The Confederate She-Devil Diarists.

   William H. Seward, Lincoln’s Secretary of State, once said after visiting Winchester, Virginia, that “The men were all off in the Rebel army. The women were she-devils.”[1] Winchester has a pretty phenomenal war-time history, one that has been explored in several books and many articles over the years. The old town was settled in 1732 and was once home to George Washington. There were six battles fought nearby, and the town changed hands over seventy times during the 1860s.

   Seward visited the area in late March 1862, following the first battle of Winchester. Someone asked Seward about Unionist sentiment in the town, and Seward made his now-famous “she-devils” remark. The question is an interesting one. Many in the North believed that the South was largely Unionist, controlled by a few rabid-fire eaters that had pushed weak-minded politicians into secessionist and war. And there were Unionist pockets and people, even in Winchester. But in early 1862, the South was firmly behind the movement for a separate country.[2]

   What led Seward to proclaim the women in Winchester “she-devils”? Seward was in Winchester to personally thank Brig. Gen. James Shields for holding off Stonewall Jackson’s forces at Kernstown on March 23. Seward, with his son and daughter, and Mrs. Ellen Stanton (wife of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton), spent about a day in the town and on the battlefield. While his time there was short, Seward undoubtedly had time to talk to the generals in the area and to base his assumption on their observations.

   Later, Seward’s “she-devils” came to be known as the “devil diarists.” Who were these “she-devils”?

(wikipedia)

   Mary Greenhow Lee (1819-1907) is considered the most combative and notorious of Winchester Confederate women. Her dairy is considered “one of the most informative records of daily life in Civil War Virginia.”[3] Lee nursed Confederate wounded at the hospital on Cameron Street and later nursed Federal soldiers as well, often giving the wounded soup and bread from her own kitchen. She later ran out of firewood. Lee and other ladies were known to veil their faces with bonnets, and when veils were outlawed, to use their parasols to shield themselves from the obtrusive views of Federal soldiers. In February 1865, Union general Phil Sheridan banished Lee from Winchester. She would settle in Baltimore, Maryland, after the war, where she ran a boarding house.

   Emma Riely (1847-1942) was just fourteen when the war began. She left a memorable quotation – writing that “People used to have a basket to carry their money to market in but it bought so little they could carry their provisions home in their pocketbooks.” When forced to board Federal soldier officers in 1864, Riely slipped into their rooms while they were out and stole brandy, lemons, and sugar which were smuggled to Confederates in a local hospitals.[4]

   Kate Sperry (1843-1886) was eighteen when the war commenced. Her father was a Winchester merchant who joined the Confederate army. In her diary, she kept accounts of the work she did in local hospitals and of the depredations committed by Federal soldiers when they occupied the town. On March 17, 1862, she noted that the Federals “steal everything they lay their hands on…” and in April wrote “How I detest these dreadful invaders, they are without exception the meanest set of poor white trash I have ever beheld!” Kate eventually married a soldier, moved to Goldsboro in 1864, and then to Mississippi after the war.[5]

   Cornelia Peake McDonald (1822-1909) wrote the earliest published diary of the “Devil Diarists of Winchester” (1875), having a profound impact on Civil War histography. McDonald noted that Federal soldiers stole the meal she was fixing her children on Christmas Eve 1862, then in May 1862, took her fence and firewood. While she refused to take the oath that would allow her to purchase foodstuffs for her family from the Federals or sutlers, she did work out deals to trade flour for coffee, sugar, and bacon.  The McDonald family would flee Winchester in 1863, settling in Lexington. She eventually made her way to Louisville, Kentucky.[6]

   There were others – Laura Lee, Portia Baldwin Baker, Ann Cary Randolph Jones, Margaretta Miller, and Mary Tucker Magill. There are even two who supported the Union, Julia Chase and Harriet Hollingsworth Griffin, who wrote from Winchester during the war. While there are other dairies and reminiscences from other Southern cities written or concerning the war, the “she-devils” undoubtedly have contributed more per capita than any other group, making the war-time experience of Winchester unrivaled in the annals of Confederate history.  What began as a nasty misogynist slur is now a title for informal historians who left behind critical records for the future study of the civilian experience in our nation’s great struggle.

   If you were like to learn more about civilians in Winchester during the war, check out Laura Jane Ping’s 2007 master’s thesis, “Life in an Occupied City: Women in Winchester, Virginia during the Civil War,” here.

 

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[1] The Pittsburg Gazette, April 7, 1862.

 
[2] The New York Times, March 30, 1862.

[3] The Winchester Star, November 4, 2014.

[4] Riely, Reminiscences of the Civil War, 107.

[5] https://witnessinghistory.org/kate-sperry-wartime-reports-from-winchester-virginia/

[6] McDonald, A Woman’s Civil War.

The Jingling Hole

It is often said that there were 10,500 "battles, engagements, and other military actions" during the Civil War. That is somewhere around seven engagements per day, for those four years of the war. But at the same time, the war "happened" at tens of thousands of places. Troops mustered in front of courthouses, they boarded trains at depots and ship at wharfs. They were surprised and captured at sites where no shots were fired. As I have written before, the war happened locally, in my backyard, just like it happened at Chancellorsville and Chickamauga. Yet no one really ever talks about these minor events. While not on the same scale as say, Gettysburg, they were just as destructive to local communities.

The Johnson County-Ashe/Watauga County area from a 1865 map. 

Johnson County, Tennessee, is tucked up on the border of Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia. The 1860 census lists 5,018 residents. When it came time to vote on the secession issue, Johnson County voters voted 787 to 111 against secession. To my knowledge, no one has ever broken down the 1860 Johnson County census to examine who remained loyal to the Union, who joined to Confederacy, and who simply attempted to stay out of the conflict altogether. I will add that voting overwhelmingly to remain with the Union is not a good litmus test regarding military enlistment.  Neighboring Watauga County, North Carolina, voted 536 to 72 against calling a convention, yet sent 793 men (and one woman) to the Confederate army.

It is often written that Johnson County was a Unionist stronghold, and that might very well be true. The pro-Confederate clerk was reportedly forced to flee from the area. Captain Roby Brown supposedly led the Johnson County home guard (Confederate). He was a member of the group led by Col. George N. Folk who attacked a group of dissidents at Fish Springs on the Johnson-Carter County border. It was a group of Unionists or dissidents that raided into the Bethel Community of Watauga County in August of 1863, plundering the farms of George Evans, Paul Farthing, and Thomas Farthing. The latter was killed in the skirmish. Later, Levi Guy, the father of two of the raiders, was caught and hanged. John Hunt Morgan's men supposedly raided into Johnson County, burning the homes of thirty-seven Unionists. Bushwhacking was so bad that in 1864, local pro-Confederate residents petitioned Confederate officials for protection, writing that "our county is infested with several bands of bushwhackers, murders, and deserters, who are committing depredations upon the lives and property of Southern citizens to such an alarming extent that a great many of them had to leave their homes." (Tennessee Civil War Sourcebook)

One of the most famous stories about Johnson County and the war was published by Christopher Coleman in 1999. Coleman writes of a local geological feature known as "The Jingling Hole." The origins of the Jingling Hole are unknown. It could have been a natural formation, or an old mine worked by Native Americans or maybe even the Spanish (my speculation). Regardless, according to Coleman, an iron bar had been placed over the top, "just the right thickness for a man to wrap his hands around." "A prisoner would be taken to the Jingling Hole and at gunpoint made to grip the iron bar and hang suspended over the pit. At first they would just let the prisoner dangle there a while, laughing and making crude jokes as his hands gradually went numb. Then he would finally lose his grip and plunge into the blackness of the pit. After a time, though, this sport got a little dull, so they improved on it a bit. As the prisoner dangled over the abyss, the booted bushwhackers would proceed to stamp on his hands. First one hand, then the other, then back to the first. As they pounded their victim's hands with the boot heels, their spurs would jingle a sprightly rhythm punctuated by the occasional cry of pain from the poor prisoner. Hence the name Jingling Hole." (89)

Of course, this may all be just legend.  Coleman's book is entitled Ghost and Haunts of the Civil War: Authentic Accounts of the Strange and Unexplained. There is also a mention of the Jingling Hole in the 1970 book Tennessee Legends. There is also a Jingle Hole in Madison County, Kentucky, and a Jingle Hole near Stainforth, North Yorkshire, Great Britain.

We will probably never know if the Jingling Hole was really the site of nefarious deeds during the War years. As I have often said, there is probably some truth there someplace. The site, not far from Mountain City, is just one of thousands that have a war-time connection but that that don't exactly fit on the 10,500 list.

Avery County

If you have the read this blog for any length of time, you probably already know a great deal about Avery County and the war. For the past ten years, I have called Avery County home, and I spend a great deal of time, working with school and scout groups, and the community, both learning about and and teaching others about what went on in the area during the war.

Avery County is celebrating its 100th anniversary of formation this weekend (the actual date was in February, but unless you want to ski down the street, we don't expect many folks at a parade in Avery County in February). There will be a parade, concerts, festivals, and I'm even participating in a local living history on the square in front of the courthouse. So, I thought we could make Avery County the focus of our next North Carolina in the Civil War county profile.

Since we are celebrating the 100th anniversary of our founding, you've probably figured out that Avery County did not exist during the War. The area was a part of Watauga, Mitchell, and Caldwell Counties, with the majority lying in Mitchell.

Avery County was sparsely settled in the 1860s, with most of the inhabitants living in the southern, less mountainous region, which in itself is a contradiction, considering that the whole area is pretty mountainous. Most men in the area served in Company A, 58th North Carolina Troops, also known as the Mitchell Rangers. This company was organized in December 1861, a reaction to the bridge burnings in east Tennessee. The Mitchell Rangers were a part-time infantry and cavalry organization. They spent their time guarding mountain passes from the Unionists in east Tennessee. After  the conscription ordinance was passed, the infantry of the Mitchell Rangers became Company A, 58th North Carolina Troops, while many of the mounted men transferred to the 5th Battalion, North Carolina Cavalry, and even later, the 6th North Carolina Cavalry. There were a few others who served in the 6th North Carolina State Troops and the 29th North Carolina Troops. There were also some men who served in the 3rd North Carolina Mounted Infantry, a Federal organization made up of men from the mountains of western North Carolina and east Tennessee.

Within the confines of Avery County there was the Cranberry Iron Mines, which produced iron ore for the Confederacy, employing up to 40 men during the conflict. In June 1864, Capt. George W. Kirk of the 2nd/3rd North Carolina Mounted Infantry led a raid through the area and into Burke County. The Federals' goal was Camp Vance, which they successfully destroyed. They fought several skirmishes with local home guard contingents on their way back up the mountain. Kirk's Raiders were armed with seven-shot Spencer rifles, so the contest always tipped in favor of Kirk's men. Once back into present-day Avery County, the Raiders burned the home of Col. John B. Palmer and destroyed the iron works at Cranberry.

One other important part of local history can be found in the Banner Elk community. There was an underground railroad that ran through Watauga County, with Banner Elk as one of the stops. This underground railroad funneled escaped prisoners from Salisbury and from South Carolina, along with other dissidents, through the mountains and into Federal-held territory in east Tennessee. The Banner Elk community was a Unionist haven, while at the same time, ironically enough, the Banners were the largest slave owners in the area.

There were no veteran groups in Avery County, nor is there a Confederate monument. The only monuments can  be found in the numerous cemeteries scattered throughout the county.

Booger Den

During the war, the numerous hollows and caves in western North Carolina provided numerous places for deserters (from both armies), conscript dodgers, and dissidents to hide out. Probably one of the most famous is Linville Caverns, which I wrote about here.

This past Saturday, I had a chance to participate in the Avery County Community Day, held at Cranberry (the site of an iron mine during the war). I like attending such programs – I always seem to come away with some little bit of knowledge that I did not know. This day was not to disappoint. In conversing with the lady at the booth next to mine, I learned of a place called “Booger Den.” According to people she grew up with, this was a shallow, but large, cave that Civil War soldiers hid out in during the war. That is about as much of the story as I currently have, besides its location – on a trail in the Pisgah National Forest between Roseboro and Grandmother Mountain here in Avery County. I see a hike coming in the near future.

I might never find out who hid there during the war. It might have been used by all sides at different points, maybe even by the Blalocks. So many times that is how these stories come. I’ll give one other example, from Avery County. I’ve been told by several people that there was a skirmish during the war in Miller’s Gap. Miller’s Gap is on the way into Newland, close to where you turn off to go to the high school. But that is all of the story that I can get – just a skirmish at Miller’s Gap. And yes, it probably was not much: someone standing behind a tree shooting at some else who was walking up the road. That is so much of the war in Southern Appalachia.