The United Confederate Veteran reunions in Memphis

   Following the war, veterans organizations sprang up all over the nation. Memphis seemed slow to join the various groups. Prominent in the 1870s was the Mexican War Veterans Association, with Gideon Pillow as its commander. It appears that the original fraternal group in Memphis was known as the “Confederate Veterans Historical Association.” This later becomes the Confederate Veteran Historical Association Camp No. 28 after the United Confederate Veteran was formed in July 1889. Its counterpart in Memphis was the William J. Smith Post 1896, Grand Army of the Republic.[1]  

   Both organizations held national reunions for their membership in different locations across the United States. Quite possibly the closest that a GAR reunion was held to Memphis was the National Encampment in St. Louis in September 1887. Three times, the United Confederate Veterans held national reunions in Memphis: 1901, 1909, and 1924.

Program from the 1901 reunion. 
(TN Virtual Archives) 

   The 11^th Annual Reunion of the United Confederate Veterans was held May 28-30, 1901, drawing 20,000 participants. The Rev. J. William Jones opened the day with a prayer, followed by an address from the governor, the mayor and a US Senator, then John B. Gordon, General-in-chief of the United Confederate Veterans. The commands of Nathan Bedford Forrest and John Hunt Morgan were recognized. Joseph Wheeler spoke, followed by Fitzhugh Lee and General Bates.  That was all the first day. Alexander P. Stewart spoke the following day, and business was conducted, such as a fundraiser approved for a monument to Southern women, a decision on the location of the next reunion, a meeting of Confederate surgeons, a grand ball, and a flower parade. There were of course extras through the three days. Capt. George H. Mitchell, superintendent of the Memphis National Cemetery, encouraged the Confederate veterans to come and pay their respects. There was even a meeting of Confederate and Union veterans in the lobby of the Peabody hotel.[2]  

   The 19^th Annual Reunion of the United Confederate Veterans was held June 8-10, 1909. The reunion was held jointly with the Confederate Southern Memorial Association. The crowds, estimated at 90,000 visitors (railroad officials believed the number of visitors at 175,000), found the route of the parade of veterans “a mass of brilliant bunting and fluttering flags . . . It was noticeable that the star-spangled banner was given almost equal place in many instances with the banner that was furled but never conquered.” Many local citizens sported badges that read “I live here; ask me.” The Bijou Theater was used as the convention hall where the meetings of delegates took place. The governor was on hand to welcome the veterans and their guest, followed by the singing of “Dixie,” and a “Rebel yell.” Clement A. Evans spoke, as did Lewis Guion, pleading for a park at Vicksburg, with a Confederate monument. There was a memorial service in honor of Jefferson Davis, the introduction of Nathan Bedford Forrest’s great-grandson, a reunion of the Immortal 600, and a grand ball. As at many of the reunions, there was a casualty or two. Jack Duhig, a member of the Sterling Price Camp, Dallas, Texas, died in a local hospital, probably from a heat stroke.[3]

Veterans at the 1924 reunion.
(flickr-ufomtiger52)

   The 34th Annual reunion of the United Confederate Veterans was held June 3-5, 1924. Reunion headquarters was at the Claridge Hotel, and thousands were reported in attendance. The event started with a memorial service at Elmwood Cemetery, with the Confederate graves being marked with flags and addresses on several topics, including Jefferson Davis. It was Davis’s birthdate. On June 4, the reunion officially began. The mayor of Memphis spoke (but the governor only sent his regards), then Commander-in- Chief W.B. Haldeman. “The grim reaper is rapidly depleting the ranks of the Confederate veterans,” Haldeman told the crowd, estimated at 5,000. Haldeman was re-elected as commander, and annual dues were increased. Most of the veterans were now driven in cars along the parade route. The only Confederate general present seems to have been Felix Robertson. There were also twenty “old ex-slaves who had served . . . during the war.” The Memphis D.A.R. sponsored an opening luncheon, the Kiwanis Club sponsored the floral parade, the R.O.T.C. and the Boy Scouts provided programing and helped the old veterans around the city, while there were several balls, one sponsored by the Ladies’ Confederate Memorial Association and another by the Memphis United Daughters of the Confederacy. Several veterans were reported in the hospital, “suffering from natural afflictions and the infirmities of age.” One newspaper editor was happy to have the veterans in Memphis, but also found the reunion “tinged. . . with sadness. It is more and more evident that the day is not far distant when there will be the grand final reunion in a city not made with hands, the reunion in which every man who fought on either side in the sixties will have a part.”[4]  

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[1] Public Ledger, April 25, 1890; The Memphis Commercial, January 21, 1894.

[2] Confederate Veteran, 9:248-250; The Commercial Appeal, May 5, 1901, May 28, 1901.

[3] Confederate Veteran, 17:197, 314-16; The Commercial Appeal, June 11, 1909.

[4] Confederate Veteran, 32: 251-54; The Commercial Appeal, June 4, 1924, June 7, 1923.

Burying Memphis’s Confederates

Confederate Monument,
Elmwood Cemetery, Memphis

   Any great influx of men brought about numerous cases of disease, some of which led to death. Memphis was no different. Thousands of soldiers poured into the city, and as already discussed here, hospitals were opened to deal with not only with those wounded on the battlefield, but those who were sick. Despite medical care, numerous men died. To provide care for those who passed, the Southern Mothers Society, which operated one of the hospitals, acquired the Fowler section of Elmwood Cemetery. Elmwood Cemetery was established in 1852. This section of the cemetery was donated by Elmwood Cemetery “for the purpose of burying, free of charge, all soldiers who die honorably in defense of our liberties.” By September 1861, the ground had been enlarged and a spot for a monument already laid out.[1] 

   The first soldier to be buried in this section appears to have been Thomas Gallagher, who “died of wounds received accidently” on May 12, 1861. Gallagher was a member of Company H, 154^th Senior Tennessee Infantry.[2] Early on, these funerals were full of military honors. J.W. Kirwan, a private in the 25^th Mississippi Infantry, died of consumption in January 1862. A hearse and a company of new recruits escorted Kirwan’s body from his former house in Memphis to the cemetery. “The body was followed by a long procession of mourning friends who took a melancholy satisfaction in paying the last tribute of respect to an esteemed gentleman and devoted soldier.”[3] Burials undoubtedly continued through the course of the war, although information regarding burial of Confederates in the Confederate section of Elmwood Cemetery by the Federals seems to be lacking.

   In April 1866, there was a call for the upkeep by the ladies of Memphis of the Confederate section of Elmwood Cemetery. Sam W. Gulick stated that he would “Most willingly offer my services gratis, to letter all the names on the above boards to be placed in Elmwood Cemetery.” The ladies of the Southern Soldiers’ Home agreed to take on the responsibility, and there was a call for a “commemoration service” on April 26.[4] The memorial service came off with great fanfare, so much so that in April 1867, the local U.S. Army post commander prohibited “any processions, speeches or other public demonstrations, speeches or other public demonstrations in honor of the rebellion or men who fell in its service…” Local citizens were permitted “the simple act of mourning for deceased relatives in the customary manner.”[5]

   Slowly, the Confederate dead from other fields were brought to Elmwood Cemetery. Captain John W. Harris, killed in the North Georgia campaign of 1864, was reinterred in May 1866; W.A. Willis was likewise disinterred from a North Georgia battlefield and reinterred in Elmwood Cemetery in June 1866; Willie Pope, killed at the battle of Tishomingo Creek, was reinterred in July 1866; Brig. Gen Preston Smith, killed at Chickamauga in September 1863, and Col. Jeffrey E. Forrest, killed at the battle of Okolona in February 1864, were reinterred in May 1868.[6]

   The last Confederate soldier buried in the Confederate Soldiers Rest section was John F. Gunter, who died April 1, 1940. There are 945 numbered headstones in the Confederate section, and many other soldiers are buried through the cemetery. The Confederate Monument in the Confederate section was dedicated on June 5, 1878, and a marker about the cemetery was erected in 2006. 

   Among the more notable Confederate burials are Generals James Patton Anderson, Colton Greene, Preston Smith, Alfred J. Vaughan, Jr., Gideon Pillow, and William Henry Carroll. War-time governor Isham G. Harris is also buried at Elmwood, as is Confederate Congressman William G. Swan. Confederate senator Landon Carter Haynes was originally buried here, but was later moved to Jackson, Tennessee. War-time Federal soldiers buried at Elmwood were later moved (in 1868) to the Memphis National Cemetery, while two Federal generals, William J. Smith and Milton T. Williamson, are still buried at Elmwood. Elmwood was also the original burial location for Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife Mary. As an aside, famed author Shelby Foote is also buried in Memphis.

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[1] Memphis Daily Appeal, September 25, 1861.

[2] Thomas Gallagher, CMSR, ROG109, NA.

[3] Memphis Daily Appeal, January 31, 1862.

[4] The Memphis Daily Appeal, April 18, 1866; April 24, 1866.

[5] Memphis Daily Post, April 25, 1867.

[6] Public Ledger, May 10, 1866, July 19, 1866, May 1, 1866; Memphis Daily Post, June 16, 1866.

Memphis’s Irving Block Prison

   “Notorious for its cruel and unsanitary living conditions” is how the Irving Block Prison in Memphis has been described. The building was constructed in 1860 as a hotel. “This section of town was notably tough and iron slates were used to cover the windows,” a 1939 guide to Tennessee recorded. Located on the west side of Court Square, the building was three stories tall. When the war came, the building was used as one of the Confederate hospitals, and it was run by the Southern Mothers. When the Confederates abandoned Memphis in June 1862, Federal officials repurposed the building as a prison for Confederate and Federal soldiers, along with civilians and spies.

   Absalom Grimes was one of the men imprisoned at Irving Block. Grimes was a river boat pilot who was selected by Sterling B. Price to carry or smuggle the mail between the South and the North. Grimes was captured numerous times, including once in Memphis.[1] After being interrogated by the provost marshal, Grimes was taken to the Irving Block Prison. “That prison was on the west side of Jackson Square in Memphis . . . three stories high. A pair of stairs led from the lower storeroom into the basement, where there was an excavated doorway leading into the yard. This doorway had boards nailed over it, and one wide board was off about three feet above the ground,” Grimes wrote after the war. “When I was placed in this cellar a ball with a chain about three feet long was riveted to my right ankle and one end of the chain was stapled to the floor. There were eighteen other prisoners chained to the floor in like manner, placed in a row from the front to the rear of the long cellar. I was chained next to a big stove . . .” Grimes wrote of there being a Federal soldier in the cellar, “imprisoned for stealing government mules out of the corral and selling them.” Grimes was held in the cellar for more than two weeks, “and my daily fare consisted of two stale crackers and a piece of rotten bacon and some water, or coffee made of beans and dried Cherokee rose leaves.” Adjoining the room where Grimes was held was a room for female prisoners. Grimes was eventually transferred to Alton, Illinois.[2]  

 Irving Block Prison in 1864. (Historic-Memphis)

   Some of those female prisoners could have been prostitutes arrested in a raid in mid-1863. The “house of ill repute” was at 115 Beale Street, and the proprietress was Kate Stoner. Six or seven girls were arrested and locked up in the Irving Block Prison until they could be tried. All were found guilty and sent north of Cairo, Illinois, with a promise of imprisonment if they returned to Memphis.[3] Another woman arrested was named Pullen. An officer on picket suspected her of being a smuggler and sent her back to the city where she (and probably her son) were locked up in Irving.[4]

   Colonel R. F. Looney and Capt. A.D. Bright were sent by General Chalmers into west Tennessee to arrest and bring back into Confederate lines Confederate deserters and stragglers. They were captured near Arlington and sent to Memphis and the Irving Block Prison. “They were placed in a back room and strongly guarded, but in a short time the officer ordered that they be moved to the third story, a dirty place, where thieves, thugs, and cut-throats were kept, and where vermin abounded . . . There was not a bed of any description in the long room, neither was there a chair or bench to sit on. They walked the floor all night.” These men were later paroled.[5]  

   In another instance, Lt. Jason Hoey, 17^th Arkansas, wrote to the Secretary of War that Lt. Col. Woods had bribed a Federal officer, Lt. Denis Lewis, to allow him to escape. After effecting his escape, Lewis had Woods rearrested. Woods complained that Lewis, “did not act the gentleman with him; he had given Lieutenant Lewis his money and then he (Lewis) betrayed him.” Lewis went to the prison, was shown into the cell where Woods was, and finding Wood asleep, Lewis drew his pistol and shot Woods in the head, killing him. According to Hoey, Lewis was tried by a court-martial, but “went to parts unknown.” He supposedly was tried and convicted of the crime, but escaped.[6] The Memphis Bulletin, in November 1863, related had it was so cold, and fuel in so short of supply, that some of the prisoners tore up fifty bunks to burn and keep warm.[7]

   There were some successful escapes. Captain M.A. Miller was caught smuggling two boxes of cavalry swords across the Mississippi River. He was tried by courts-martial, found guilty, and condemned to death. At this early date, prisoners from the city were allowed to visit their homes with a guard, and under the pretext of having a sick child, Miller was able to escape. Much of the plan previous to his escape was passed along when his family brought him food, “as the prison fare was unfit to eat.”[8] There were reports of sixty or more who escaped in February 1864, and eleven in May 1864.[9]

   U.S. Grant appointed Maj. Gen. Stephen A. Hurlbut as commander in Memphis. While the Irving Block Prison had various commanders, Hurlbut would appoint Capt. George A. Williams in 1863.

Maj. Gen. Stephen A. Hurlbut (LOC)

   In April 1864, Lt. Col. John F. Marsh, 24^th Veterans Reserve Corps, was sent to inspect the prison. March stated that Irving Block Prison was “the filthiest place the inspector ever saw occupied by human beings . . . The whole management and government of the prisoners could not be worse. Discipline and order are unknown. Food sufficient, but badly served. In a dark, wet cellar, I found twenty-eight prisoners chained to a wet floor, where they had been constantly confined, many of them for months, one since November 16, 1863, and are not for a moment released, even to relive the calls of nature.” The prison hospital had a “shiftless appearance ad the guard dirty and inefficient.” There was no “book of memorandum showing the disposition of the prison fund.”[10] Charges were drawn up and Williams arrested. He argued that he had actually done much to improve the prison. It did come out that Hurlburt, and maybe Williams, were running a multi-faceted extortion ring in Memphis. For example, they demanded ransoms from local wealthy families for the release of prisoners. Hurlbert also engaged in profiteering, getting cuts from the cotton that moved through the city. Hurlburt also targeted the Jewish population of Memphis, closing their businesses, but leaving non-Jewish businesses open. Hurlbut was brought up on charges toward the end of the war, but was allowed to resign. [11]

   History says that Lincoln ordered the prison closed in 1865.[12] However, that does not seem to be true. In March 1865, Col. John P.C. Shanks, commanding a cavalry brigade in west Tennessee, makes mention of capturing two “Guerrillas” and sending them to Irving Block Prison.[13] John G. Ryan, on parole, was passing through Memphis in July 1865 when he was arrested and hauled by the provost to Irving Block Prison. Ryan described the third floor room he was taken to as having “shackles, manacles, handcuffs and balls and chains.” A ball and chain was affixed to his left ankle. He was removed to another room and chained to the floor. Several days later, Ryan was sent to Washington, D.C. He was believed to be John H. Surratt, a spy accused of plotting with John Wilkes Booth to kidnap and assassinate Abraham Lincoln. Ryan was not released until October, and later sued the Federal government for false arrest.[14]

   The building was demolished in 1937.  

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[1] Ralls County Record, March 31, 1911.

[2] Grimes, Absalon Grimes, Confederate Mail Runner, 150-51, 153.

[3] Lowery, Confederate Heroines, 90-5.

[4] Jackson, The Colonel’s Diary, 98.

[5] Dinkins,  1861 to 1865, by an Old Johnnie, 217-18.

[6] OR, Series II, 5:945; Confederate Veteran, Vol. 27, No. 1, 19.

[7] Memphis Bulletin, December 1, 1863.

[8] Confederate Veteran, 157, Vol. 13, No. 4, 157.

[9] The Illinois State Journal, February 22, 1864; Daily Missouri Republican, May 14, 1864.

[10] OR, Ser. 2, 7:402-3.

[11] Lash, A Politician Turned General, 137; Korn and Nevis, American Jewry and the Civil War, 154.

[12] Daily News, January 10, 2013: “Irving Block Prison” https://historic-memphis.com/memphis-historic/irving-block/irving-block.html

[13] OR, Series I, Vol. 49, 1:79.

[14] Memphis Avalanche, March 14, 1888; The Boston Globe, July 10, 1888.

Confederate Defenses in Memphis

    Even before Tennessee left the Union, there was a call to build defensive works along the Mississippi River to protect the city of Memphis. Gideon J. Pillow wrote to Confederate Secretary of War Leroy P. Walker on April 20, 1861, asking that an engineer be sent to the city to direct “military defensive works.” Walker replied three days later that an engineer was on his way.[1] On April 26, Pillow reported that “Captain Stockton,” Philip Stockton, was working on batteries, but that the city was in a “most defenseless condition for want of arms.”[2] Walker responded that next day writing that Pillow could keep 3,000 muskets, and that in “addition to the large guns heretofore sent you, I have this day ordered four 32-pounders to go forward. I feel a deep interest in the defense of Memphis, and will do everything to render it secure.” Pillow then mentioned a point at Randolph as the “most eligible situation for a battery to protect Memphis,” seeking permission to fortify this location as well.[3] Walker consented on April 30. Randolph is about 30 miles north of Memphis. 

Fort Pickering, from a Federal sketch. (LOC)

   Directly in command of Memphis was John L. T. Sneed. Born in Raleigh, North Carolina, Sneed moved to Memphis in 1843 where he practiced law and served in the higher ranks of state government, including the General Assembly and state attorney general, and even unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 1869. Tennessee governor Isham Harrison appointed Sneed one of three state generals in 1861. When Tennessee joined the Confederacy, Sneed was not transferred with the troops to Confederate service.[4] Likewise, Stockton was replaced as Engineer in August by Maj Lewis G. De Russy.[5]

   Leonidas Polk was in command of the First Geographical Division or, Department Number Two, at various times from June 25, 1861 to March 5, 1862.  Local command in Memphis passed to Col. Lucius M. Walker, 40^th Tennessee Infantry. Walker was a nephew of US President James K. Polk and a brother-in-law of Frank Armstrong. Walker was also a West Point graduate but had resigned a year or so after being commissioned. On March 11, 1862, he was promoted to brigadier general. There is very little in Walker’s Compiled Service Record regarding his work in Memphis.[6]

   According to one early historian, it did not take long for Memphis to become “a great military center.” He also contends that the first steps to organize what became the Army of Tennessee took place in April 1861 in Memphis. More than fifty companies were organized in Memphis in the first year of the war.[7]

   By the end of April 1861, two batteries were under construction at Memphis, with additional works being constructed at Forts Harris and Wright (Randolph). Fort Harris was about six miles above Memphis, and under the command of Capt. William D. Pickett, supervising construction. Later, officials deemed the site “of little strategic importance and ordered the removal of the cannon.”. The main Confederate entrenchments at Memphis were constructed at the old Fort Pickering site. The site had seen numerous forts over the centuries. The original Fort Pickering was a frontier trading post in operation from 1798 to 1814. Confederates constructed a line two miles long, placing 55 cannons along the line to defend Memphis from attack.[8]

   The Confederate works in Memphis proper were never tested. They were ordered to be evacuated once the forts on the upper Mississippi River were evacuated and the Federal navy began its sojourn down the river. There is probably more to learn about the Confederate works, maybe an inventory conducted after their capture by the Federals in June 1862, or descriptions from Confederate soldiers stationed in Memphis proper and charged with building the works.

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[1] OR Vol. 52, 2, 57-8.

[2] OR, Vol. 52, 2, 72.

[3] OR, Vol. 52, 2, 73.

[4] Allardice, More Generals in Gray, 212-13.

[5] Phillip Stockton, CMSR, RG109, NA.

[6] Prouty and Barker, Civil War High Commands, 550, 870, 884; Lucius M. Walker, CMSR, RG109, NA.

[7] Lindsley, A Survey of Civil War Period Military Sites in West Tennessee, 5; Young, Standard History of Memphis, 337.

[8] Prouty and Barker, A Survey of Civil War Period Military Sites in West Tennessee, 5.

Confederate hospitals in Memphis

   Hospitals in the United States were few and far between in the 1860s. Most large cities would have some type of public hospital. These facilities, however, were usually for the poor, or for visitors. For locals, healthcare entailed calling a doctor who then visited the sick in their homes. However, between the riverboat men who might be carrying infectious diseases and locals combatting the “recurring maladies native to the lower Mississippi and its lowland,” residents early on saw a need for some type of medical care. As early as 1829, the state made “a half hearted effort to run a hospital exclusively for travelers.” The Memphis Hospital was the first hospital established in the state of Tennessee. The hospital was a three-story brick building, containing eight rooms and able to handle 200 patients.[1]

   Memphis was also home to the Botanico-Medical College and the Memphis Medical College, both established in 1846. And, in 1860, the Memphis Charity Hospital opened, occupying one of the old buildings at the then-defunct U.S. Navy Yard.[2] 

Irving Bloch Hospital, and later, prison.

   With Tennessee leaving the Union in 1861, several new hospitals sprang up. The Confederate government took over the Memphis (or State) Hospital and civilian patients were transferred elsewhere. Doctor James Keller was reported as in charge, with the Sisters of Charity, St. Agnes, as nurses.[3] Keller was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama, and studied at the University of Louisville. He was practicing medicine in Memphis prior to the war. Women in Memphis organized the Southern Mothers’ Society and set up a hospital in a building at the intersection of Second and Union Streets. In July 1861, they were advertising for a hospital steward and a “competent, healthy, negro man to wait upon the rooms.”[4] This hospital moved to the “Irving Block, a large commercial building on Second at Court.” The larger structure had 400 beds and a Dr. George W. Curry was reported in charge.[5] The Edgewood Hospital Association converted Edgewood Chapel into a facility that could handle 50 sick and women soldiers. Following the battle of Belmont, Missouri, in November 1861, wounded soldiers were shipped via steamer to Memphis, and leaders of the city established a hospital in the new Overton Hotel, as well as opening private homes.[6]   

   Concerning the care of the Confederate wounded from Belmont, a committee resolved that “The people of Memphis are determined to leave nothing undone that is in their power to show their appreciation of the services of the gallant men who have taken up arms in the cause of the South.” As the Overton Hotel was fitted up as a hospital, Drs. Keller and Fenner were placed in charge, with R. Brewster as pharmacist. C.S. Penner was also listed as a surgeon at Overton Hospital.[7]   

   By the end of 1861, Memphis’s confederate hospital system had 1,000 beds. The hospital at Overton, along with the Southern Mothers’ Hospital or Irving Block Hospital were combined into an official Confederate hospital system with Dr. Claude H. Mastin as Supervisor of Hospitals. Mastin, born in Huntsville, Alabama, had studied at the University of Virginia, the University of Pennsylvania, the Royal College of Surgeons, and the University of Edinburgh. He was practicing medicine in Mobile, Alabama, at the start of the war. He was in Memphis as early as November 1861.[8]

   Following the battle of Shiloh in April 1862, at least 1,200 wounded men were sent via train from Corinth to Memphis. This does not include wounded men placed in private homes. The cry of abuse soon surfaced in Memphis hospitals and General Beauregard sent Dr. David W. Yandell, Medical Director for the Western Department of Kentucky, to inspect the Confederate hospitals in the city. Yandell appointed a new chief surgeon, new contract doctors, and nurses. There were now three official Confederate hospitals: Overton, SMS Irving, and the State Army hospital. When Beauregard ordered the evacuation of Memphis in May 1862, the sick and convalescent soldiers were sent back to their regiments, while the wounded were sent to Grenada, Mississippi. Fifty soldiers too sick or wounded to be moved were left behind, and Dr. G.W. Curry returned to the Irving Hospital to look after these men. When the Federals took over the city, SMS Irving Hospital was converted into a prison.[9]

   Federal forces garrisoning the city assumed use of the other structures and greatly enlarged them, or appropriated other buildings and established new hospitals in the city. Although it was short lived, the Confederate Hospital at Memphis contributed to the overall Confederate war effort and to the lives of individual soldiers. 

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[1] Stewart, History of Medicine in Memphis, 13, 84, 87.

[2] Stewart, History of Medicine in Memphis, 88.

[3] Memphis Daily Appeal, June 15, 1861.

[4] Memphis Daily Appeal, July 17, 1861.

[5] Memphis Daily Appeal, August 9, 1861.

[6] LaPointe, “Military Hospitals in Memphis”, 326-27; Memphis Daily Appeal, November 9, 1861.

[7] Memphis Daily Appeal, November 9, 1861, November 10, 1861, November 17, 1861.

[8] Claude H. Mastin, CMSR, Roll0165, M331, RG109, NA.

[9] LaPointe, “Military Hospitals in Memphis”, 332.

Lottie and Ginnie Moon, Confederate spies

   There are many celebrated Southern spies. Rose Greenhow, Belle Boyd, and Henry Harrison come to mind. Sisters Lottie and Ginnie Moon are not usually included on that list as being famous or celebrated. But they were spies, none-the-less.[1]

Virginia "Ginnie" Moon

   Richard Hall considered them “An extraordinary pair of sisters who did not at all fit the stereotype of the Southern belle.”[2] Robert S. Moon was doctor who passed in 1858. He was married to Cynthia Ann Sullivan, and they had several children, including daughters Charlotte C. “Lottie” Moon Clark (1829-1895) and Virginia B. “Ginnie” Moon (1844-1925). Lottie was born in Danville, Virginia, while Ginnie’s birthplace is often listed as either Memphis, Tennessee, or in Ohio. The family had an extensive library, and the daughters grew up reading volumes like Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason and Charles Darwin’s works. Cynthia, Virginia, and another sister Mary were living in Oxford, Butler County, Ohio, in the 1860 census. It is not clear where Lottie Moon was living according to the 1860 census. One account states that Ginnie was attending a girl’s school in Ohio at the start of the war, probably the Western Female Seminary. This account states that Ginnie, previously an abolitionist, but wishing to support the Confederacy once the war began, begged school officials to “allow her to leave school and join her mother in Memphis.” Of course, her mother is listed in the 1860 census as living in Oxford, Ohio. Maybe she had left and moved to Memphis in the few weeks between when the census taker came by and the start of the war. Another account states that  Ginnie “showed a little too much fervor and was expelled [from the school] when she shot the US flag that was flying over the campus full of holes.”[3]  

   As the story continues, Ginnie was working as a nurse, and after discovering the hospital was running low on supplies, made her way North under the pretext of visiting her boyfriend in Ohio, or, for her mother to sell property. It is unclear how many trips she made before being discovered. When she was searched, Federal soldiers discovered “many vials of medicine in her skirts, as well as a number of dispatches. She escaped arrest only because Union general Ambrose Burnside was an old friend of hers—when she was a little girl, she used to call him ‘Buttons’ because of his military uniform, and he would give her candy.”[4] Another account of the event states that both Ginnie and her mother were apprehended in Cincinnati after boarding a steamship for the journey south. As she related in an autobiographical sketch late in life, she had “on an underskirt with a row of quinine bottles in the bottom and -a row of morphine bottles above. I had the dispatch wrapped in oil silk in my bosom.” The Federal officer stated he had an order for her arrest and demanded for her to be searched, to which Moon would not consent, going so far as to pull a pistol on the officer and daring him to try. She did consent to go to the provost marshal’s office, and, while the officer was gone procuring a carriage, Moon took off the petticoat and hid it under the mattress, with her mother lying down on the bed. The message hid in her bosom she soaked in water and then swallowed. Back at the provost marshal’s office, the soldiers searched her baggage, finding contraband, such as a bolt of blue checked linen that she passed off for  material for future children’s aprons and ball of blue mass that her mother supposedly might consume in a month. The pair were kept confined and could pick the place of confinement. Moon asked for the Newport Barracks, and the Confederate prison in Columbus, but was denied, settling on the Burnett House, where Burnside was staying. She actually gained an audience with Burnside, and Burnside stated that "You have infringed upon a military order of mine. so I'll take you out of the hands of the Custom House and try you by courts martial, myself and my staff." Of the letters she was carrying, none of them contained military information, and Moon and her mother were allowed to proceed to Memphis. While in Memphis she had to report to General Hurlbut every day at 10:00 am. After three months, she was ordered to leave Federal lines and not to return.”[5] There is a thought that before being expelled from Memphis, she secreted messages to Nathan Bedford Forrest. She went to Danville for a while, then planned to go to France with other family members. She was arrested by Federal general Benjamin Butler and confined at Fortress Monroe for a time before being released, sent to City Point, and then back into Confederate lines.[6]

   Richard Hall writes that both sisters lived in Ohio and that Lottie was “romantically involved with future Union general Ambrose Burnside.” Lottie did not marry old “Buttons,” supposedly walking out on him at the altar, but did marry Judge James Clark of Ohio.   According to one source, James Clark was a Copperhead and involved in the Knights of the Golden Circle. Their home in Ohio was a spot where “Confederate couriers” could safely stop. Needing to get a message to Edmund Kirby Smith in Kentucky, Lottie donned the “disguise of an old woman” and “succeeded in passing back and forth through the lines and accomplishing the mission.” Thereafter she conducted several other spying missions, one in which she met agents in Toronto, then delivering papers to Richmond.[7] 

Marker in Memphis

   Ginnie lived in Memphis following the war, then in the early days of Hollywood, went there and was in several films, including Douglas Fairbank’s Robin Hood (1922) and The Spanish Dancer (1923). She next moved to Greenwich Village, where she died in 1925. She is buried in Elmwood Cemetery, Memphis. Lottie moved to New York with James after the war. James practiced law and wrote articles for the New York Ledger. Lottie eventually started writing for the New York World and was a correspondent in Paris covering the Franco-Prussian War. Returning to the states, she published How She Came into Her Kingdom, under the nom de plume of Charles M. Clay. She passed away in 1895 in Massachusetts, although her place of burial seems unknown.[8]

   Many of these stories seem larger than life and, in the case of spies, one always has to exercise a little caution. There is a note in the Federal Provost Marshall papers, dated April 7, 1863, stating that Virginia B. Moon, of Butler County, Ohio, had permission to go home to Butler County, but had to report to Hurlbut on April 10 in Memphis. Likewise there is a letter regarding Cynthia A. Moon regarding the same.[9] The Daily Conservative shared an article from Petersburg in May 1864 that “Miss Virginia Moon” was on the flag of truce steamer New York, arriving in City Point.[10] The post-war articles concerning the pair, they are numerous.

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[1] Many books do not mention the Moon sisters, including Wagner, Spies in the Civil War (2009); Towne, Surveillance and Spies in the Civil War (2015); Ford, Daring Women of the Civil War (2004); Bakeless, Confederate Spy Stories (1972); Valezquez, The Woman in Battle (2010).

[2] Hall, Women on the Civil War Battlefront, 90.

[3] https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/virginia-bethel-moon/; Cordell, Courageous Women of the Civil War, xx.

[4] Cordell, Courageous Women of the Civil War, 54.

[5] Moon, “The Moon and Barclay Families,” 32.

[6] Hall, Women on the Civil War Battlefront, 91; Donald, Stealing Secrets, 106.

[7] Hall, Women on the Civil War Battlefront, 91; Donald, Stealing Secrets, 96, 100.

[8] Donald, Stealing Secrets, 107-109.

[9] Virginia B. Moon, Union Provost Marshals File of Paper Relating to Individual Civilians, 1861-1865, RG 109, M345, roll 0194.

[10] The Daily Conservative, May 4, 1864.