The Battle for the Bacon — and other Civil War shorts
It appeared as a small story in the January 25, 1863 edition of the New York Times: the defeat of a small regiment of Union soldiers at New River 10 days earlier.
“Capt. Thomas Butler has been the hero of quite a gallant little achievement, on the edge of Scott County, Tenn. It appeared that at the New River settlement there had recently been stationed two companies of Federal soldiers, under command of Capt. Noah Doherty, a Tennessee renegade from Anderson County. Capt. Butler, on learning of their presence, at the head of thirty men, started in search of them. On reaching the spot where the varmints (sic) were encamped, Capt. B. demanded the surrender of the whole party, which was responded to by a volley from ten or fifteen muskets. One ball grazed the Captain’s lip, and trimmed his mustache in the most approved style of the tonsorial art. A brisk skirmish ensued, in which six of the Abolitionists were killed, a number wounded and several captured. The remainder took to the woods.”
The story had first appeared in the Richmond Enquirer on January 20, 1863. It further detailed that 15 to 20 horses had been taken by the victorious Rebels, along with a similar number of Belgian rifles, and more than a ton of bacon and a similar amount of flour. The press labeled it the “Battle for the Bacon.”
Beyond that report, it is a skirmish that is shrouded in mystery. Paul Roy, through the extensive research that he presented in his 2001 book, “Scott County in the Civil War,” made no mention of the Battle for the Bacon. Neither did historian H. Clay Smith in “Dusty Bits of the Forgotten Past,” or historian Esther Sharp Sanderson in “County Scott and its Mountain Folk.”
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If you’re tempted to ask whether the Battle for the Bacon even happened, one major clue comes from postwar records. Capt. Abraham H. Cross of the 2nd Tennessee Infantry stated that Michael Low — the grandson of Scott County’s first white settler, “Grand Mikey” Low — was seriously wounded at New River around January 9, 1863.
According to Cross’s report, Low was shot while in action, with the ball entering his chest, traveling upward through his right jaw, knocking out some of his teeth and destroying part of his tongue before exiting through the left jaw.
Miraculously, Low was not treated by a doctor, “but being near home, was sent there, where he remained till his wounds healed,” according to Cross.
There were also witnesses who supported Low’s claim for a pension years later who confirmed his gunshot wound and provided additional details. Those men, Thomas L. Duncan and Phinley Patterson, stated that Low was wounded on January 9, 1863 at New River after his command had been cut off from his company and was hiding out in the mountains, awaiting a chance to rejoin the others.
In the affidavit, the former soldiers said that one Union soldier was killed in the skirmish and others were injured. They had no idea whether Low would survive, “but he were brave and would Rather die as to be made a prisoner of war as it seemed to them.”
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The date and location of Low’s gunshot wound at the hand of Rebel soldiers would seem to provide at least some confirmation of the skirmish that the press would label the “Battle of the Bacon.” But it doesn’t necessarily mean that the reports appearing in the press weren’t exaggerated.
Recall the way the the Confederate-sympathizing newspapers reported the Battle of Brimstone nine months earlier. At Brimstone, on April 1, 1862, it was reported by a newspaper in Athens that 30 members of the Scott County Home Guard had been killed and 18 taken prisoner, while a newspaper in Knoxville reported that as many as 40 members of the Home Guard had been killed, and some of the 18 taken prisoner were killed during an escape attempt. But there is only verifiable evidence that a single man from Scott County — Ambers Strunk — was killed in that fight. The newspapers reported it as a decided Confederate victory; in reality, it is likely that the Home Guard forced the Rebels to retreat.
Would it be a stretch to believe that the Richmond Enquirer, which was a Confederate-sympathizing newspaper, would have reported wildly exaggerated details of a Rebel victory as a way to boost morale, similar to the tactics used by the Confederate-sympathizing newspapers in Knoxville and Athens less than a year earlier?
It’s circumstantial, but one bit of evidence lies within the reports: In reporting on the “Battle for the Bacon” in January 1863, the Richmond Enquirer said that the Confederate soldiers made off with 2,000 to 3,000 pounds of bacon, and a similar amount of flour. In their reports on the “Battle of Brimstone” in April 1862, the Athens Post reported that the Rebels took all the bacon they wanted, while the Knoxville Register reported that the Rebels took more bacon than they were able to carry. A regiment of irregulars calling themselves the Home Guard would have almost certainly not had that sort of provisions on hand, and it’s unlikely that a small regiment of regulars encamped in what was a virtual wilderness area would have had that sort of provisions on hand.
Also helping to cast doubt on the story is one of the names. Noah Doherty was probably Noah Daugherty, who lived in the Devonia area of Anderson County and served in Company A of the 1st Tennessee Infantry. But Capt. Thomas Butler was Thomas Harvey Butler Sr., from Livingston, Tennessee, who was commissioned a captain by Tennessee Governor Isham Harris early in the war. He would go on to serve as Tennessee’s secretary of state in the 1870s and was then elected to the state legislature. The problem? He was honorably discharged from the army on March 7, 1862 — 10 months before the Battle for the Bacon.
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There are several undocumented stories from the war that gained legend status through the years, as they were handed down from generation to generation. One of the best-known concerns the tragedy of the Tackett brothers on Station Camp Creek.
Confederate President Jefferson Davis had authorized the South’s first draft on April 16, 1862. The act required all white males between the ages of 18 and 35 to serve three years of service. People who owned 20 or more slaves were exempted from service.
There was no one in Scott County who owned 20 or more slaves. There was also hardly no one in Scott County who obeyed the law to serve in the Confederate army. Most of those from this area who served in the Rebel army had enlisted prior to April 1862.
It was not uncommon for marauding Confederate guerrillas to force men and older boys into the fight. And, as such, men and boys would often take to the woods to hide when guerrillas approached their farms.
From the creek-bottom farmsteads near where Station Camp Creek and Charit Creek merge, about three miles west of the Big South Fork River, came the story of the Tackett brothers. As the story goes, an elderly relative who was caring for the boys — perhaps their mother or grandmother — heard the Rebels coming and hid the teenage boys beneath a feather tick, or mattress. She then lay atop it, pretending to be sick. Her act convinced the soldiers to leave. After they had gone, she pulled back the mattress to free the boys, only to discover that they had died of suffocation.
Today, simple field stones mark the graves of the Tackett boys, just up the trail from Charit Creek Lodge. Nearby is the partial remains of a stone chimney — all that remains of the Tackett cabin.
Only one of the field stones that serve as the Tackett brothers’ headstones has an inscription. It reads: “Ma 3 1863.”
Given that inscription, it is likely that the Tackett brothers’ deaths occurred during the same raid of the Big South Fork settlements that eventually led to many of the Confederates’ deaths. The so-called Duck Shoals Skirmish, or Battle of No Business, at the home of Jonathan Burke took place in May 1863.
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Richard D. Slaven, known as “Wild Dick,” was 20 years old when the Civil War broke out in 1861. The son of Absalom Slaven and Elizabeth J. Wood Slaven, he was the grandson of Revolutionary War veteran Richard Harve Slaven, believed to be the first white settler in the No Business settlement along the Big South Fork River.
Wild Dick fought for the Union during the war, enlisting in Company I, 12th Kentucky Infantry alongside his brother, Elias Meshak Slaven. He had two uncles in the same regiment: Anderson B. “Andrew” Slaven and Pleasant Slavey.
In his book, “Scott County in the Civil War,” Paul Roy related a story that had been handed down from Slaven’s granddaughter, and was told by Terry Sasko.
“The group Richard was in would have a guard watch every night. And every night a man would be killed by what was thought to be a wild animal like a bear. When it came time for Richard’s turn, he went out and stuffed his bed roll to look like he was in it, asleep. Then Richard took his rifle and hid nearby in the woods so he could kill whatever it was before it could kill him. After awhile, he hard something coming through the woods, making noise like a bear. When it got closer to his bed roll, Richard saw (I guess the moon was shining) that an Indian was underneath a bearskin and when the Indian got close enough to the bed roll, he pounced upon it with his knife.”
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Along Old Highway 63 in Campbell County, near the Scott-Campbell county line, are two stones marking the graves of Isham and Nathan Bowling, brothers who were Union veterans of the Civil War. The graves are located at the Lowe Cemetery, but are apart from the rest of the graves at the cemetery. Both have military markers and have been the subject of a lot of speculation through the years.
In his book, Roy stated that the brothers were the sons of Berry Bowling, a Civil War veteran who was one of the 71 signers of the Scott County Home Guard oath in December 1861. In another place, he listed Isham and Nathan Bowling as brothers of Berry Bowling. That is perhaps more likely, since Berry Bowling was only 32 when the war began, and had only been married for 13 years.
Roy included in his book an interview with Clarence Lowe, a retired schoolteacher from Campbell County who was also the caretaker for the Lowe Cemetery. Lowe said that his father, born in 1891, had handed down a story of the Bowling brothers being “renegades” who were captured and being returned to Jacksboro, Tenn. for trial when they were killed during an attempted escape and were buried in unmarked graves.
As a child, Lowe’s father was sent to look for the graves so that tombstones could be placed on them. Unable to find them, they simply picked out a location and said “They’re buried here.” Military markers were placed at the site. Those stones were later moved when the field was being cleared for crops, and were moved yet again to the Lowe Cemetery.
“They were not war heroes, as many have come to believe. They were wanted men with a bounty on their heads … renegades who were involved in some atrocious crime,” Lowe said.