There is an image
floating around on the internet labeled “Tom Dula.” We are not sure who this
image is of, but we are sure that it certainly is not Tom Dula. A little
background:
Thomas C. Dula was
born June 22, 1845, in Wilkes County, North Carolina. Tom was just a kid when
the war came along. At the age of seventeen, he enlisted in Company K, 42nd
North Carolina Troops, on April 24, 1862. He was mustered in as a private. In
January or February 1864, Dula was promoted to a musician and started beating a
drum for his regiment. Dula was captured during the battle of Wise Forks, March
10, 1865, and was confined at Point Lookout, Maryland, until June 11, 1865,
when he was released after taking his Oath of Allegiance. Tom then returned
home to Wilkes County.[1]
 |
| Not Tom Dula/Dooley. |
Laura Foster was from
just a few miles away. She and Pauline were cousins. Pauline later testified
that she left neighboring Watauga County and came to her grandfather’s
residence, seeking the help of a local doctor. Pauline had syphilis. She soon
passed it on to Tom, who passed the venereal disease to Ann and Laura. It later
came out at the trial that Tom may have killed Laura because he believed she
had infected him. Regardless of the motive, on May 24 or 25, 1866, Tom
presumably killed Laura, buried the body, and fled to Tennessee. He was
captured in July, was eventually tried twice, with Zebulon Baird Vance as one
of his lawyers, and was hanged May 1, 1868, in Statesville, North Carolina. Tom
Dula is buried near his home in Wilkes County.[3]
The story of Tom
Dula is interesting, but in and of itself, not all that important. Events like
this happened all over the place, especially during those unpleasant
Reconstruction years. What does make the story important is the folklore that
grew up over the following decades. The events became a ballad that was sung in
a style going back centuries, similar to other songs of love and death like
“The House Carpenter” and “Barbery Ellen.” In the 1930s, the ballad was
collected on the back side of Beech Mountain, Watauga County, by a couple from
New York – Frank and Ann Warner. They passed it on to Allen Lomax who passed it
on to the Kingston Trio who recorded “The Ballad of Tom Dooley.” This song is
credited with starting the folk music revolution of the 1960s. It was their
first hit.[4]
So what about the
photograph that appears all across the internet? It is not Tom… In 2004, Joel
Reese, Local History Librarian at the Iredell County Public Library, was
looking for a picture to accompany a program on Tom Dula/Dooley that the
library was hosting. He went to the Library of Congress, downloaded an
unidentified image of the Civil War soldier, and used that image, but never
claimed that it was Tom; it was just an illustration. Overnight, the unknown
soldier became the infamous Tom Dooley. You can read this story here. Despite
the image appearing on markers, in museums, on findagrave, or on the internet
in general, this image is not Tom.
So just who is it?
Based upon the unknown soldier’s hat, breast place, and buckle, many of us
believe that the soldier served in the Volunteer Maine Militia. One site states
that there were fifty-eight companies of Maine Volunteer Militia in 1854. Some
of these become regular Maine infantry regiments during the war, while others
were disbanded before the war.[5]
Will we ever have
an actual image of Tom Dula/Dooley? Probably not. But we should stop using this
image. It is not Tom. It is not even an image of a Confederate soldier. It is,
however, a clear reminder of the dangers of poor research and the pitfalls of
the internet. By making an incorrect assumption about an illustration that was
never labeled as Tom Dula, those who have passed around that false label have
caused confusion and the perpetuation of false information.
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