Enclave: ‘Oh, Lord, how long?’
Writing to Maj. Gen. Henry Wager Halleck — who Abraham Lincoln had placed in command of the Union armies — on December 15, 1862, Congressman Horace Maynard called Halleck’s attention to a newspaper report of troubles in Scott County.
Wrote Maynard, “From that small county have gone many soldiers, now in our service, leaving their homes to such devastation as is here described. Oh, Lord, how long?”
It was Maynard, who represented Scott County in Congress, who had visited Huntsville on June 4, 1861, along with U.S. Senator Andrew Johnson, to urge residents to vote against secession. Their efforts to rally Scott Countians and East Tennesseans to their cause succeeded. Their efforts to save the Union failed. But they became two of the only congressmen from the 11 secession states who did not resign their seats in the House and Senate. And they never stopped advocating for Scott County and the rest of East Tennessee, urging President Abraham Lincoln to send the federal army to liberate the pro-Union region from the grasp of the Confederacy.
What had captured Maynard’s attention was a report from a Louisville newspaper about a force of Rebel soldiers, more than 1,000 strong, that had passed through Scott County, pillaging farms and burning the homes of known Union supporters.
As the Summer of 1862 progressed toward fall, and then as the calendar flipped to 1863, guerrilla warfare was rampant in Scott County and surrounding counties. It was the worst time of the war for local residents, who were at the mercy of the pillaging armies.
Two names that were whispered in hushed tones throughout the Upper Cumberland region were Champ Ferguson and Tinker Dave Beaty, the most infamous of the guerrillas. Confederate sympathizers feared Beaty; Union supporters feared Ferguson. In both cases, they were plenty justified in that fear.
There is no evidence that either Ferguson or Beaty ever carried out guerrilla operations in Scott County. But the type of warfare they were engaging in was increasingly common on the east side of the Big South Fork River as well as the west. That’s why Union Col. William Clift, who had raised the unsuccessful infantry regiment that was defeated in the Battle of Huntsville on August 13, was intent on engaging the guerrillas. He had some limited success, writing that one of his search parties captured an unspecified number of Rebel guerrillas in early October, and that another killed four of Ferguson’s men in a mid-October foray into Fentress County.
But Clift’s regiment, the 7th Tennessee Volunteer Infantry, was disbanded by Gen. Ambrose Burnside. The soldiers under his command either transferred to a different unit or deserted and went home. With the collapse of the 7th Tennessee in the Battle of Huntsville, all that was left was the Home Guard to defend Scott County and her people.
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Confederate Gen. John Hunt Morgan, whose command was known as Morgan’s Raiders for the type of guerrilla warfare they typically engaged in, entered Scott County in mid May of 1862, two weeks before Clift began recruiting men to join the 7th Tennessee. Their sole purpose was to raid and loot. The term “guerrilla warfare” conjures images of irregular war fighters, men who aren’t enlisted for either side. But the term was actually applied much more broadly, and applied to any fighter — whether or not he was enlisted — who engaged in irregular war tactics. Morgan’s Raiders were very much a part of the Confederate regulars, yet they were also very much guerrillas.
There isn’t much detail available about Morgan’s foray into Scott County, though historian H. Clay Smith noted that he was hoping to catch up with the guerrilla band commanded by Capt. James Rule, who had served in the U.S. Army before deserting at the beginning of the war and joining the Confederate army, after which he formed his guerrilla band. Rule’s men had been terrorizing settlements along the Big South Fork River in western Scott County.
Apparently, Morgan’s Raiders were unsuccessful in locating Rule, and eventually left Scott County with their spoils. Also in the Summer of 1862, guerrillas raided the farm of Jimmy Slaven at present-day Verdun. They pursued him until he managed to allude them, then returned to the farm to search for the homemade gun powder that he was drying on the roof of his home. They were unable to locate it, and left after taking blankets, silverware and other valuables. The guerrilla band also raided the nearby farm of Esquire Blevins before continuing to Huntsville.
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It was on November 7, 1862, that a large number of Confederate guerrillas entered Scott County from Kentucky, laying waste to a large swath of the county and prompting the newspaper report that caught Congressman Maynard’s eye.
The 1,000-plus guerrillas were broken into three regiments, according to historian Paul Roy, and they set fire to the homes of men known to be loyal to the Union. Among the homes that were burned was that of David Trammell in the Winfield area. Trammell, who lived on Jellico Creek at the base of the Cumberland Mountains, was the grandson of Scott County Revolutionary War hero Dennis Trammell and one of Scott County’s first justices of the peace. He served as a captain in the Home Guard.
The Rebel soldiers allowed Trammell’s blind wife, Polly, to be led to safety before they burned the home. Capt. Trammell was away from home when the Rebels arrived, but he had several small children at home. One of the youngest, a 12-year-old boy, was named Dennis Winfield Scott Trammell, after the War of 1812 hero who was commanding the Union army at the outset of the Civil War — the man for whom Scott County was named.
Their home burned and their belongings stolen, the Trammell family spent the winter in a cave on Jellico Creek.
The same detachment of Rebels also raided the farm of James Chitwood, who was also the grandson of a Revolutionary War hero of the same name, and who also served in the Union forces. For whatever reason, the raiders did not burn Chitwood’s home. They did, however, steal a total of 89 horses during their ride through Scott County.
A separate detachment, meanwhile, visited Smith Creek and burned the home of Carwell Cross. They stole $690 in gold from him — the equivalent of almost $25,000 today — and drove away 14 of his horses.
The guerrillas then united and continued towards Huntsville, burning more houses and shooting livestock along the way.
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Along their route towards Huntsville, the Confederate guerrillas came across a trio of men walking along Buffalo Creek. One of them was Ranson Vanover, who served in the 2nd Tennessee Infantry. He was home on furlough and was wearing his Union army uniform. The other two had the misfortune of simply being in his company.
Both Vanover and one of his companions, Larken Cross, were shot and then hanged in an apple orchard.
The historian Smith wrote that Cross was “one of Scott County’s better citizens, and had not wanted to take any part in the war. He had been a good farmer and kept open house to anyone who wished to spend the night with him.”
The Louisville newspaper wrote, “Mr. Cross was a good citizen, and the loss is severely felt.”
Cross was 39 when he was murdered. He left behind a wife and five children. One of his children, Clabe Cross, would go on to become an influential businessman in the early days of Oneida, and was the chief organizer of Scott County’s first bank, which would become First National Bank.
Vanover was survived by a wife and two children.
Somehow, the third man, Oliver Duncan, managed to escape and hide in a rail pile. Later, as the Rebels were preparing to set fire to the rail pile and a nearby house, he fled, throwing aside his heavy rifle as he ran up the mountainside and the Confederates’ bullets whizzed by him.
When Duncan arrived at his home sometime later, the Confederates had already been there, and had informed his mother that they had hanged him along with Vanover and Cross.
According to historian Esther Sharp Sanderson, in her book “County Scott and Its Mountain Folk,” other Unionists who were with the Vanover and Cross were being chased by the Rebels when they came upon Richard Sharp, who was out hunting.
“What in the hell is the matter?” Sanderson quoted Sharp as saying, to which one of the Union men replied: “You’ll soon think you’re in hell — look coming there.”
Sanderson wrote that Richard Sharp shot one of the guerrillas, causing the rest to flee, and from that day forth was known as “Devil Dick.”
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Near the headwaters of Buffalo Creek, the Confederates ran into the Scott County Home Guard, commanded by Capt. James Duncan. There was a brief skirmish, and four of the Rebels were killed. Several others were wounded. The Home Guard apparently suffered no casualties.
The Rebels retreated down Buffalo Creek, “destroying and carrying off everything valuable that fell their way,” the newspaper account noted.
On October 11, the guerrillas crossed the mountain to Jacksboro, leaving Scott County behind and eventually re-entering Kentucky.
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The large band of Rebels had left Scott County, but the guerrilla warfare was far from over. One of those who could stand testament to that was Samuel Roberts, a Welshman who had founded the small Brynyffynon settlement along the Monticello Road, near the present-day intersection of O&W Road and Toomey Road along Pine Creek.
Roberts was a Congregational preacher from Llanbrynmair in Wales. He was an influential figure in Wales, but was seen as a radical. He was lured to the Cumberland Plateau by the same things that pulled fellow English reformer Thomas Hughes here decades later. Hughes established the Victorian English community of Rugby, which was decidedly more successful than Roberts’ Brynyffynon settlement.
Brynyffynon, which means “spring on a hill,” failed because of timing as much as anything else. It was a settlement that was still in its infancy when the War Between the States broke out.
Roberts was an absolute pacifist — opposing war regardless of the circumstances. In fact, Scott Countians suspected that he was a Confederate sympathizer because he criticized the Union war effort. But, far from a Rebel, he was also an abolitionist and had lobbied for an end to slavery.
It was perhaps irony that the Civil War — which Roberts staunchly opposed, and criticized — was fought over slavery, which Roberts also staunchly opposed. It was perhaps even greater irony that the war spelled the end of Brynyffynon. And while it left him financially ruined, Roberts at least escaped it with his life. There was a moment during the war when that didn’t look possible.
Roberts’ settlement was often raided by Confederate soldiers and Union soldiers alike during the war. By the end of the war, his livestock was starving to death for lack of food. As a pacifist, it’s likely that Roberts freely gave aid to many of the soldiers who visited his home, and there were some Union soldiers who were regulars there as they passed through Scott County. But he was never reimbursed for his efforts by the federal government, despite his petition for financial relief after the war.
The Confederates, meanwhile, set their sights on Roberts because he was providing food and lodging for Union soldiers. They figured him a supporter of the Union.
That’s why guerrillas showed up at his farm to arrest and hang him. And when they quizzed Roberts about providing aid to the Union fighters, he did not deny the charge.
As the Confederate soldiers were preparing to hang Roberts, one of them asked exactly where he and his fellow settlers had come from. It was an important question, because the Union and Confederacy alike had been careful to pacify Great Britain to prevent it from having an excuse to enter the war. If the British chose to throw its weight behind either side of the fight, that side would gain a significant advantage.
When he was told that Roberts and his fellow settlers were British, the soldier replied, “Damn, that alters matters. If we hang Britishers there will be a hell of a row.”
With that, the Confederates released Roberts and left Brynyffynon. Roberts would later write that he didn’t realize at the time just how close he had been to death. It wasn’t until neighbors told him that the Rebels had indeed intended to hang him that he realized how closely he had rubbed shoulders with death.
The raid on Brynyffynon, and the eastern Scott County raids and destruction of November 1862, marked some of the last significant guerrilla incidents in Scott County. But peace was nowhere in sight. And one of the deadliest skirmishes between the Home Guard and the Confederates was still to come, in a small cabin on the Big South Fork River.
Editor’s Note: This is the 12th installent of “Enclave: Scott County’s Unique Role in the American Civil War.” Look for the complete series in an upcoming book, “Enclave,” which will be published by the Independent Herald and available for purchase through Barnes & Noble.