(continued)
After the battle, the entire Confederate force was withdrawn across the river to winter quarters at Columbus, Kentucky. Here, the Bolivar Troop was responsible for picket duty on roads outside Columbus, but aside from some false alarms, saw no action.
In January, 1862, the battalion moved to Camp Beauregard, near Paris, Tennessee, and on the 13th had a skirmish with Union cavalry near Fort Heinman. The army moved to Corinth, Mississippi in March and came under the command of General Albert Sidney Johnston.
xxxiii From here Johnston planned to strike Grant’s army, in camp a short distance inside Tennessee.
With Captain Montgomery once again away on leave, 1st Lt. Jones was left in command of the company. He dispatched 2nd Lt. Gayden to lead a scouting detachment into enemy territory north-west of Grant’s camp. The following is Gayden’s report. The Colonel Jordan to whom his report was written is apparently Col. Thomas Jordan, chief of staff for General P.G.T. Beauregard. Jordan had experience
in espionage as coordinator with the famed Confederate spy, Rose Greenhow, and his job involved coordinating Confederate units and collecting intelligence. It is interesting that a 2nd Lieutenant addresses his report directly to the chief of staff of the army. It appears that Jackson, Tennessee, where the report was written on March 28 was a Confederate base.
Jackson, Tenn. March 28th 1862
Col. Jordan
Sir,
On the 18th ult, being ordered by Lieut Jones commanding Bolivar Troop! To take twelve men and scout towards Huntington, for the purpose of meeting some of Maj. Kings men and establishing a signal between us, I proceeded to complete the order. On arriving at a little town called Clarksburg, sixteen miles north of Lexington, I found one of Maj. Kings men, who informed me that Maj. King had been ordered to Union City. While resting my men, I saw a man approaching rather slyly. Thinking that I might find out something from him, I advanced & met him some distance from the crowd. I had scarcely halted him, before he asked me if I was Southern or Northern Cavalry. I replied in the negative. He said he was glad to hear it, & that he was in hopes that we would soon run those fellows from Lexington, that he had been detailed once to go into the Southern Army & had run off, and he was afraid those fellows at Lexington would catch him. He insisted on my going home with him & spending three or four days with him. I asked him why some of them did not come out and report to us the movement of the enemy. He said they did. I then asked him to tell me the names of the individuals who did it. He gave me the following names Jno. Miller, Pig Brewer, Alex Rogers. The name of the person who gave me the above information is Samule Woods.
I am Col -
yours most respectfully,
Frank A. Gayden
2nd Lieut Bolivar Troopxxxiv
There are several things to note in Gayden’s report. First, the exclamation mark (!) in the first line after “Bolivar Troop” seems out of place, but is not a typographical error. It is clearly written on the original report. One can only speculate as to its purpose, but on the surface it may emphasize the fact that Lt. Jones was in command of the troop and/or that he issued the order. Were some “politics” or dissension with Captain Montgomery involved?
Secondly, is it possible that Lt. Gayden and his men were not in uniform? When confronted, the man skulking around the camp had to ask which side they were from. This would indicate that there was no flag and he could not tell from what they were wearing. It also indicates that partisan or guerrilla units from both sides were known to be in the area, very possibly including those of Major King.
Thirdly, consider that the circumstances of this incident are incredibly similar to those that led to Gayden’s capture in Missouri the previous summer. Once again, we have a scouting detachment, stationary and at rest. Gayden spots someone outside the camp acting in a suspicious manner and goes alone to investigate. The difference now is that he does not have a superior officer telling him that his suspicions are groundless, but this time he decides on his own to go alone. Apparently he learned little from the first experience but this time it ends differently. He succeeds in deceiving the man and obtaining information from him.
At the beginning of April, the 1st Mississippi Cavalry Battalion was joined with other units to become the 1st Mississippi Cavalry Regiment, with the Bolivar Troop designated as Company H. Colonel Andrew Jackson Lindsay commanded the new regiment.
xxxv
On April 6, General Albert Sidney Johnson attacked Grant at the Battle of Shiloh. The 1st Mississippi Cavalry Regiment was there, and it must be assumed that by that time, Lt. Gayden and his detachment had rejoined the command. Screening Major General Cheatham’s division on the Confederate left flank, the regiment saw no action on the first day of the battle.
The following day, with Lt. Col. John H. Miller leading, the regiment was ordered to cut off the Federal retreat. Observing a Michigan artillery battery, 300 yards away, beginning to unlimber their guns, Miller ordered a charge. At the cost of several wounded, the Confederates overwhelmed the enemy, capturing four cannon and 27 men, along with their horses. Major Herndon, with Captain Cole’s company, escorted the prisoners and guns to the rear.
As the Confederate army retreated the next day, the 1st Mississippi Cavalry were part of the rear-guard of Hardee’s Corps, and were the last to leave the battlefield, skirmishing with the enemy as they went, and having five men wounded. Though not involved in any of the hard fighting at Shiloh, the new regiment had performed well.
xxxvi
The Confederate forces soon withdrew further south, to Tupelo, Mississippi. There, in May, in compliance with the Conscription Act passed by the Confederate congress, the men were paid a bounty for re-enlisting for the duration of the war, and new elections of officers were held. These elections had profound effects on the regiment. Major Herndon and Lt. Col. Miller, both resentful that Col. Lindsay had been brought in to command the regiment instead of them being promoted, did not put their names up for election, and instead left the regiment. Captain R.A. Pinson was elected as Colonel to replace Lindsay, while Captain Montgomery was elected as Lt. Colonel.
xxxvii
Frank Gayden was not re-elected as lieutenant. Whether he put his name forward but was rejected by the men, or whether for other reasons he took himself out of consideration is not known. His original one-year enlistment was due to expire a month later, and he did not re-enlist. He served out his final month, once again as an enlisted man with the rank of sergeant.
Returning home after a year on active service, Frank was appointed as the policeman for Bolivar County’s 3rd District on October 15, 1862.
xxxviii Twelve days later he enlisted in a company of state troops being raised by D.C. Herndon, his former commander. This company, known as Captain Herndon’s Independent Company of Partisan Rangers, was basically a home guard unit. Frank enlisted for a term of one year, with the rank of 2nd corporal.
xxxix There were other former members of the Bolivar Troop in Herndon’s company as well, including former lieutenant Dickinson Bell, former corporal J.W. Lawler and former corporal Harry Bridges.
Called out of their homes along the Mississippi River to respond to Federal landing parties and raids, they frequently arrived too late to fight, as the raiders had already returned to their vessels. Known locally as the “Featherbeds” or “Featherbed Rangers” because they could be called out in the day and still sleep in their own beds at night, they were considered a guerrilla force by the enemy. What kind of uniform they wore, if any, is not known. Frequently the Federals would land a detachment to raid the home of a known member of Herndon’s Rangers to try to arrest him, sometimes with success.
Again quoting from F.A. Montgomery, “
This company of home guards did a great deal of good, for they overawed the lawless element in the county, and there were, the last two years of the war, many who now and then passed through it. They cost me, however, a great loss, for it happened I had an abundance of forage on my place on the river, and they made it a frequent stopping place. One day, a transport with a regiment of soldiers on it landed at my landing and a skirmish ensued, which enraged the federals, and they burned every house on the place, except one shanty in which an old negro and his wife were living. Perhaps they might not have done this, but according to the old negro’s account, they had a man killed in the skirmish, while the “featherbeds” got away without harm.”
xl
Sniping at enemy vessels always provoked a quick response. Landing parties making raids along the river and shelling by gunboats became frequent, especially in 1863. Most, if not all plantations along the river were abandoned. The Gayden, Montgomery and Sillers families, as well as others, were forced to leave their homes and were taken in at other nearby plantations further inland, often on Bogue Phalia.
xli According to Frank Gayden’s daughter, Rosa, “
As my father’s home was burned during the States war, it is supposed that the Gayden family records were destroyed at that time.”
xlii Exactly when the Gayden house was burned by the enemy is not recorded.
In about June or July, 1863, Captain Herndon left the company and was replaced by Captain W. Eugene Montgomery, a cousin of Frank Montgomery, Gayden’s former commanding officer in the Bolivar Troop. By that time, Frank Gayden had been promoted to 1st Corporal. The company muster rolls dated June 12 to July 12, 1863 show him absent on sick leave, and absent without leave on the roll dated July 12 to October 25, 1863. His record with the unit ends there,
xliii and as his enlistment expired at that time, it is assumed that he did not re-enlist. It may be coincidence but it is interesting to note that Frank’s absence from duty began at about the time Frank Montgomery’s cousin assumed command.
An interesting evaluation on the “featherbeds” appears in a report by Lt. D.B. Smith of the 28th Mississippi Cavalry, who was assigned to evaluate all of the independent companies of state troops: “
Capt. Montgomery’s Company sustains the usual reputation of partisan rangers. They do not regularly picket on the river and are accused of indolence and trading with the enemy. It is said to be a good company and well-officered.” Of another independent company, commanded by Captain H.C. Price, he reported that they were robbers and thieves, plundering the countryside,
xliv taking advantage of the citizenry they were supposed to be protecting.
In late February, 1864 this same Captain Price, leading about ten men through a three-county area, robbed a number of citizens. Some they arrested, accused of trading with the Yankees or avoiding duty in the Confederate army. Taken to Carrolton, they were all ordered released by General Richardson.
On March 7, Price and his men stopped John H. Henry on a road in Bolivar County, arrested him, took his money and threatened to hang him. They took him with them as they went to several houses which they broke into and robbed the residents. At 2 o’clock in the morning of the 8th, they arrived at Frank Gayden’s house. Forcing their way through the door, they found Frank and Emily in bed and ordered Emily, at gunpoint, to bring them all the weapons in the house, which while they held Frank, she did. They then demanded all of the money and Frank complied, giving them $650 in United States Treasury notes. Still holding them at gunpoint, the men plundered the house, even taking Frank and Emily’s clothes. There is no indication that the children were threatened, but John Henry, still being held by Price’s men, watched helplessly and later reported that the men “
offered great insults” to Emily. They finally departed, taking Frank and his mule with them, but leaving the Gayden home a shambles.
Frank and at least two other prisoners were taken to the home of a Mrs. Walker, and while some of Price’s men held them nearby, the others broke down the doors and accosted Mrs. Walker, who Frank and the others could hear screaming. When they had finished looting the house, Price’s men returned. At some point after this, Frank and the others were released.
Price and his men were eventually arrested by Confederate authorities, and at least seven victims, including Frank, submitted affidavits in Madison County.
xlv Frank signed his on April 3. At least one of Price’s men signed a confession, and Price was brought before a military court on a number of charges.
On December 21, 1864, Frank was arrested near Prentiss by Federal troops of the 87th Illinois Mounted Infantry, commanded by Lt. Col. J.M. Crebs. Frank must have been in civilian clothes. Col. Crebs wrote of Frank that he “
claims to be (a) citizen, but we think he is more soldier than civilian.”
xlvi They probably suspected that he was a member of Montgomery’s Company of State Troops, which at the time, at least according to Frank’s military records, it appears that he was not. This does not mean, of course, that he wasn’t involved in some type of action against the Federals, and it seems very likely that this was when the Gayden home was burned.
Frank was sent under guard to Memphis, where his name appears on a roster entitled, “Report of Prisoners belonging to the Rebel Army in Custody of Provost Marshal, Memphis, Tennessee.” Dated December 29, 1864, his is one of only two names on the list with no regiment shown, but instead is a notation, “
Confined by Col. Van ________ as a prisoner of war.” He was eventually released, possibly upon signing a parole or oath of allegiance to the United States.
xlvii He returned home to Bolivar County, after his second capture by the enemy, to resume life with his family.
AFTER THE WAR
In 1863, a second child, Mary, had been born, followed by Ivanna in 1865 and Frank Jr. in 1867.
xlviii In the 1870’s Joseph Redhead published a book promoting Mississippi. Frank’s rank was incorrectly given as captain and the claim was made that he was the first Confederate soldier captured in the Civil War.
xlix This is also incorrect, but it is possible that he was the first from the state of Mississippi to be captured.
With Federal authority established in the South, all slaves were freed, and in 1866 a census was made, particularly concerning the former slaves or “freedmen” as they were then known. Frank is shown in Bolivar County with 25 former slaves living on his property.
l Either they simply wanted to stay or had nowhere else to go, but they stayed and worked for their former master. As it had been for many years, Frank’s main crop was cotton.
li
The post-war years, known as Reconstruction, were hard for former Confederates. Former assets had declined, almost certainly due to the loss of slaves and the harsh conditions of Reconstruction. With former Confederates prohibited from voting, the number of Black voters and “Radical Republicans” was far greater than the number of voting Southern whites, and oppressive laws and taxes were imposed. Many a land owner, unable to pay the high property taxes, was forced to sell.
In 1866, Frank Montgomery gave a piece of land to Bolivar county for the building of a new county seat. Formerly it had been a crossroads on his plantation, Beulah, with a store and blacksmith shop. The new town was duly named Beulah, and soon grew into a thriving community.
In September, 1866, Frank Gayden was appointed to a “jury” to study the best route for a road from Beulah Church to Pride’s Landing. Also appointed was one of his former commanding officers, D.C. Herndon. The following month they submitted a recommendation that the road should run from Frank Montgomery’s residence, up the east bank of Willow Slough to New Cut Road, to Pride’s Gin House.
lii
The estate of J.M. Batchelor filed suit against Frank in October, 1866, presumably to recover unpaid debts.
liii Although he had a good crop in 1866,
liv by April, 1868 Frank was registered in county records as having declared bankruptcy.
lv Apparently, lacking money to hire field hands, he took on sharecroppers. On July 10, 1869 he contracted with four former slaves, Jeff, Simon, Sanders and Harry Williams, to work a portion of his land. He would provide them “
team, forage and implements” and they agreed to give Frank
“one third of the corn and cotton they produced.” They further agreed “
to do good and faithful work both in making and gathering said crop, and that they shall have full and entire control of their portion of same.”
lvi
Frank leased land “west of Laban’s Bayou” from his brother, Iverson, at the end of 1869.
lvii He still owned at least two pieces of property at that time, but sold them shortly thereafter. The first of these was the 5 ½ acres that he had bought in 1860. It sold on September 10, 1870 for $700, and on it had been his residence.
lviii In October the following year, he and Emily sold 267 acres which he had bought from his brother, George in 1860, to Emily’s father and step-mother for $800.
lix Although still a farmer, Frank is shown in the 1870 census as no longer owning property, but with personal property valued at $500.
lx Exactly where he and his family lived after that is not known, but it was still in the Beulah area.
From the Mississippi Slave Narratives, we have the following memories of Beulah from Porter Bond, a former slave. I believe it refers to the first years of Reconstruction, when Beulah was the county seat. Frank and Emily Gayden were living less than a mile from the town as described here, and would have been very familiar with it.
“
Foreword: The following is an interview with Mrs. Laura Dickerson and an old Bolivar County negro. Mrs. Dickerson...gives us this interview in the exact words of this old colored man.
Lordy, Miss, I just can’t recollect just how long I is been here...Why dis was a young country when I first comed down here with Mr. Jim Bond from Franklin, Tennessee, way back yonder when he was a real young man, and I was too, but not as young as him... He had the biggest store at Beulah and de biggest furnishing in de county I guess. Why on Sadays de ******s and wagons come from every which o way to git grub and den in de fall, here dey come hauling in de cotton and everybody had money and was happy. Why Mr. Jim done so much business he had to send and git Mr. Tom, his younger brother, to help him. I tells you, Beulah was a hot town in dem days. The worst water, why you could pump it fresh and pour it in de glasses on de table fur dinner and before the folks could get there to drink it, it had a scum on it and had done turned yellow. And de mud was awful. Does you know a cow bogged down in
in de street one winter and natcherly died. Dey want no bottom to de roads, pore buckshot, and de more you traveled dem de deeper dey git. And whiskey! Well, you see, Mr. George Christmas had a whiskey boat in de middle of de lake. Dey say it was anchored on de Arkansas side. I don’t know how dey could tell, but it was dere and de supply never run out. Folks (men) would come between trains and walk over to de levee. Dere was always a row boat to meet you, and den here dey’d come reeling back to cetch de down train or up train and sometimes dey didn’t cetch up. And Sadays, specially nights, was terrible. Mr. Jim never let any of his women folks go to town on Saday, dere would be so many drunks and so much shooting. No, dey didn’t kill anybody much, dey just shot for the fun of hit, up through the roof of the porch to the Chinaman’s store and some of um would just set down on de side walk and shoot up in de air, jes shooting. Judge Cooper was there and had a buggy and a pair of horses that he hired to the drummers to drive to Rosedale. All de roads followed de levees and wound and twisted about till you couldn’t scarcely git no where.”
(Verifying Porter Bond’s account is an editorial in the Bolivar Times from an issue in the summer of 1869, deploring the discharging of revolvers in Beulah the previous Saturday night. I visited Beulah in 2015 and again in 2017. It is a small collection of buildings along Highway 1 from Rosedale. There appear to be few people living there and very little activity. Time has not been kind to Beulah. RMS)
More children came into the Gayden family, Rosa Belle in 1870, Charles in 1872 and Shelby in 1874. Frank, however, was not dealing well with the challenges of his life. Now quoting from Annie Eliza Clark Jacobs, “
The suicidal mania struck Natchez about this time. So many young men sent to Europe as young boys when the Civil War was on, grown up at the universities of Europe or in Paris with nothing to do, simply killed themselves rather than work or, despairing of disappointed effort, and so many who went merrily to fight for sixty days came home weary, ragged, and penniless at the end of four weary years with all the bad habits of camp life and horror of doing work that only the Negroes had ever done. We had a striking example of this in Frank Gayden, who had married my cousin Emily. He went to the war leaving a nice family in a comfortable home with faithful slaves who stayed at their home and made a comfortable living for the young mistress and themselves, old family servants who let freedom pass on while they held to their settled ways, and accepted their wages as a gift from their master’s hand. But the free camp life had gotten into Cousin Frank’s blood; he must go into the woods on long hunting trips and vie with others in bringing home quantities of game, and night after night in Beulah in gambling and drinking with others like himself. It took but a few years to finish him; the pleasant home with its dancing hall, where we young folks had so often wound up our fish fries on the bayou, with a dance, all gone; plantation stock and everything. Cousin Emily, after his death, used to bring all four children to Doro when the food gave out at her home, and sew for us, she sewed nice too. Piece by piece, she sold the few belongings left her, for he had even taken her mother’s old silver to gamble on. At last she gave up and died, and the children were divided among the relatives. Sister Emma took one, I took one. They were nice children too. All these and many other things we used to talk over.”
lxi
Genealogy charts by my father show that sometime in 1875 Frank Gayden died at the age of 38 or 39, at or near Beulah. However, a sheet of notes take from Rosa Gayden Snell’s papers, gives the date of his death as April, 1877. The exact day is not legible. Emily died not long after, on November 23, 1878.
lxii Again, we don’t have any details but there was a severe yellow fever epidemic that year in Bolivar County and many died of it.
lxiii Maybe Emily was one of them, but Annie Jacobs states that Emily just “gave up and died.” Perhaps it was a combination of the two.
I have found no record of their deaths in the Bolivar County courthouse and have not been able to determine where Frank and Emily are buried. It’s almost as if they never existed. One un-named source indicated that it is Amite County or possibly across the state line in East Feliciana Parish, off the path and one needs a guide. This fits the description of the Agrippa Gayden Cemetery, where there is indication that there are at least two unmarked graves out of a total of six.
My suspicions, however, are that not only Frank, but Emily and her mother, Mary Adelia Darden Miles, may all have been buried on the grounds of Elmwood Plantation, owned by Emily’s father, Charles T. Miles. He outlived them all. It would make sense that Charles would bury his first wife on his plantation, a common practice at the time. And, when Frank, and soon thereafter, Emily died, it appears that they no longer owned property of their own and were virtually penniless. It is unlikely that they could afford a cemetery plot, and burying then next to her mother on Elmwood Plantation would make perfect sense.
The land which was once Elmwood Plantation is now part of the Port of Rosedale, a large complex of buildings used for shipping local products. If Frank, Emily and Mary were buried there, their graves, unfortunately, would now be covered over or even built over. This could well explain why their graves cannot be found.