Biographies on Confederate governors

     Knowing what is available is an important thing to both the reader and the researcher. That is why I create these lists: to see what is available and to know where the holes in the scholarship are. W. Buck Years, in 1985, released The Confederate Governors, a collection of essays on the role of governors of each state during the war. There is also Malcolm C. McMillan’s The Disintegration of a Confederate State: Three Governors of Alabama’s Wartime Home Front, 1861-1865 (1986). Several (all?) states have general histories of governors. For example, North Carolina has Crabtree’s North Carolina Governors, 1585-1958: Brief Sketches (1958). This list does include published papers. North Carolina’s John W. Ellis has two volumes of published papers, including a biographical sketch, but he does not have a traditional, full-length biography. If you see anything I missed, please drop me a line.

 

Alabama

John Gill Shorter (1861-1863)

Andrew Barry Moore (1857-1861)

Thomas H. Watts (1863-1865)

Arkansas

Henry Massie Rector (1860-1862)

Thomas Fletcher (acting 1862)

Harris Flanagin (1862-1864)

Florida

Madison Starke Perry (1857-1861)

John Milton (1861-1865)               

     Hughes, Civil War Correspondence of Florida’s Governor John Milton (2015)

Abraham K. Allison (1865)

Georgia

Joseph E. Brown (1857-1865)

     Fielder, A Sketch of the Life and Times and Speeches of Joseph E. Brown (1883)

     Hill, Joseph E. Brown and the Confederacy (1972)

     Parks, Joseph E. Brown of Georgia (1977)

     Roberts, Joseph E. Brown and the Politics of Reconstruction (1973)

Louisiana

Thomas Overton Moore (1860-1864)

     Moore, Thomas Overton Moore: A Confederate Governor (1960)

Henry Watkins Allen (1864-1865)

     Cassidy and Simpson, Henry Watkins Allen of Louisiana (1964)

     Dorsey, Recollections of Henry Watkins Allen (1866)

Mississippi

John Jones Pettus (1859-1863)

     Dubay, John Jones Pettus, Mississippi Fire-eater (1975)

Charles Clark (1863-1865)

Missouri

Claiborne Fox Jackson (1861)

     Phillips, Missouri’s Confederate: Claiborne Fox Jackson and the Creation of  Southern Identity (2021)

Thomas Caute Reynolds (1862-1865)

     Reynolds, Letters of Thomas Caute Reynolds, 1847-1885 (1943)

North Carolina

John Willis Ellis (1859-1861)

     Ellis, The Papers of John Willis Ellis (1964)

Henry Toole Clark (1861-1862)

     Poteat, Henry Toole Clark: Civil War Governor of North Carolina (2009)

Zebulon Baird Vance (1862-1865)

     Dowd, Life of Zebulon B. Vance, (1897)

     Yates, Zebulon B. Vance as War Governor of North Carolina, 1862-1865, (1937)

     Adler, Zebulon B. Vance and the “Scattered Nation” (1941)

     Yates, The Confederacy and Zeb Vance (1958)

     Camp, Governor Vance: A Life for Young People. (1961)

     Shirley, Zebulon Vance, Tar Heel Spokesman. (1963)

     Tucker - Zeb Vance: champion of Personal Freedom. (1966)

     Szittya, Man to Match the Mountains: the Childhood of Zebulon Baird Vance. (1980)

     Cooper, Zeb Vance: a Leader in War and Peace. (1985)

     Weinstein, Zebulon B. Vance and “The Scattered Nation.” (1995)

     Vance,  My Beloved Zebulon: the Correspondence of Zebulon Baird Vance and Harriett N. Espy. (1971)

     McKinney, Zeb Vance, North Carolina’s Civil War Governor and Gilded Age Political Leader. (2004)

     Mobley, “War Governor of the South” : North Carolina’s Zeb Vance and the Confederacy.(2005)

     Johnston, Zebulon Baird Vance Letters, 1843-1862 (1963)

     Mobley, The Papers of Zebulon Baird Vance, 1863 (1995)

     Mobley, The Papers of Zebulon Baird Vance, 1864-1865 (2013)

South Carolina              

    Francis Wilkinson Pickens (1860-1862)

    Milledge Luke Bonham (1862-1864)

    Andrew Gordon Magrath (1864-1865)

Tennessee

    Isham G. Harris (1857-1862)

         Elliott, Isham G. Harris (2009)

Texas

Edward Clark (1861)

Francis Lubbock (1861-1863)

     Lubbock, Six Decades in Texas (1900, autobiographical)

Pendleton Murrah (1863-1865)

Virginia

John Letcher (1860-1864)

     Boney, John Letcher of Virginia, (1966)

William “Extra Billy” Smith (1864-1865)

     Mingus, Confederate General William “Extra Billy” Smith (2013)

 

Ephraim Clayton and the Asheville Armory

   Chances are, you have probably never heard of Ephraim Clayton. For many in Southern Appalachia, he is an important 19^th century carpenter and builder. Clayton was born in present-day Transylvania County, North Carolina, in 1804. His father, Lambert Clayton, was a veteran of the Revolutionary War. His mother was Sarah Davidson, and her parents had been killed by the Cherokee in 1776. We really don’t know much about Ephraim Clayton’s childhood, but by the 1830s, he was receiving commissions to construct buildings. These buildings included Asheville Baptist Church (1859); Asheville Presbyterian Church (ca.1847); Buncombe County Courthouse (1848); Caldwell County Courthouse (1843); Calvary Episcopal Church, Fletcher, NC (1859); John W. McElroy House, Burnsville, NC (ca.1845); Mars Hill College (1856-1857); Newton Academy, Asheville, NC (1857-1858); Polk County Courthouse (ca.1853); Ravenscroft School, Asheville, NC (ca.1840s); St. John-in-the-Wilderness Episcopal Church, Flat Rock, NC (1833-1834); Trinity Episcopal Church, Asheville, NC (1850); Tuttle’s Hotel, Lenoir, NC (ca.1843); War Ford Bridge, Asheville, NC (1856); and the Yancey County Courthouse (1840s), along with other buildings in Georgia and South Carolina.

   While Clayton often lived in the communities where he was constructing buildings, he considered Asheville his home. His obituary claimed that he was the first man to bring a steam-powered planing machine to western North Carolina. In 1850, he employed twenty-five men and owned seven slaves. By 1860, he owned eleven slaves, plus employing several free workmen. He also operated a saw and planing mill and a sash and blind factory.[1]

   Asheville was quite possibly the most pro-Confederate town in North Carolina in the 1860s (we’ll save that for a future post). Hundreds of Confederate soldiers had poured forth out of Asheville and surrounding Buncombe County. Governor Zebulon Baird Vance and his brother, Brigadier General Robert B. Vance, came from the area, as did Brigadier General Thomas L. Clingman. Asheville also served as the headquarters of the District of Western North Carolina. As early as July 1861, William L. Henry was writing Gov. Henry T. Clark with a proposal for establishing a plant to manufacture rifles for the Confederacy in Asheville. In August 1861, that idea began to come to fruition. That month, Col. Robert W. Pulliam, the Confederate Ordnance Bureau agent in Western North Carolina, began working with Ephraim Clayton and Dr. George Whitson. In January 1862 the company began producing rifles, and by November 1862, they employed 107 men. Due to the lack of a railroad, materials were sourced locally. That November, they had 200 rifles ready for shipment. Josiah Gorgas, chief of ordnance for the Confederate army, sent W.S. Downer to Asheville to inspect the rifles and the plant. Downer wrote back that while Whitson was a man of “general genius,” he had no “practical knowledge of mechanics.” The tools and machines being used were “makeshift,” and the rifles themselves “worthless.” 

Asheville News, April 12, 1862. 

  The Asheville Arsenal faced numerous challenges, from a lack of skilled workers to the threat of attack by Union forces or “disloyal persons.”  It was a combination of these that eventually drove the Confederate arsenal from Asheville. In January 1863, a locally-led raid occurred at Mars Hill, in Madison County, just north of Asheville. In September, Knoxville was captured by Federal forces. In October came a raid by Union force on Warm Springs in Madison County. In late October, the local commander ordered the machinery to be prepared for moving, which began in late November. The machinery was transported to Columbia, South Carolina. In the end, the factory produced some 900 rifles.[2]   Capt. Benjamin Sloan was assigned to command the armory, and Sloan sought to bring in new machinery and tools. He also constructed two new brick buildings to house the machines and tools. Ephraim Clayton was appointed as general manager, in charge of “all Carpenters work and control of teams and teamsters, wood choppers, Coal Burners and saw mill hands.” Undoubtedly, Clayton’s already-established factory, and the fact that the new arsenal buildings were on his land, played a role in his involvement. There were 123 workers by January 1863, although Sloan fired twenty of them that same month. The men working at the Arsenal were well paid and were exempt from conscription.

   It is unclear if Ephraim Clayton moved to Columbia or stayed in Asheville. His obituary states that his planing mill was destroyed by fire. This could have happened at the end of the war when Federal forces burned the two brick buildings constructed to house the Asheville Armory.[3] After the war, he operated an iron foundry in Asheville 1867 to 1878, while living in Transylvania County, helping to build the Spartanburg and Asheville Railroad and the Western North Carolina Railroad.[4] Clayton died on August 14, 1892, esteemed as “one of the best known citizens of Western North Carolina.”[5] Clayton was “a man of the strictest integrity, plain and unassuming, and universally respected by all for his admirable traits of character. He took a deep interest in Asheville’s progress, and was always foremost in any project that tended to the advancement of the city-a true public-spirited citizen.”[6] He is buried in the Clayton Family Cemetery, Buncombe County, North Carolina. 

---

[1] https://ncarchitects.lib.ncsu.edu/people/P000070

[2] Gordon McKinney, “Premature Industrialization in Appalachia,” The Civil War in Appalachia, 227-241.

[3] Asheville Citizen Times, August 11, 1892.

[4] https://ncarchitects.lib.ncsu.edu/people/P000070

[5] The Asheville Democrat, August 14, 1892.

[6] Asheville Citizen Times, August 11, 1892.

Calling for North Carolina's Troops

Leroy Pope Walker,
Confederacy Secretary of War

For the past few days, I've been reading Denis Peterson's Confederate Cabinet Departments and Secretaries (2016). Peterson does a good job detailing the various cabinet officers’ positions, and covering the men who filled those offices. There were several of these men about whom I really did not know much. However, I have now twice come across sections that I feel are wrong. The first was dealing with the last days of the Confederate government in Charlotte. I will not go into the details, since I have written two books on the subject.

The second deals with this statement: "After the Confederate peace commission failed to convince Lincoln to negotiate and in preparation for possible conflict over the fort [Sumter], Walker called on each of the seven states that made up the original Confederacy to supply 3,000 volunteers to meet any military necessity, for a total of 21,000..... Walker immediately ran up against the doctrine of states' rights. Each state wanted its troops to defend their own state... North Carolina's concerns were Forts Hatteras and Clark. Those states did not like the idea of having their troops sent to defend other states." (134)

Two things I see wrong here. 1): North Carolina was not one of the original seven seceding states. It was the last, not leaving the Union until May 20, 1861. The earliest call for troops that I can find is on March 9, 1861. Walker asked for troops from Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Georgia (No South Carolina. See Official Records, Series IV, vol. 1, 135). Walker made a second call for troops on April 16, 1861, this time mentioning the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi South Carolina, Texas, and Florida. There is no mention of North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, or Arkansas - they had not left the Union! (Official Records, Series IV, vol. 1, 221-222.)

2): Peterson writes that North Carolina could not send troops because they were concerned with Forts Hatteras and Clark. Construction of these facilities does not begin until North Carolina leaves the Union on May 20, 1861. But, North Carolina is sending troops. On May 17, 1861 (three days before secession), Governor Clark telegraphs Walker, requesting him to accept four regiments of 12-month men. Walker sends word back to Clark, directing that the regiments be sent to Richmond. The 1st North Carolina Volunteers transfers to Virginia between May 16 and May 21. The 2nd North Carolina Volunteers leaves for Richmond on May 22, 1861, the 3rd North Carolina Volunteers leaves for Suffolk, Virginia, on May 29, and the 4th North Carolina Volunteers leaves for Suffolk on June 11. This is all about the same time that the construction of Forts Hatters and Clark begins. While North Carolina would want some of these troops back to defend their state in late 1861 and early 1862 (battle of New Bern), I would argue that the Tar Heel state does not have a problem sending troops to join the regular Confederate army.

I'm not one-hundred percent sure, but I think Peterson is relying upon some older, secondary sources. For the Charlotte problems, he cites Patrick's Jefferson Davis and His General, published in 1944. For the above citation, it is Harris's bio on Walker, published in 1962.

No printed text is perfect, or, as I often say, I am only as good as the material that I find. However, it makes me wonder what I am not catching, because I am not as well read in the lives of people like Walker, or Reagan, or Benjamin. 

Gov. Henry T. Clark

Several months ago, I purchased a new biography on North Carolina Governor Henry T. Clark, written by R. Matthew Poteat. I read some of it, got distracted, and put it aside. After finishing the book on Stanly, I returned to the book on Clark, went back a couple of chapters from where I had stopped and picked up the book again. It was finished yesterday, and here is my review.

If you talk about North Carolina governors during the war, you usually talk about three men: John Ellis, Henry T. Clark, and Zebulon B. Vance. As we discussed a couple of weeks ago, Vance is the most written-about Civil War era governor. Ellis has no biography, and Clark finally has one.

Clark was born in 1808 in Edgecombe County, North Carolina. His father, James West, was a US Congressman. Henry attended the University of North Carolina, and later gained admittance to the North Carolina Bar, but seldom practiced law. He was more interested in managing his family’s land and property. Clark was selected to serve as a delegate to the Nashville Convention in 1850, and soon thereafter was elected to serve as the representative for the Tenth District in the North Carolina senate. He was re-elected six times. In 1858, his colleagues elected him as speaker of the senate. He was occupying this position in July 1861 when Governor Ellis died. Since the state had no lieutenant governor, Ellis was elevated to the position of governor until the next general election in September 1862.

Clark laid the groundwork for much of the state’s involvement in the war. Almost all of North Carolina’s regiments were mustered into service under Clark’s administration. He also established a state-sponsored gunpowder manufacturing plant in Wake County, and a salt-manufacturing facility in Chatham County. And, he laid the ground work for a state-owned blockade runner that Zeb Vance would later purchase. However, Clark would catch flak for the loss of much of the eastern coast of North Carolina to the Federals, even though much of the fault rested with the Confederate government. For unknown reasons, Clark chose not to pursue another term of office in 1862, and instead, retired to his home near Tarboro. Later in the War, Clark’s Tarboro home was raided by the Federals, and he himself was almost captured. After the end of the war, Clark served again in the North Carolina Senate. He died at his home in Tarboro in 1874.

I really wanted to like Poteat’s examination of Clark’s life, and to be honest, the second part of the book (once the war begins) is much better than the first part of the book. Poteat seems to be obsessed with slavery. Chapters two and three seem much more an examination of slavery that of Clark’s life. The author makes several leaps of logic (aren’t these called fallacies?) with no documentation. For example, Poteat writes on page 52 that “owning slaves was not simply an aspect of his business, it was part of his heritage, and he [Clark] believed the system to be the natural order that God had intended.” And on page 66: “Clark’s view of slavery was consistent with that of most white men of his day. He believed that slavery was a necessary and just institution, essential to the South’s social and economic way of life. Conservative white southerners like Clark considered slavery the foundation of republic virtue, necessary to maintain the social order and an engine of human, moral, and material progress.” Both of those statements might be true, but there is no documentary evidence cited that Clark actually believed either of those statements.

I guess the statement that really is a leap of logic falls on page 138. Poteat speaks of many joining the Ku Klux Klan after the rise of the Radicals during reconstruction. He writes: “There are no records that tell of Clark’s thoughts or involvement (if any) with the Klan, but Col. William L. Saunders, the alleged leader and ‘Grand Dragon’ of the North Carolina KKK, was his nephew by marriage. The two men corresponded, and given Clark’s Democratic pedigree, racial views, and associations, it’s very likely he supported the Klan to some degree.” This statement is so flawed that it is difficult to find a place to begin. Might Clark have been involved with the Klan? Sure. However, since there is “no record,” what right does Poteat have to infer that Clark “likely… supported the Klan to some degree” just because he had someone in his family who allegedly was in the Klan? I can’t imagine a lawyer ever getting away with such allegations in a court of law today.

Poteat does well when discussing the efforts of Clark as governor during the war years. However, this book has serious flaws that will influence generations to come.

R. Matthew Poteat. Henry Toole Clark: Civil War Governor of North Carolina. 207 pages, illustrations, notes, index. McFarland, 2009. ISBN: 978-0-7864-3728-3.