NF Col. Colton Greene and Kate Sherwood Bonner.

Non-Fiction

TerryB

Lt. Colonel
Joined
Dec 7, 2008
Location
Nashville TN
One of the CDVs in an old album I inherited was indexed as "Dr. Bonner." It was taken in Memphis in 1865. The doctor turns out to have been a neighbor of some of my ancestors who lived in Holly Springs, Miss. He had a daughter named Kate who achieved some literary distinction as a writer who was among the first to let black characters speak for themselves in their own dialect, as opposed to being seen and interpreted through the eyes of white folks. She used the pen name Sherwood Bonner, but her promising literary career was cut off by cancer in 1883. She somehow was able to get through the quarantine by train from Boston to Holly Springs in Sept 1878, where she nursed her father and brother until they died of yellow fever. She then managed to talk a Union officer into letting her board a train to escape the plague. One of her romantic associations was an older man, Col. Colton Greene of Marmaduke's Brigade, Sterling Price's army. Green served in the 3rd Missouri Cav and was passed over for promotion to general until the end of the war. He settled in Memphis and seems to have been one of Bonner's suitors, helping her financially. Whether they had a genuine affair is not known.
 
Terry that is a great story, hope to hear more about it.[/QUO
One of her recent biographers teaches at the University of Ga. He calls Greene, General Greene and implies that he was nothing but a quartermaster. The author and I correspond by e-mail, and I once sent him a blow-up of Dr. Bonner's picture. Kate married a worthless man named McDowell, divorced him and kept custody of their daughter. But her finances were so precarious that she had to leave the girl with relatives while she moved to Boston and became the protege of some of the literary figures there...until she lampooned them in a sarcastic poem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Sherwood_Bonner_McDowell


Well, judging by his portrait, Greene either made general or wanted people to think he did.
 
Numbers 8. Report of Colonel Colton Greene, Third Missouri Cavalry (Confederate), commanding Marmaduke’s brigade.
HEADQUARTERS MARMADUKE’S BRIGADE, In the Field, October 28, 1863.
MAJOR: In compliance with orders from division headquarters, my command marched, at 1 p. m. on the 24th instant, in the direction of Pine Bluff, with an effective aggregate of 800, and reached that place at 9 o’clock on the morning of the 25th, having halted two hours en route. I dismounted my men on the southwest edge of Pine Bluff, and moved in column, Colonel [Robert R.] Lawther, commanding Greene’s regiment and [M. L.] Young’s battalion, in advance. Colonel [S. G.] Kitchen’s regiment remained mounted. The enemy’s pickets were driven in by the advance, and the column deployed into line and advanced, skirmishing with the enemy, several hundred yards. My command formed the center column, and Colonel Kitchen’s regiment was thrown on the flanks, to communicate with the columns moving east and west. We advanced rapidly, driving in the enemy’s skirmishers, and took the following position within 150 and 250 yards of the court-house, to which the enemy had retired and strongly fortified with cotton-house, to which the enemy had retired and strongly fortified with cotton-bales: Colonel Lawther commanded the left wing, composed of Greene’s regiment (on the extreme left), Young’s battalion, and [D. B.] Griswold’s light battery; the right consisting of [S. T.] Ruffner’s battery (three guns), [W. L.] Jeffers’ and [J. Q.] Burbridge’s regiments (commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel [W. J.] Preston), in the order named. Burbridge’ regiment was advanced, wading through a lagoon, until it rested on Newton’s left. After reconnoitering the enemy’s works, I placed Ruffner’s battery in position near the Methodist church, which played upon the court-house and adjoining buildings with effect, while Griswold’s battery opened farther to the left and drove the enemy’s sharpshooters from their shelter. The enemy’s works were defended in the direction in which my right lay by four howitzers and two heavier pieces on the left, all well protected by cotton-bales. The action was maintained, chiefly by sharpshooters and artillery on both sides, for five fours. No serious effect was produced upon the enemy’s works, and it became evident that they could only be carried by a coup de main. He was well covered, and could only be approached over many obstacles. At 3 o’clock I was ordered to retire my troops to the position occupied in the morning. The enemy observed the movement, and soon attacked my rear, consisting of Greene’s regiment and Young’s battalion, but were repulsed with loss. As the rear again withdrew, another demonstration was made, but upon the delivery of one fire from Colonel Kitchen (formed on the right and rear), the enemy hastily retreated.

http://arkansastoothpick.com/2007/12/call-to-arms-10/
Col. Colton Green (3rd Brigade, Missouri Vol.)


MARCH 6-8, 1862.--Battle of Pea Ridge, or Elkhorn Tavern, Ark.
No. 53. -- Report of Col. Colton Greene, commanding Third Brigade Missouri Volunteers (Confederate).
HDQRS. THIRD BRIG., MISSOURI VOLUNTEERS, C. S. A.,
Camp near Van Buren, Ark., March 20, 1862.
GENERAL: I have the honor to submit a report of the operations of my command in the actions of the 7th and 8th instant near Elkhorn Tavern:
In compliance with your order all the cavalry, excepting Captain Campbell's company, which fought as infantry, was dismounted before leaving camp in Boston Mountains, and which consisted of about 80 men, the remains of Colonel Frazier's and Colonel Freeman's regiments, Missouri State Guard, and squads of Confederates numbering 105. These were attached to the Confederate Infantry, together with parts of two companies of Colonel Schnable's Third Infantry, Missouri State Guard. I marched with 658 men on the 4th instant, leaving a strong camp guard behind.
On the morning of the 7th we reached the enemy's rear near the junction of the Bentonville and Springfield roads, the command being somewhat reduced from the severity of the march. I was immediately ordered into position by you on the hill to the left of the road, where our batteries were first posted. Here we received the enemy's fire for two hours, sustaining a loss of 10 in wounded.
I was again ordered to the right, to support Colonel Burbridge, and advanced in line several hundred yards, when I found myself in close proximity to one of the enemy's batteries. Our guide was missing, and we had advanced a considerable distance beyond Colonel Burbridge's position. The enemy opened on us with canister and shell, but my men, being well sheltered, sustained no injury. I held the position for thirty minutes, when we were fired into from one of our own batteries and were forced to fall back.
By your order I now took position on Colonel Burbridge's left, and advanced on the enemy, to the right of Elkhorn Tavern. The timber being obstructed by heavy undergrowth at this point, I was forced to oblique to the left, which movement brought me to the rear of the tavern, and here, by order, I took position on Colonel Rives' right, and co-operated with that gallant and lamented officer during the remainder of the action.

http://www.factasy.com/civil_war/2008/06/20/col_colton_green_3rd_brigade_missouri_vol

Into the bustling, growing city of St. Louis, around 1853, came a 21 year old South Carolinian named Colton Greene. 2 Little definite is known about his ancestry and early life. Greene himself, despite his prominence, never revealed details of his early life other than his being born in South Carolina in 1832. A devoted ladyfriend, the novelist Katherine McDowell ("Sherwood Bonner"), wrote a short story in which the central character, a hot-blooded young South Carolina aristocrat named "Colton Grandeis", knifes a black servant in a fit of anger, and then becomes a social outcast. That is as good an explanation as any for the mystery. 3 What is certain is that even at this young age Greene's letters quoted the classics freely and displayed familiarity with several foreign languages. Wealth and advanced education (perhaps in Europe, where he frequently took trips) seem to have been his birthright.

Greene took a clerk's position in Stephen Hoyt's booming St. Louis merchandise business. Within a few years Greene rose to partner in the business, now renamed "Hoyt & Greene". The wealthy Greene actively campaigned for local Democratics, professing a states-rights credo that foreshadowed his future Confederate career. An 1858 letter to a personal friend, Virginia's Congressman Albert Jenkins, sets forth his views on the "hot" issue of the day:
"What in God's name has become of Southern political sagacity that they manage this Kansas imbroglio so badly? We are clearly beaten on the balance-of-power issue. The time has come when we must rule by tact. Yield Kansas (for if slavery is established there now it will be abolished in two years)--make her a democratic state--conciliate & bribe the north ... This is not the time to fight the Negro questions; and what is worse to choose our battle field in Kansas." 4
The 1860 election and the realignment of the traditional political parties put Greene in the forefront of Missouri state politics. The Democratic Party nominee for Governor, Claiborne F. Jackson, bowed to the wishes of the majority of state Democrats and endorsed the presidential candidacy of Unionist Democrat Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois. Greene, who thought Douglas' views "deplorable", joined the more secessionist-minded minority in backing John C. Breckinridge. The split extended to state politics. The Breckinridge supporters presented an alternative ticket headed by ex-Governor Hancock Jackson and future Confederate general Mosby M. Parsons. Although he thought the party split "an overwelming disaster", Greene became the de facto campaign manager for Breckinridge and the state ticket. 5
Greene's efforts proved fruitless. Douglass and "Claib" Jackson carried the state, with Hancock Jackson receiving only 7% of the vote. Worse still, the split between Governor Jackson (a secessionist, despite his public endorsements) and his (potentially) most ardent supporters damaged the Southern cause in Missouri. Greene later recalled what happened next: "Though the election of Lincoln was not unexpected, and a large majority of the people of St. Louis, not of the Republican party, were willing to acquiesce in it, yet when the fact was fully realized, that a sectional president was elected, the community was strongly agitated and the minds of men were filled with gloom, distrust and fear. A vague apprehension of impending evil was general. But in this busy mart of trade, people soon pushed their fears aside and even the most pronounced secessionist had begun to accommodate himself to the state of things, when in December 1860, the secession of the state of South Carolina, followed quickly by the gulf states, took place. The whole situation was at once changed. The great body of the people condemned the action of the seceding states, whilst a small, but determined band of young men, who had been conspicuous leaders in both sections of the democratic party, resolutely supported them." 6

http://www.starbacks.ca/~sterlingprice/greene.htm


 
In case anyone wonders what Colton Greene looked like. This is him.

2084931644_889d88d560.jpg
 
When Sherwood Bonner's health began to fail, she traveled to Memphis and sought out the company of Greene. Whatever did or didn't happen between them, she did manage to convince him to pay off her debts and leave a substantial legacy to her daughter, Lillian. Bonner died of cancer in 1883, and only recently have her works been "rediscovered" and reinterpreted. Her father, Dr. Charles Bonner, also has his own literary claim to "fame." William Faulkner used Bonner's name, morphing it into Charles Bon, for one of his main characters in the novel Absalom, Absalom! Faulkner had traveled to Holly Springs in order to read an old, yellowed diary from the Civil War era. The diary mentions Dr. Charles Bonner, and literary critics now believe Faulkner used the diary and its people to provide the subtext of his mythical Mississippi county whose name I will not try to pronounce or even reproduce.
 
I wrote the article on Greene quoted above, also a bio for my "More Generals in Gray."
Greene never married...and one rumor in Memphis at the time (I don't vouch for it, I just pass it along for what it's worth) is that he didn't because he was of mixed ancestry.
 
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