Captain Goldman Bryson and the First Tennessee National Guard

As Lee White and I were sitting at the Chickamauga Battlefield Visitor Center Information Desk on Saturday, January 23, I was approached by an individual wishing to relate a story to me about how one of his ancestors caught a minié ball in the shoulder during the battle and wanted more information on the unit his ancestor fought with during Chickamauga. Well, like so many visitors, he only had a name, a name Lee and I could not specifically pinpoint for the gentleman. I believe the surname was Brannon, but that is beside the point in this case.

According to Lieutenant C.H. Taylor, a skirmish took place deep in the hills of Cherokee County, North Carolina, on November 1, 1863. Taylor was the commanding officer of a group of nineteen men who were ordered by Confederate General John C. Vaughn to pursue Captain Goldman Bryson's company of "mounted robbers." Supposedly, Taylor's band tracked the "robbers" for two days, without stopping to eat. They finally came upon Bryson and his men, which scattered. Taylor ordered Bryson to stop, and when he refused, Taylor shot him. The wound did not deter Bryson from trying to get away from the Confederates, and he was shot several more times. Taylor's men did find orders from General Ambrose Burnside on Bryson's body and turned them over to his superiors. For further information concerning this skirmish, correspondence can be found in

The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies.

The Simple Fifth Kentucky and Appalachian Otherness

In 1914, veteran of the 4th Ky. Infantry (CS) Lewis C. Garrigus wrote a series of articles in his (then) local paper, the Portland Morning Oregander. In one of these, Garrigus recalled nicknames that each regiment was given within the brigade.

Lieutenant-Colonel Phil Lee, of the Second Kentucky, was quite a wit and something of a wag as well, and after the Fifth came to use, he characterized the five regiments as follows: The "honest ninth," the "theiving fourth," the "supple sixth," the "invincible second" and the "simple fifth." The fifth had been recruited in the mountain counties of Kentucky, and we called them "seng diggers" when they first came to us, but we soon learned to respect them for their prowess, their indomitable courage notwithstanding their want of culture.

And in so doing, Garrigus joined what was, by then, a cultural phenomenon that considered the American mountain South another America, a retarded frontier, the contemporary ancestors of the country permanently locked in their Elizabethan past. This is not surprising for 1914 as many scholars who study the evolution of the idea of Appalachia will point out. But what is most interesting is that Garrigus' claims are backed up by wartime accounts that disparage the soldiers of the Fifth as jeans wearing, uncultured, ginseng digging, persons outside the mainstream Kentucky. The development of an Appalachian other has been linked to mountain unionism during the war, but I can't help but wonder if there are also roots of an Appalachia-as-other in intra-Confederate criticism of the mountaineer as well. I have decided to start poking around this idea this semester in a seminar with Dwight Billings to see if it has legs.

My exploratory steps thus far has been to see if the 5th was really a "mountain" regiment. Using E.Porter Thompson's 1868 annotated rosters, here's where the Orphans hailed from. Update: New maps! Red counties sent a company-sized contingent, Orange counties sent a significant (~15+) group, and Yellow counties sent a small number of soldiers into the unit:

The "Simple Fifth." While there are the large groupings from Morgan and Breathitt (2 companies in that case), there are certainly large contributions from non-stigmatized Northern Ky. Certainly, though, the 5th is the most tightly grouped of any of the units.

For comparison:

The "Invincible Second"

The "Thieving Fourth"

The "Supple Sixth" (not as South-Central as I had previously assumed)

The "Honest Ninth"

A Few D--D Fools Came Through

Recently, some of the blog staff were taking a tour of Elm Springs in Columbia, home of -- among others -- A.M. Looney, the original Captain of Co. H (Aytch), 1st Tennessee. Now, it is the SCV's headquarters and open for social events and touring. Well, we weren't expecting much out of the tour and were not disappointed, but in talking about the Maury Grays, our tour guide mentioned that "over 200 of them left and only a handful returned." And I called B.S. I had done some work with them in the CSRs and knew perfectly well that that was untrue. Untrue still -- or at least half true -- is how Sam Watkins wrote about the end of the regiment.

The day that we surrendered our regiment it was a pitiful sight to behold. If I remember correctly, there were just sixty-five men in all, including officers, that were paroled on that day. ... It was indeed a sad sight to look at, the old First Tennessee Regiment. A mere squad of noble and brave men, gathered around the tattered flag that they had followed in every battle through that long war.

Of course, Sam himself didn't see the end of the regiment, he stayed in Middle Tennessee after the disastrous winter campaign and took the oath in Memphis. But even the way the above is phrased is disingenuous. It implies that the rest of the unit were all killed or disabled, which , we find, is actually far from the truth. Running through the CSRs we find the real "what happened" to the men of Co. H. Of the 111 1861 Maury Grays we can see that by far the greatest source of attrition is being detached to other assignments and transferring to other units (and usually getting promoted in the process). This is followed in number by men being discharged usually for disability. Interesting among the discharges are those done in accordance with the Conscript Act of 1862, the famous "20 Negro Law" that exempted the family members of large slaveowners from military service, ostensibly to serve as pattyrollers guarding against the feared servile insurrection.

Note that those things that SRW rails against: men getting put in "bombproof" positions and going home on the "20 Negro" bill are prevalent among his 1861 comrades.

Then nearly half of the army was detailed for "corps" of some kind: "signal corps, engineer corps, ordinance corps, infirmary corps, sapper and miner corps, etc., etc., and when the private soldier saw all these corps put on detail and left him to do the fighting, he felt that our cause was lost. It made him sick of war, boys that had volunteered with him all get some kind of positions and left him to bear the brunt of battle. The first year there were eight in my mess. At Corinth...seven were promoted...

No wonder that Sam felt "the common soldier" was left to fight the war alone, because he himself saw a disproportionate number of his fellows leave the firing line during the war. Compared to the men who leave the line through transfers, relatively few of the men of Aytch actually get killed, wounded and disabled, or die of disease. For all the fights they were in, the losses of the company were slight. In the revised edition of Aytch, we see that Sam was starting to recognize this. I think these sentiments come out as a result of some alienation from his old comrades and a big falling out in the late 1880s, but they speak more to the truth.

Now, what became of the original 3,200? I can tell you. They were all promoted to Captains, Colonels, Generals, Commissaries, and staff officers, scouts, spies, special details, and a few d--d fools came through.

Yep.

We look at the men who join the unit later and find a changed picture indeed from the original MGs. Few of them can use elite family connections to get transferred away from the main line. We can see, though, that they don't stick with the fight to the end. A huge chunk of the conscripts desert the army, most of them in the Spring of 1863 after being conscripted in Febuary of that year. Though the later men were only 1/3 of the company's total strength, they make up nearly 3/4 of the company's desertions. One of the Maury Gray deserters, it must be remembered, is our own Sam Watkins. Look also at how many more of the later additions per captia were captured in battle, leading to questions about how willing they were to go over to the enemy.

There are some fascinating trends here that I want to explore further. Use the comments section to point out any you see.

I've Been Workin' on the Railroad Boys

As some of you all are aware, the 1st Tennessee (of Sam Watkins fame) is one of my research interests. Yesterday I was running the CSRs of some of the more popular characters from Co. Aytch that weren't actually in the Maury Grays. We all remember Tom Tuck and his game cock Fed, Confed, or Confederacy but I found more of interest to old Tom too. Tuck was a member of the original Co. F, the "Railroad Boys" from Nashville, a company that (not surprisingly) had large numbers of Irishmen serving with it. In Tuck's CSR there is a note to see some correspondence in H.J. Sutton's file of the 24th Tenn. Spurred on by this lead, I found a jewel.

Lt. Gen. Polk
Comd'g Corps

Hd Qrs Army of Tenn
Tullahoma March 23d 1863

General
The General Commanding desires to know whether the hereafter named men are accustomed to Rail Road work and if they were in the employ of the Nashville and Chattanooga Rail Road and its branches previous to enlistment.

H.J. Sutton Capt. Burnett's Co 24th Tenn

M. Ross Co. F 1st "
John McAffee " " 1st "
W.H. Cumming " " 1st "
Isaac Shewin " " 1st "
Morgan Dickison " " 1st "
James Wade " " 1st "
Joseph Taylor " " 1st "
Thos Tuck " " 1st "
W.H. Myres " " 1st "
L. Taylor " " 1st "
A.J. Hull " " 1st "
Moses Vannoy " A 1st "
Patrick Blunkall Capt Falcher's Co 1st "
F. Quinn Capt Daniel's " 26th Ala
J.H. Forrst Co E 5th Geo
G.W. Angel Co K 24th Tenn
Thos Welch Co I 10th Texas

I am General
Very Respectfully
your obt servt
George Wm Brent
A A Gen

The Railroad Boys were railroad boys indeed. Now, I had always presumed that Co. F men were the unskilled railroad labor that was essentially expendable when the war came along, and could afford to enlist but I may have been proved wrong. These men were detailed for work on the Nashville & Chattanooga throughout the summer of '63 and it would follow that Bragg would not detail raw, unskilled labor but instead tap men with specific knowledge and specific skills. Unfortunately, because of the transient nature of railroad work, Tuck doesn't show up in the 1860 census in Nashville. I wonder what we'd find if he did. Incidentally, Tuck was captured while on his railroad detail, eventually exchanged, and served out the war with the 1st, being one of the handful to surrender in North Carolina.

Also of note, the fighting cock Confed does not have his own CSR file. Though a game personality and a favorite among the troops of the 1st, he (like other living property taken into the army by Confederates) was not a soldier. Neither was Weary Clyburne. Also, thanks to Kevin for posting this Pete Carmichael paper.

Co. Aytch, Confederate Everymen?

Well, since Lee led off with something from some of his ongoing research, I thought I might do the same with mine. I am currently looking into the "real" Co. Aytch from Sam Watkins' famous old standby. Seems to me that as great a reputation as Sam has gotten for being the likable "Confederate everyman" (thanks to Mssrs. Wiley and Foote) the facts don't quite line up with the reality. To whit:

The following are the occupations of members of Co. H, 1st Tennessee Infantry. They are broken down into two groups, the original enlistees, the Maury Grays of which Sam himself was a member, and the latter additions who enlisted or were conscripted at various times. Numbers are low, you notice that neither column adds up to 100 men, but these are the ones who appear in the 1860 (and in some cases the 1850) census.

Maury Grays' Occupations:
Mechanic, various occupations- 11
Farmer (nonslaveholding)- 10
Farmer (small slaveholder)- 8
Lawyer- 6
Clerk in store- 6
Student- 4
Apprentice, various- 4
Professional, various- 3
Farmer (planter)- 3
Court Clerk- 2
Laborer- 1
Printer- 1

Father's occupation for those with no occupation listed:
Farmer (planter)- 6
Professional, various- 2

Take a look at how socially and economically top-heavy the Maury Grays are. While there are poor laborers, and slightly better-off mechanics, the percentage of professionals, lawyers, druggists, clerks, is decidedly greater in this group than in Columbia as a whole. Clue number 1 that this ain't your average bear.

The later additions tell a different story than. Here we see a more representative sample of all strata of Middle TN society. The nonslaveholding farmer dominates, and the number of professionals has dropped dramatically. There are some younger sons of planters who made their way into the company after the initial wave, but by and large we see a markedly less affluent set in this group.

Later Additions to Co. H, Occupations:
Farmer (nonslaveholding)- 7
Farmer (Small slaveholder)- 4
Clerk- 2
Student- 2
Mechanic- 2
Father is a slavholding farmer- 2
Laborer- 1
Watch Maker- 1

So, some questions to ponder. Who were the Confederate everymen in Co. H, 1st Tennessee. Was it Sam and his bunch, or the more "common" men like one of the small farmers, Mr. Fain King? How did these later enlistees interact with the original men? We are familiar with the tightly knit small group cohesion that can form in military units, veterans shunning replacements and similar phenomena. What happens to that effect when those replacements are from a different social and economic background as yourself? Did these two groups interact much within the company?

A clue to that relationship between the two groups lies in observing how often our standard source, Sam Watkins, mentions men who came into the company later. Unsurprisingly, those names don't often show up, and when they do they are often only in passing. Fred Bailey's work with the TN Veterans' Questionnaires sheds some light on the of inter-class relations in Tennessee regiments, but even his thorough reading of the evidence leaves these sorts of questions unanswered or maybe unanswerable. Unfortunately, much of the dynamics of the unit's daily interaction is inference. There simply isn't much to base assumptions on one way or the other.

But give some thought to what it meant to be a Maury Gray in Co. H. What did your above-average social and economic status mean for your life before the war? How did that status affect your opinions on secession, slavery, and your decision to enlist? Were you one of Mark Weitz's deserters or Jason Phillips' diehards? How did you react to defeat, surrender, and the postwar world?

Some fun to ponder over the next little while...