Who were the bushwhackers? Age, class, kin, and Western Virginia's Confederate guerrillas, 1861-1862

Civil War History

Volumn 49, Issue 1, 2003, Pages 5-31

  Noe, Kenneth W ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 70749142735     PISSN: 00098078     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (96)

1. Richard Drake, A History of Appalachia (Lexington: Univ. Press of Kentucky, 2001), 104
2. Rutherford Hayes to Lucy Hayes, June 3, 1862, in Charles Richard Williams, ed., Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Nineteenth President of the United States, Vol. 2, 1861-1865 (1922; reprint, New York: Kraus, 1971), 285
3. I discuss this in greater detail in Kenneth W. Noe, Southwest Virginia's Railroad: Modernization and the Sectional Crisis (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1994), 112-24
4. The standard works on secession and Civil War in what became West Virginia are Richard Orr Curry, A House Divided: A Study of Statehood Politics and the Copperhead Movement in West Virginia (Pittsburgh: Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 1964)
5. George Ellis Moore, A Banner in the Hills: West Virginia's Statehood (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1963)
6. Boyd B. Stutler, West Virginia in the Civil War (Charleston, W.Va.: Education Foundation, 1963)
7. For Hayes specifically, see T. Harry Williams, Hayes of the Twenty-third: The Civil War Volunteer Officer (New York: Knopf, 1965)
8. Kenneth W. Noe, "Exterminating Savages: The Union Army and Mountain Guerrillas in Southern West Virginia, 1861-1862," in Kenneth W. Noe and Shannon H. Wilson, The Civil War In Appalachia: Collected Essays (Knoxville: Univ. of Tennessee Press, 1997), 104-30
9. See also Sutherland, "Guerrilla Warfare," 266-71, 284-85
10. For Hayes see Williams, Diary and Letters 2:187
11. Quotation taken from William Davis Slease, The Fourteenth Pennsylvania Cavalry in the Civil War: A History of the Fourteenth Pennsylvania Volunteer Cavalry from its Organization Until the Close of the Civil War, 1861-1865 (Pittsburgh: Art Engraving and Printing, 1915), 114
12. Among mountain scholars, Ralph Mann's seminal work has covered the topic most extensively: "Ezekiel Counts's Sand Lick Company: Civil War and Localism in the Mountain South," in Noe and Wilson, The Civil War in Appalachia, 78-103
13. "Family Group, Family Migration, and the Civil War in the Sandy Basin of Virginia," Appalachian Journal 19 (Summer 1992): 374-93
14. "Guerrilla Warfare and Gender Roles: Sandy Basin, Virginia, as a Test Case," Journal of the Appalachian Studies Association 5 (1993): 59-66
15. Also see Noel C. Fisher, War at Every Door: Partisan Politics and Guerrilla Violence in East Tennessee, 1860-1869 (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1997)
16. Philip Shaw Paludan, Victims: A True Story of the Civil War (Knoxville: Univ. of Tennessee Press, 1981)
17. Jonathan D. Sarris, "Anatomy of an Atrocity: The Madden Branch Massacre and Guerrilla Warfare in North Georgia, 1861-1865," Georgia Historical Quarterly 77 (Winter 1993): 679-710
18. and Margaret deMontcourt Storey, "Southern Ishmaelites: Wartime Unionism and Its Consequences in Alabama, 1860-1874" (Ph.D. diss., Emory University, 1999), esp. 183-228
19. Useful essays also appear in Daniel E. Sutherland, ed., Guerrillas, Unionists, and Violence on the Confederate Home Front (Fayetteville: Univ. of Arkansas Press, 1999)
20. John C. Inscoe and Robert C. Kenzer, eds., Enemies of the Country: New Perspectives on Unionists in the Civil War South (Athens: Univ. of Georgia Press, 2001)
21. Sean Michael O'Brien's derivative Mountain Partisans: Guerrilla Warfare in the Southern Appalachians, 1861-1865 (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1999) is long on useful narrative but deficient in analysis and context in Appalachian studies
22. For an overview see Noel Fisher, "Feelin' Mighty Southern: Recent Scholarship on Southern Appalachia in the Civil War," Civil War History 47 (2001): 334-46
23. Mann, "Ezekiel Counts's Company"; Gary W. Gallagher, The Confederate War (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1997), 120-21, 123-27, 140-41
24. Altina L. Waller, Feud: Hatfields, McCoys, and Social Change in Appalachia, 1860-1900 (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1988), 17-18, 29-33
25. David Hunter Strother, "Personal Recollections of the War," Harper's New Monthly Magazine 33 (1866): 5
26. quoted in Jonathan M. Berkey, "Fighting the Devil with Fire: David Hunter Strother's Private Civil War," in Inscoe and Kenzer, Enemies of the Country, 22
27. See Olmsted, A Journey in the Back Country in the Winter of 1853-54, 2d ed. (New York: Mason Brothers, 1863)
28. Williams, ed., Diary and Letters, 187
29. "Diary of Booth," 111, 134, Dr. John Booth Papers, folder 7, box 1, Collection 180, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus; Albert George, Camp Union, to Brother, Dec. 10, 1861, Albert George Letters, VFM 2040, Ohio Historical Society; James D. Fox, A True Story of the Reign of Terror in Southern Illinois ... (Aurora, Ill.: J. D. Fox, 1884), 19-30
30. Lester L. Kempfer, The Salem Light Guard: Company G 36th Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Marietta, Ohio 1861-5 (Chicago: Adams, 1973). 24, 38
31. F. H. Mason, The Forty-second Infantry: A History of the Organization and Services of That Regiment in the War of the Rebellion ... (Cleveland: Cobb, Andrews, 1876), 49, 88-89
32. John A. Palmer Diary, Jan. 1, 1862, in Kempfer, Salem Light Guard, 24, 38
33. Mann, "Ezekiel Counts's Company," 78-103
34. Martin Crawford, Ashe County's Civil War: Community and Society in the Appalachian South (Charlottesville: Univ. Press of Virginia, 2001)
35. idem, "The Dynamics of Mountain Unionism: Federal Volunteers of Ashe County, North Carolina," in Noe and Wilson, Civil War in Appalachia, 55-77
36. Bohannon, "They Had to Determined to Root Us Out," 97-120
37. and Inscoe and McKinney, "Highland Households Divided," 54-72, both in Inscoe and Kenzer, Enemies of the Country: John C. Inscoe and Gordon B. McKinney, The Heart of Confederate Appalachia: Western North Carolina in the Civil War (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 2000), esp. 105-38, 238-41
38. A crucial work on Southern kin and neighborhood networks that guides many of these discussions is Robert C. Kenzer, Kinship and Neighborhood in a Southern Community: Orange County, North Carolina, 1849-1881 (Knoxville: Univ. of Tennessee Press, 1987)
39. Storey, "Southern Ishmaelites," 39-77 (quote on 77). Storey examines Unionism across Alabama, not just in the Appalachian section, but she admits that most Alabama Unionists came from the hilly northern part of the state
40. Fisher, War at Every Door, 63-64
41. Henry D. Shapiro, Appalachia On Our Mind: The Southern Mountains and Mountaineers in the American Consciousness, 1870-1920 (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1978)
42. Michael Fellman, Inside War: The Guerrilla Conflict in Missouri During the American Civil War (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1989), 13-17 (quote on 14)
43. Fellman, The Making of Robert E. Lee (New York: Random House, 2000), 218
44. Gallagher, The Confederate War, 140
45. Sarris, "Anatomy of an Atrocity," 132, 138, 143-44
46. Sarris, "Shot for Being Bushwhackers," 40-41, 43-44
47. On Fellman's Lee, see William C. Davis's review in History Book Club Review, Spring 2001, 2-5. Davis particularly questions Fellman's assertion regarding Lee and guerrillas
48. Kenneth C. Barnes, "The Williams Clan's Civil War: How an Arkansas Family Became a Guerrilla Band," in Inscoe and Kenzer, Enemies of the Country, 188-207 (quote on 192)
49. Only Fisher, to my knowledge, has used similar records to answer the question of mountain partisans's socioeconomic origins. See his War at Every Door, 64, 201
50. Albert George, M'Coys, to Sister, Mar. 15, 1862, Albert George Letters, VFM 2040, Ohio Historical Society
51. U.S. War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 128 vols., plus index and atlas (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1880-1901), ser. 2, vol. 4:380, 425, 690 (hereafter OR); OR, ser. 2, vol. 9:986-1003
52. John H. King, Three Hundred Days in a Yankee Prison: Reminiscences of War Life Captivity, Imprisonment at Camp Chase Ohio (Atlanta: Jas. P. Daves, 1904; reprint, Kennesaw, Ga.: Continental, 1959), 71-96
53. William H. Knauss, The Story of Camp Chase: A History of the Prison and Its Cemetery, Together with Other Cemeteries Where Confederate Prisoners Are Buried, Etc. (Nashville: Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 1906)
54. Robert W. McCormick, "About Six Acres of Land: Camp Chase, Civil War Prison," Timeline 11 (Sept.-Oct. 1994): 34-43
55. Robert Earnest Miller, "War Within Walls: Camp Chase and the Search for Administrative Reform," Ohio History 96 (Winter-Spring 1987): 33-56
56. Edward Earl Roberts, "Camp Chase" (M.A. thesis, Ohio State University, 1940), esp. 9, 19-20
57. and Phillip R. Shriver and Donald J. Breen, Ohio's Military Prisons in the Civil War (Columbus: Ohio State Univ. Press for the Ohio Historical Society, 1964), 6-29, 48-49
58. and Knauss, Story of Camp Chase, 126-28
59. Descriptive List, May 2, 1862
60. Mark E. Neely, Jr., The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1991), 85-86, 129, 136
61. Rosters No. 18, 20, 39, 72, Camp Chase Rosters
62. Descriptive Lists, May 2, 5, 1862
63. "Diary of Booth," 55, 58, 84, Dr. John Booth Papers. See also William H. Dunham, Summersville, Va., to Henrietta, Oct. 28, 1861, William H. Dunham Letters, Unites States Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.; Rosters No. 41, 72, Camp Chase Rosters
64. "Diary of Booth," 55, 58, 84, Dr. John Booth Papers; Camp Chase No. 1, Registers of Prisoners, Office of the Commissary General of Prisoners, War Department Collection of Confederate Records, RG 109, M 598, roll 22, 41, 72, NARA; Descriptive List, May 2, 1862; Rosters 39, Camp Chase Rosters
65. Barnes, "The Williams Clan," in Inscoe and Kenzer, Enemies of the Country, 188
66. H. E. Matheny, Major General Thomas Maley Harris...a Member of the Military Commission that Tried the President Abraham Lincoln Assassination Conspirators...and Roster of the 10th West Virginia Volunteer Infantry Regiment, 1861-1865 (Parsons, W.Va.: McClain, 1963), 31, 43
67. See also OR, ser. 1, vol. 12, pt. 1:490, 662
68. For Hays, see also Stutler, West Virginia in the Civil War, 170, 173-77
69. Roster No. 22, Camp Chase Rosters
70. Manuscript Censuses, Virginia, Alleghany, Braxton, Calhoun, Fayette, Greenbrier, Kanawha, Logan, Marion, Nicholas, Pleasants, Raleigh, Shenandoah, Wayne, Webster, Wyoming Counties, Schedule I, 1860, Microfilm 653, rolls 1332, 1336, 1340, 1344, 1348, 1356, 1358, 1361, 1365, 1371, 1373, 1377, 1383, 1385, NARA (hereafter Manuscript Census, County, roll number). Johnson is found in Manuscript Census, Wyoming County, roll 1385. I located the men using two published indexes, Ronald Vern Jackson, ed., West Virginia, 1860 (North Salt Lake, Utah: Accelerated Indexing Systems, 1988)
71. and Ronald Vern Jackson et al., eds., Virginia 1860 Federal Census, Excluding Present Day West Virginia (North Salt Lake, Utah: Accelerated Indexing Systems, 1988)
72. See also, Fellman, Inside War, 133-36
73. Manuscript Census, Braxton County, roll 1336, p. 405 (Riffle); Calhoun County, roll 1340. Peregrine Hays was listed in Roster No. 68, Camp Chase Rosters as a bushwhacker, while Absolum Riffle was the father of two bushwhackers, sons Anthony and Isaac, listed in Roster No. 39, Camp Chase Rosters. David Fox may have been a dependent of Samuel Fox; if so, the percentage of sons of land owners would be even higher. See appendix for ages
74. Inscoe and Kenzer, eds., Enemies of the Country, 8 (quote), 19, 23, 26, 30
75. See also Barnes's, Bohannon's and Berkey's essays within that volume as well as Storey, "Southern Ishmaelites," 61-63, 214-27
76. Returns, Capt. W. D. Thurmond's Co., Partisan Rangers, Civil War Scrapbook, West Virginia and Regional History Collection
77. The six men are Sevey Harman, Descriptive List, May 2, 1862 (Putnam, arrested in Fayette); George Johnson, Roster No. 39 (Fayette, arrested in Monroe); Leander Lusher, Roster No. 18 (Kanawha, arrested in Fayette); Blackburn Martin, Roster No. 41 (Pleasants, arrested in Marion); James Ridle, Roster No. 22 (Fayette, arrested in Raleigh); and Perry B. Wetherel, Roster No. 56 (Nicholas, arrested in Greenbrier), Camp Chase Rosters
78. Manuscript Census, Calhoun County, roll 1338, Fayette County, roll 1344; Roster No. 39, Camp Chase Rosters.; Descriptive List, June 25, 1862
79. Descriptive List, May 9, 1862; Manuscript Census, Pendleton County, roll 1370
80. Rosters No. 22, Camp Chase Rosters; Manuscript Census, Fayette County, roll 1344; Manuscript Census, Greenbrier County, roll 1348; Manuscript Census, Raleigh County, roll 1373. Yet another man included in Roster 22 is Thomas Arthur, Jr., a seventeen year old found in the Manuscript Census, Fayette County, roll 1344. For reciprocal relationships between classes in the mountain south, see Ralph Mann, "Mountains, Land, and Kin Networks: Burke's Garden, Virginia, in the 1840s and 1850s," Journal of Southern History 58 (Aug. 1992): 411-34
81. See, for example, William J. Cooper, Jr., Liberty and Slavery: Southern Politics to 1860 (New York: Knopf, 1983)
82. Fisher, War at Every Door, 16, 24-33
83. Peter Wallenstein, "'Helping to Save the Union': The Social Origins, Wartime Experiences, and Military Impact of White Union Troops from East Tennessee," in Noe and Wilson, Civil War in Appalachia, 2-29
84. W. Todd Groce, Mountain Rebels: East Tennessee Confederates and the Civil War, 1860-1870 (Knoxville: Univ. of Tennessee Press, 1999), 47-67, 73-74
85. Durwood Dunn, An Abolitionist in the Appalachian South: Ezekiel Birdseye on Slavery, Capitalism, and Separate Statehood in East Tennessee, 1841-1846 (Knoxville: Univ. of Tennessee Press, 1997)
86. Drake, History of Appalachia, 89, 93
87. Inscoe and Kenzer, Enemies of the Country, 7
88. See also Inscoe and McKinney, Heart of Confederate Appalachia, 89-90
89. Manuscript Slave Censuses, Alleghany County, roll 1386; Calhoun County, roll 1387; Nicholas County, roll 1394, Randolph County, roll 1396. I then cross-matched all alleged bushwhackers in the appendix with the appropriate slave schedules. I also used the Manuscript Free Census Roll 1374 in order to ascertain Elias Weese's relationship to Mary Weese
90. Crawford, Ashe County's Civil War, see esp. xi (quote), 41-53, 62-68, 74-82, 126-47 (quote 142-43)
91. On this point, Inscoe and McKinney agree, see Heart of Confederate Appalachia, 30-58, 89-91
92. Fisher, War at Every Door, 41, 62-63
93. Joseph Smith to P. G. Hays, Sept. 29, 1860, Peregrine Hays Collection, West Virginia Division of Culture and History, Charleston
94. Inscoe and McKinney, Heart of Confederate Appalachia, 20
95. Dwight B. Billings and Kathleen M. Blee, The Road to Poverty: The Making of Wealth and Hardship in Appalachia (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2000), 132, 133
96. Sutherland, "Guerrilla Warfare," 284