more famous, like that of the Gibbon brothers (read here) or the Flusser family (here). But how about the conflict being symbolized by a house versus a house?

   Many areas during the war were split, and Tennessee was no different. Historians estimate that 25,000 men from east Tennessee served in the Confederate army, while 30,000 joined the Union army. However, no one has really done the deep-dive to prove or disprove these numbers. 

The Carter home on the left and the Folsom home on the right. 

   Elizabethton, in Carter County, was just as divided as any other place in East Tennessee. The Asheville News reported in early January 1862 one story of a divided population. According to the correspondent, a “unionist said that no Southern flag should be raised in town, or taken through it. Not long afterwards, however, Mrs. Mary C. Carpenter procured a flag bearing the emblems of our native South-got into her buggy and drove through town, and I have been told that she drove all round town, with the Southern flag ‘waving gloriously.’ The unionists failed to execute their threats in regard to shooting the flag to pieces.”[1]

Brig. Gen. Samuiel P. Carter (wiki)

   Samuel P. Carter was born in Elizabethton in 1819, the eldest son of Alfred M. Carter. Samuel attended Duffield Academy in Elizabethton, Washington College in Limestone, and Princeton University before enlisting in the United States Navy in 1840. He transferred to the United States Naval Academy, graduating in 1846, then saw service on board the USS Ohio at the battle of Veracruz during the Mexican-American War. Various assignments follow, including stints at the United States Naval Observatory; assistant professor of mathematics at the Naval Academy; tours in the Pacific and along the coast of Brazil; and in China. At the request of Senator Andrew Johnson, Carter was detached from the Navy and worked on recruiting East Tennessee Unionists. He was commissioned a brigadier general at the request of Abraham Lincoln, becoming the only man to hold both naval and army commissions. Carter went on to lead his brigade at the battle of Mill Springs, Kentucky, helped capture Cumberland Gap in October 1862, led a raid against the East Tennessee railroad in December 1862, fought at Blue Springs while commanding cavalry, and fought at Wyse Fork in 1865. Carter ended the war as a brevet major general of volunteers and as a commander in the United States navy. After the war, Carter returned to the navy, finally retiring in August 1881. Rear Admiral Samuel P. Carter passed in 1891 and is buried Oak Hil Cemetery, Washington, D.C. The home where he grew up still stands in Elizabethton.[2]

Maj. Henderson M. Folsom (ancestry)

   On October 4, 1831, Henderson M. Folsom was born in Elizabethton, Tennessee. In the 1860 census, Folsom is listed as a clerk. When the war came, Folsom joined the 2^nd Tennessee Cavalry (Ashby’s) where he was mustered in as a private. In October 1862, he appears in the records as a clerk to Brig. Gen. Alfred E. Jackson. A few months later, Folsom is reported as being appointed major and Assistant Quartermaster in February 1863 for Jackson’s brigade and in December 1863, chief quartermaster of Jackson’s brigade. During Early’s Valley Campaign, Folson is listed serving on the staff of Maj. Gen. John B. Gordon’s division, and then as Commissary of Subsistence in Brig. Gen. Gabriel S. Wharton’s brigade. On an unknown date, but at least by January 1865, Major Folsom was appointed Commissary of Subsistence to Thomas’s Legion.[3] In his application for presidential pardon, written on July 14, 1865, from Elizabethton, Folsom informed the President that “he was an original Unionist and as such, cast the whole weight of whatever influence he possessed, and [voted] against every against every proposition, looking for a chance [to continue the] relations which existed between Tennessee and the Federal government.” However, when the vote was cast, Folsom believed it was his duty to side with the “overwhelming voice of the people and thereby became identified with the Rebellion.” He served three years as a quartermaster. Folsom had to apply directly to the president due to the charge of treason against him in Federal court in Knoxville. For character witnesses, Folsom recommended Colonel Thomas Miller, 13^th Tennessee Cavalry (US). Five officers, including Colonel Miller, from the 13^th Tennessee Cavalry, signed a supporting letter, along with seven citizens.[4]

   Folsom was pardoned in November 1865 and commenced the study of law.[5] He was listed as being an attorney in Elizabethton as early as August 1868.[6] At the time of his death in 1908, Folsom was considered one of the leading lawyers in the state.[7] He is buried in the Highland Cemetery, Carter County, Tennessee.

   Folsom built his home across the street from the house that Samuel P. Carter was born in. As of 2026, both houses survive. The Carter home has been used as a restaurant for a number of years. The Folsom home was used as county offices but was damaged during the hurricane in 2024. There are a few local government officials who want to demolish the home. The Folsom house would make a great county museum and archives. Hopefully, the Folsom house can be stabilized and restored before it is truly too far gone. It is not in bad shape, even with storm damage. Hopefully, the powers that be will not drag their feet in preservation, waiting until the Folsom house is in a bad state of repair.

 

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[1] Asheville News, January 9, 1862.

[2] Eicher and Eicher, Civil War High Commands, 166-67; Warner, Generals in Blue, 74.

[3] CMSR, M331, RG109, NARA; Brown and Coffey, North Carolina Troops, 16:247.

[4] H.M. Folson to Andrew Johnon, M1009, Roll 49, RG 94, NARA.

[5] The Union Flag, November 10, 1865.

[6] Bristol News, August 14, 1868.

[7] Chattanooga Daily Times, August 17, 1908.