Bailey Buttram

Bailey Buttram (1814-1898) was Scott County’s second sheriff, serving during the Civil War. He was the sheriff who certified Scott County’s secession referendum, which saw Scott Countians reject secession by the largest margin of any county in Tennessee.

See Also: Sheriffs of Scott County

Preceded By: John Llewellyn • Succeeded By: James Sharp

Early Life

Bailey Buttram was born on Christmas Eve in 1814. He was the son of John Buttram and Jane Stephenson Buttram.

It is difficult to ascertain exactly how the Buttrams arrived in present-day Scott County, due to conflicting records. Genealogical sources usually say that Bailey Buttram was born in Wayne County, Ky. and moved to the New River area with his parents around 1830. In her brook, County Scott and Its Mountain Folk, historian Esther Sharp Sanderson wrote that Bailey Buttram and his brother, William, came to New River from Virginia in 1850. In his book, Dusty Bits of the Forgotten Past, historian H. Clay Smith cites a grandson of Bailey Buttram as saying that John and Jane Buttram moved to New River from Georgia and that all of their children were born at New River.

Regardless, Bailey and William “Billy” Buttram became significant landowners, holding several thousand acres of property along the banks of New River.

Buttram married Lucinda McCoy (1816-1881) in about 1836. They had at least eight children. The oldest, Joel Buttram, was born in 1838. Other children included Rosa Buttram Hamon, born in 1839; Iradel Buttram, born 1841; Parzidia Buttram Thompson, born 1848; Ellen Buttram Hurtt, born 1849; Martha Buttram Jeffers, born 1853; Leonard C. Buttram, both 1855; and Pauline Elmira Buttram Cecil, born 1858.

Buttram served on the committee that chose Huntsville as the Scott County seat of government in 1850.

At Time of the Civil War

Esther Sharp Sanderson wrote in County Scott that Bailey Buttram brought “several slaves” from Virginia, and that those slaves helped clear the land where the New River lumber mill was later built.

H. Clay Smith wrote in Dusty Bits that Buttram’s parents, John and Jane Buttram, acquired several slaves, and that Jane Buttram — who outlived her husband by many years — owned at least 20 slaves. Smith also wrote that Buttram owned three slaves at the outset of the war: brothers named Jack and Noah, and their mother.

According to the 1860 slave census, Jane Buttram was the most prolific slaveowner in Scott County at the dawn of the Civil War. She was one of 10 slaveowners in Scott County at the time the 1860 census was taken, and owned 22 slaves (of the 59 total slaves owned in Scott County in 1860). Sixteen of the 22 were minors, and nine were younger than age 10. There were also two elderly free black women who lived with Buttram.

This almost certainly verifies Smith’s account. In Enclave: Scott County’s Unique Role in the Civil War, the Independent Herald wrote that Buttram was “an elderly Huntsville widow who owned a total of 22 slaves,” and that most of her slaves had been freed by 1861. (As a footnote: In Enclave, the IH reported that a William Bashers owned one slave in 1861. There was a William Bashers who lived in Scott County in 1860. He was a Huntsville farmer. However, the IH research was based on a transcribed copy of the 1860 slave schedule. Upon further review, including an examination of the actual hand-written slave schedule from the 1860 census, the IH believes that the name William Bashers was almost certainly a transcription error, and that the name could’ve been William Buttram instead.)

However, there is no mention in the 1860 census of a slave owner named Bailey Buttram, which would seem to refute Smith’s account of Bailey Buttram owning three slaves — unless they had already been granted freedom by the time the 1860 census was taken. But Bailey Buttram does not appear in the 1850 slave census, either. It does not appear that Bailey Buttram owned slaves.

While Bailey Buttram’s brother, William Buttram, may or may not have owned one slave in 1860, he had a daughter who owned several slaves. She was also named Jane. Jane Buttram (1831-1916) married John Potter (1828-1914). In County Scott, Sanderson wrote that John Potter’s father, Jackie Buttram, owned “a number of slaves” at the Vanderpool farm on New River. At the outbreak of the war, Sanderson wrote, John Potter joined the Union forces. According to the 1860 slave schedule, John Potter owned four slaves.

Both of Bailey’s sons who were old enough enlisted in the Union army during the Civil War. Joel and Iradel were both assigned to Co. G of the 2nd Tennessee Infantry. Their regiment, which also included a number of other Scott Countians, was overrun by Confederate forces at the Battle of Rogersville in Hawkins County, Tenn., in November 1863. Both Joel and Iradel were taken captive. Iradel died at the Andersonville prison camp in Georgia and is buried at Andersonville National Cemetery. Joel, who rose to the rank of corporal, survived the prison camp, but died at a young age in 1875.

As Sheriff

By the time the Civil War began, Bailey Buttram was already sheriff of Scott County. He had been elected in 1858, at the age of 44. Unfortunately, little record exists of Buttram’s actions as sheriff during the war, a period when guerrilla warfare and lawlessness were prominent in Scott County. The county’s wartime court records were lost or destroyed.

However, it’s likely that one of Buttram’s most significant acts as sheriff was certifying Scott County’s vote in the secession referendum of June 8, 1861. By the largest margin of any county in Tennessee (521-19), Scott County’s voters rejected the proposal for Tennessee to secede from the Union and join the Confederate States of America. Tennessee seceded, and became the 11th and final Confederate state, prompting Scott County to declare itself the Free and Independent State of Scott.

Buttram signed the election results and forwarded them to Nashville. And so began the most turbulent time in Scott County’s history.

Latter Years

Buttram was succeeded in office in 1864 by James Sharp. However, he had a son-in-law who would later serve as Scott County’s eighth sheriff. Beaty Cecil (1849-1931) was elected in 1882 and re-elected in 1884, serving a total of four years as sheriff before leaving office in 1886. Cecil married Buttram’s youngest daughter, Pauline Elmira — also called “Polly.” Three of Bailey Buttram’s aunts, the sisters of his father, John Buttram, married Beaty Cecil’s great-uncles from the Cecil family.

Cecil was a prominent Scott Countian. In addition to serving as sheriff, he also served eight years as Scott County Judge, was elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives, and was twice elected to the Tennessee Senate. At the age of 15, he hiked from his home in Scott County to Nashville to enlist in the 7th Tennessee Mounted Infantry, serving in the Union forces.

Beaty Cecil’s sons — Bailey Buttram’s grandsons — developed a sterling and lengthy military reputation. One of them, Col. Joe Cecil, is Scott County’s only Medal of Honor recipient. The U.S. Highway 27 bridge over New River is named in his honor.