Reluctant Rebs & "Homegrown Yanks": East Tennesseans in the Civil War

Last post- the ancestor who changed his mind:
Benjamin Crabtree, Co. I, 17th TN Inf. Captured at the Battle of Lookout Mountain (Chattanooga) and sent to Rock Island POW camp. Volunteered as a Union scout against the Plains Indians.

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Last post- the ancestor who changed his mind:
Benjamin Crabtree, Co. I, 17th TN Inf. Captured at the Battle of Lookout Mountain (Chattanooga) and sent to Rock Island POW camp. Volunteered as a Union scout against the Plains Indians.

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Thanks! Just the kind of posts I'd hope someone would make to this thread. I also had numerous East Tennessee ancestors/relatives on both sides. I'll have to look closely at your lists, but I believe we had kin in the same outfits on both sides.
 
Thanks! Just the kind of posts I'd hope someone would make to this thread. I also had numerous East Tennessee ancestors/relatives on both sides. I'll have to look closely at your lists, but I believe we had kin in the same outfits on both sides.
Likely so, Greene, Roane, and one other county where where most of our families came from- we joke that we're probably related (there's a missing cousin- male- on my side and a runaway wife on her side). I've got pics of a good number of the men listed, I can post if anyone's interested?
 
Likely so, Greene, Roane, and one other county where where most of our families came from- we joke that we're probably related (there's a missing cousin- male- on my side and a runaway wife on her side). I've got pics of a good number of the men listed, I can post if anyone's interested?

Great! Either here, or in the Civil War Ancestry forum would be good. Did we figure out some time ago we were probably related through the Land & Earp families from Wilkes County, NC? I may have you confused with someone else. I've been lurking around here for a decade now.
 
Great! Either here, or in the Civil War Ancestry forum would be good. Did we figure out some time ago we were probably related through the Land & Earp families from Wilkes County, NC? I may have you confused with someone else. I've been lurking around here for a decade now.
I don't recall either, but my wife does have Earps from North Carolina- O'Neal Township, Johnston County for most of them. She also has O'Neals, presumably the namesake of the county? But yes, we should figure out if/how we're related :D
 
I don't recall either, but my wife does have Earps from North Carolina- O'Neal Township, Johnston County for most of them. She also has O'Neals, presumably the namesake of the county? But yes, we should figure out if/how we're related :D

A 4 x great aunt Ann Land married Thomas Earp (Arp) in Wilkes County, NC. Their sons, Thomas, William, and Andrew served in the Confederate Army.
 
She
A 4 x great aunt Ann Land married Thomas Earp (Arp) in Wilkes County, NC. Their sons, Thomas, William, and Andrew served in the Confederate Army.
She has a Thomas Earp who was in the artillery, and a William Earp who was in the 26th NC, shot in the hand at G'burg; he died in Wilkes, NC in 1908.
 
The Wagner's were mentioned by Daniel Ellis in his post-war book. They accompanied my relative, former Confederate Lieutenant, Thomas Charles Land of Wilkes County, NC to Oregon Territory in 1870.



I've posted several times about my 4 x 1st cousin from Wilkes County, NC., Thomas Charles (T.C.) Land and his experience in the Civil War. I've always believed T.C was quite the "unreconstructed rebel" following the war. He spent most of his final years in Oregon Territory, first going there in May of 1870 and returning to Wilkes County in 1884. He then returned to Oregon in 1891, remaining till 1898, when he returned to North Carolina for the final time. He died there at his youngest brother's home in 1912.

David and Elizabeth Wagner, formerly of Johnson County, (East) Tennessee, but who had resettled in Wilkes when the war in East Tennessee began to go badly for the rebels, traveled west with T.C. Mr. Wagner is mentioned by the Union Army Scout/Pilot, Daniel Ellis in his post-war publication as one of several well-known nemeses of Unionists in Johnson County, Tennessee, and referred to by him as "Hog Wagner". Their son, Jacob, is also mentioned by Ellis. Here are excerpts from the book:

"The month of September 1864.... rebel home guards in that county, (Johnson), had assembled and entered into the horrid agreement to kill every Union man they might find in the county, burn their houses, and drive their families through the lines. Sam McQueen, Green Moore, B.O. Johnson, John K. Hughes, William Shown, Jacob Wagner, and other influential citizens of Johnson County had voluntarily entered into this conspiracy with old Bill Parker as their leader"......


"the skeleton of a man was found about three miles from the place where we made the attack on him.....He was found about a mile from the house of Jacob Wagner, who was a staunch old rebel......Some of Wagner's family said, after old parker's skeleton was found, that they remembered very distinctly of having heard the voice of some person calling and hallooing on several occasions in the direction where his skeleton was found.....It is quite probable that in his last agonies he called for his old friend and fellow rebel, Jake Wagner"......

"When morning came, we went up Roan's Creek to the residence of "Hog" Dave Wagner, who was a wealthy man and was also one of the leading rebels of Johnson County. he had left home but left an abundance of everything behind him both for man and brute to eat. We were the first Yankees who had visited him, consequently, we and our horses fared most sumptuously during the whole time of our stay on his premises".


The Wagner's story on Find-A-Grave:


 
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Alfred E. "Mudwall" Jackson requests a "special" pardon from Andrew Johnson. He also had to write letters to "Parson" Brownlow and the reconstruction Governor Of Virginia, Francis Pierpont.



Washington County, Virginia
June 25, 1865
To his excellency, Andrew Johnson
President Of The United States

Sir, I have the honor to apply for the special pardon under your proclamation of May 25, 1865, being excluded from the benefits of the amnesty oath by reason of having held rank above that of Colonel in the Provisional Army Of Confederate States and having been the owner of taxable income property exceeding in value $20,000 at the commencement of the war.

Prior to the promulgation of your Proclamation, I had taken the amnesty oath prescribed by President Lincoln in his Proclamation of Dec 8, 1863, a copy of which I herewith enclose, together with the certificate of the officer by whom the oath was administered. I am not aware of laboring under other disability than that named above, indeed if an estimate of my property was now made, it would be found I was excluded from amnesty only by reason of military rank.

I hope you will find it not incompatible with a sense of justice and the humble welfare to grant the relief sought for in this communication.

I am sir very respectfully
Your obedient servant
A.E. Jackson, late Brig-Gen P.A.C.S.

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Post-war photo of "Mudwall" astride his favorite war-horse, "Jeff Davis". Probably taken in Jonesboro, Tenn. Before Jackson's death in 1899, he ordered that his horse be allowed to stay on the farm and was to be interred on the farm when he died.

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Brigadier-General Alfred E. Jackson, in 1861, was
quartermaster of Zollicoffer's brigade, and very active in
collecting supplies for the soldiers and whatever things
needed for their full equipment, in which duty he was very
efficient. During 1862 he served in the department of East
Tennessee under Gen. E. Kirby Smith, and proved himself so
capable that he was commissioned brigadier-general, and on
February 9, 1863, was assigned to the military department of
East Tennessee, then commanded by General Donelson.

In this region he had command of a brigade under Donelson and
Maury, and was kept on the alert against raiding parties of
the enemy. In September, 1863, when most of the Confederate
troops had been ordered to Bragg at Chattanooga, and Burnside
with a Federal army corps had occupied Knoxville, Jackson,
with his own small command and that of Colonel Giltner,
advanced to Telford's depot, and there defeated a Federal
advance force, capturing 350 prisoners.

On the theater of Jackson's operations there was a good deal
of this sort of detachment work in which there was plenty of
marching and fighting, but very little chance for renown,
because the great battles so obscured the small affairs that
in many parts of the country they were never even heard of.

In October, under Gen. John S. Williams, he took a gallant
part in the victory at Greeneville, east Tennessee. His
command was included in Ransom's division during Longstreet's
operations in east Tennessee. On November 23, 1864, being
unfit for active service in the field, he was ordered to
report temporarily to General Breckinridge.

After the war had ended, General Jackson, like the thousands of other citizen-soldiers, returned quietly to the pursuits of peace. He was financially ruined by the war, and for some time farmed rented land in S.W. Virginia. He also lost two sons in the war. On October 30, 1889, he died at Jonesboro, Tenn.

Source: Confederate Military History, vol. X, p. 315



 
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Glenn, drove down to Chattanooga friday then drove across North Georgia to Cherokee NC. Got into Gatlinburg yesterday. Saw a book at the visitors center by Gail Palmer on feuds in the smokles. The story of JJ Kirkland killing your relative Captain Gray and Bas Shaw is in the book. Have not read it yet. Don't know if it has anything on Timothy Lyons killing Kirkland's brother.
James
 
Keep me posted!
I'm doing a little research on the Templer Lewis Scouts from around Cocke County. A Confederate Home Guard unit. Very effective and organized. Though some of the unionist gave them all they could handle. The Confederacy may have been short on manpower but men like Zeb Vance and Joe Brown and others knew how to keep some effective fighters close to home.
 
I'm doing a little research on the Templer Lewis Scouts from around Cocke County. A Confederate Home Guard unit. Very effective and organized. Though some of the unionists gave them all they could handle. The Confederacy may have been short on manpower but men like Zeb Vance and Joe Brown and others knew how to keep some effective fighters close to home.

That's a new one on me. Cocke County was predominantly Union. Then again Ellis had run-ins with the Johnson County, Home Guard.
 
Cocke county was indeed an unionist stronghold. Though as you said, there was dissenting views throughout the eastern counties of TN.The Templer Lewis Scouts was organized by a Captain A L Mims and other Confederate officers.
 
Cocke county was indeed an unionist stronghold. Though as you said, there was dissenting views throughout the eastern counties of TN.The Templer Lewis Scouts was organized by a Captain A L Mims and other Confederate officers.
I continue to watch this thread, because one entire branch of my family tree migrated to western Missouri from Cocke County, Tn. during the 1830s. Some 30 or so associated and/or related families made the trek in groups, many promised bounty lands in the soon to open Platte Purchase Territory. They came from such places as Del Rio, Parrottsville, Newport, Bridgeport along the French Broad and Nolichucky River valleys.
 
Partisans from both sides "forage" freely in places like Del Rio and Parrottsville in Cocke County. A trick some women used was to place food in sacks, tie the sacks around their waist and hide the sacks with their long skirts.The method worked. Most of the men didn't bother the women's person. Don't think that would work as well today.
 
The Colonel Writes from Cumberland Gap :

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Abram Fulkerson
was born on May 13, 1834, in Washington County, Virginia. His grandfather, James Fulkerson, had served as a Captain, in the Virginia Militia during the American Revolution, joining with the Over-mountain Men and fighting the British at the Battle of Kings Mountain. His father, Abram Fulkerson Sr., had served during the War of 1812 as a captain of a Virginia Militia company in Colonel David Sanders' Regiment, 4th Brigade, Norfolk Division under Gen. Peter B. Porter. Fulkerson graduated from the Virginia Military Institute at Lexington in 1857, where he was a student of Prof. Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson, as had been his elder brother Samuel Vance Fulkerson (1822-1862), who had served in the Mexican–American War and as a delegate to the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1850. Samuel was killed in action leading the 37th Virginia Infantry at the Battle of Gaines Mill. Another brother, Isaac Fulkerson (1829-July 20, 1889), was a captain in the 8th Texas Cavalry (Terry's Texas Rangers). After graduation, Abram taught school in Palmyra, Virginia, then in 1860 in Rogersville, Hawkins County, (east) Tennessee.

He entered Confederate military service in June 1861 as a Captain, having organized a company of men from Hawkins County, Tennessee, that was mustered into the 19th Tennessee Infantry Regiment as Company K (The Hawkins Boys) at Knoxville, Tennessee. His was the first company of volunteers organized in East Tennessee, and Abram Fulkerson received a commission as the regiment's Major. He was wounded in the thigh and his horse shot from under him at the Battle of Shiloh. After recovery and the unit's reorganization, he was reassigned to the 63rd Tennessee Infantry. Commissioned as Lieutenant Colonel of the 63rd, and President Jefferson Davis on February 12, 1864, commissioned him as a full Colonel.

Abram Fulkerson twice helped garrison the Cumberland Gap: first with the 19th Tennessee then with the 63rd Tennessee. On May 18, 1863, while at Cumberland Gap, he penned a letter to his wife in which he noted that he was visited there by President Jefferson Davis:

"One of our pickets came in the other day and reported that a Mr. Davis was at the lines and desired to enter. This report took me very much by surprise, for although you had mentioned the probability of his coming yet I did not look for him. He only stayed a few hours. After dinner (a very poor one without apology to him) I went [around] to show him some of the curiosities of Cumberland Gap, which he seemed to think would compensate anyone for making the visit. He went back up the valley and expected to get home by Wednesday next".

In the same letter, he addressed the news of General Stonewall Jackson's death:

"The intelligence of the death of Gen. Jackson came upon us like a shock. We feel that his death is a national calamity. The poorest soldiers among us appreciated his worth - loved the man, and mourn his loss. I knew him well. He was my preceptor for more than four years and whilst during that time I did not appreciate the man, at school, as schoolboys are not like to do, yet I always had great reverence for the man on account of his piety & uprightness of character. Among the many heroes of this revolution, none have lived so much adored, none have died a death so much deplored, and none have left a character as spotless as that of Stonewall Jackson. Could his life have been spared till the close of this cruel war, the unanimous voice of a grateful people would have proclaimed him chief ruler of the nation. But God has seen proper to take him from us, and what He does is right and for the best. It is therefore that we make the sacrifice cheerfully, tho we cannot see why our country should be deprived of his services at her hour of greatest need".

While with the 63rd, Fulkerson was wounded twice more: in the left arm at the Battle of Chickamauga and again at the Second Battle of Petersburg, Virginia the regiment having returned to the Army of Northern Virginia with Longstreet's Corps from East Tennessee. He was taken prisoner on June 17, 1864, and sent to the POW camp at Fort Delaware. While a POW, Fulkerson became part of the Immortal Six Hundred, 600 captured Confederate officers who were taken to Morris Island at Charleston, South Carolina and used as human shields by the Union Army for six weeks in an attempt to silence the Confederate gunners at Fort Sumter, in response to Union officer prisoners being placed among civilians to stop Union gunners from firing into downtown Charleston.[6] Though none of the Immortal Six Hundred were killed by the continuing Confederate artillery fire from Fort Sumter, 14 died of dysentery.

After Morris Island, Fulkerson was taken to Fort Pulaski and placed on starvation rations for 42 days in retaliation for Confederate prisoner abuses at Andersonville. Crowded into the fort's cold, damp casements, the Confederates' "retaliation ration" consisted of 10 ounces of moldy cornmeal and a half pint of soured onion pickles. The starving men supplemented their rations with the occasional rat or stray cat. Thirteen men died there of preventable diseases such as dysentery and scurvy.

In March 1865 Fulkerson was returned to Fort Delaware, where he was discharged and paroled on July 25, 1865, months after General Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox.

After Fulkerson returned home, his horse that he rode during his military service, whose official name was "Zollicoffer" (after former newspaper editor, Congressman, and early casualty among the Confederate Officer Corp, Felix Zollicoffer), was returned to him. Fulkerson kept the horse for the rest of its life, but called him "Old Bob." When the horse died, former Confederates from the Bristol area assembled and conducted a military funeral for it. In 1885, Stonewall Jackson's horse, "Little Sorrel," was brought to Bristol on a tour and Fulkerson rode it and was photographed as a number of former veterans assembled to pay their respects.

Fulkerson died in Bristol, Virginia, on December 17, 1902, at the age of 68, of complications after suffering a stroke. He was buried there in East Hill Cemetery in Sullivan County, (east) Tennessee.

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The Colonel holds the reins of “Little Sorrel.”

Colonel Fulkerson was wounded and Captured on June 17, 1864, in the trenches at Petersburg, Va. Years after the war he wrote a somewhat humorous account of a confrontation between him and Union General Ambrose Burnside, the Union's "Liberator" of East Tennessee:

The general had dismounted and was seated on a camp-stool. He was surrounded by Negro guards. The prisoners were halted at the line of guards, and the officer in charge announced to the General that they had captured a Colonel of a regiment, many officers and men, three flags, and several pieces of artillery. Rising from his seat General Burnside approached us and addressing me, inquired what regiment I commanded, and being informed it was a Tennessee regiment, he asked what part of the State. "From East Tennessee", I replied. With an expression of astonishment, General Burnside said, "It is very strange that you should be fighting us when three-fourths of the people of East Tennessee are on our side". Feeling the rebuke unjust and unbecoming an officer of his rank and position, I replied with as much spirit as I dare manifest, "Well General, we have the satisfaction of knowing that if three-fourths of our people are on your side, that the respectable people are on our side". At this, the General flew into a rage of passion and raged at me, "You are a liar, you are a liar, sir, and you know it". I replied, "General, I am a prisoner and you have the power to abuse me as you please, but as to respectability that is a matter of opinion. We regard no man respectable who deserts his Country and takes up arms against his own people". To this General, Burnside replied, "I've been in East Tennessee, I was at Knoxville, I know those people, and when you say that such men as Andrew Johnson, Brownlow, Baxter, Temple, and Netherland are not respectable, you lie sir, and you will have to answer for it". At this point, I expected he would have me shot by his Negro guards, but he continued, "not to any human power, but to a higher power". With a feeling of relief, I answered, "Oh General, I am ready to take that responsibility". "Take him on, take him on", the General shouted to our guards, and thence we were marched two or three miles to City Point..... Confederate Veteran, Volume 1, Number 10, p. 306.
 
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