Henry Gibson
Henry Polk Gibson (1819 – Oct. 8, 1863) was a Scott County man who served as the leader of the Scott County Rangers, a regiment of Confederate soldiers, during the Civil War. He was killed by bushwhackers during the war.
Biography
Born in 1819, Henry Gibson was the son of James Thomas Gibson II (1775-1862) and Mary Ann Finley (1779-1862).
The Gibson family was originally from Virginia, though James T. Gibson’s parents and Mary Finley’s parents all moved from Virginia to the Williamsburg, Ky. area. Henry may have been born in Kentucky.
Henry Gibson’s siblings included Keziah Smith, Finley Gibson, and James Thomas Gibson III.
Gibson married Elizabeth Patterson. Their children included John Franklin, William Patterson, James, Polly, Sarah, and two younger children. There were likely others, as well, possibly including Finley, Z.T., Emily, Martha, Nancy and Angeline.
Henry Gibson had a brother, Travis Gibson, who served as a deputy sheriff in Campbell County. He was killed — along with Campbell County Sheriff Sampson Queener — while attempting to arrest two men accused of passing a counterfeit bill in Jacksboro in 1858. He was stabbed in the neck. The two men were hanged in 1859.
Civil War
Although Scott County was largely pro-Union, with only 19 Scott Countians voting for secession in June 1861, the Gibson family were strong supporters of the Confederacy. Henry Gibson joined the Confederate army, serving as a captain in the 13th Regiment (Gore’s) of the Tennessee Cavalry. At least two of his sons, John Franklin and James, also served in the Confederate army. So, too, did several of his brothers, including James Thomas Gibson (1810-1862) and George Gibson (1813-1862).
Gibson played a leading role in the Scott County Rangers, a group of Confederate loyalists from Scott County who organized in Straight Fork near the beginning of the war and eventually became a formal Confederate regiment.
When Capt. Ewell Smith, a Scott County deputy sheriff who helped form the Scott County Rangers, was injured early in the war, Gibson took over as the leader of the outfit. Paul Roy, in Scott Countians in the Civil War, identified Gibson as Smith’s cousin. However, Gibson appears to have been Smith’s uncle. Gibson’s sister, Keziah Gibson, was Smith’s mother.
After the war, in April 1866, Henry Gibson’s father, James T. Gibson, was posthumously indicted in Scott County for treason, according to the Scott County Historical Society. The elder Gibson was killed on Feb. 7, 1862, which was apparently a deadly year for the Gibson family. The Historical Society reports that he was bushwhacked by a man named Dan Carpenter near Jacksboro, Tenn.
Henry Gibson was killed in a skirmish in Anderson County on Oct. 8, 1863. His son, John Franklin, returned his body to their farm in Elk Valley, which is in western Campbell County, to be buried. According to the Historical Society, a group of Union soldiers visited the Gibson farm upon hearing of John Franklin’s return with the body, and John Franklin killed one of them, then fled.
Also killed or died in 1862 were Henry Gibson’s brothers, James Thomas Gibson and George Gibson, as well as his mother. A memorial stone in the cemetery where Henry Gibson was buried includes the names of both his parents, his brother, James T. Gibson, and other members of the family.
On Nov. 7, 1862, the Scott County Rangers hanged two men on Buffalo Creek, Larkin Cross and Ransom Vanover. Vanover was a Union soldier who was home on furlough in his Union uniform. Cross was not an enlisted man.
Several conflicting accounts of the incident have been given. It is generally believed, as written in Enclave: Scott County’s Role in the Civil War, published by the Independent Herald, that the murderers were among a regiment of more than 1,000 Confederate soldiers who had raided Scott County from Kentucky, targeting the homes of known Union supporters on Jellico Creek and Buffalo Creek. Information uncovered more recently by the Scott County Historical Society indicates that the murderers were members of the Scott County Rangers; 17 of them were indicted by a Scott County grand jury after the war. In his book, Dusty Bits of the Forgotten Past, the historian H. Clay Smith wrote that Ewell Smith’s brother — Callie Smith (likely J. Calvin Morgan Smith, 1833-1927) — was home on leave and had encountered hostilities due to his involvement in the Rebel army. As he was attempting to flee Scott County by way of a neutral family member’s farm on Smith Creek, he and some men with him were ambushed by members of the Scott County Home Guard. Shortly thereafter, they encountered Vanover and Cross, and hanged them. Elements of all three accounts may be true.
On Aug. 16, 1866, a Scott County grand jury indicted 17 members of the Scott County Rangers in connection with the murders of Cross and Vanover. There’s no record that Henry Gibson was present; however, as the leader of the Scott County Rangers, he likely would’ve been. He would not have been indicted because he was killed in 1863.
Among the men who were indicted were Pryor Gibson, Henry’s brother; Perry Gibson, Henry’s nephew; and John Franklin Gibson, Henry’s son.
Also indicted were Ewell Smith, Calvin Smith, Reddin Smith, Joseph Smith, Archibald Keith, Jasper Keith, John Keith, Ramsey Keith, James Tye, Isaac Griffith, Nicholas Patterson, Ramsey Patterson, William Bruce and William McCoy. Most of them were closely related to the Gibsons. Archibald Keith married Henry’s sister, Melinda Gibson. Jasper and Ramsey were their sons, Henry’s nephews.
None of the men ever stood trial; most or all of them fled Scott County before the end of the war. John Franklin Gibson moved to Swain County, N.C. along with his mother — Henry’s widow — and several of his siblings.