The Last Plantation - Part One

The first post on this blog related to this novel, The Last Plantation, by Don Wright, was dated Monday, May 26, 2008, was Adelicia's First Plantation.

In the novel, Lettie "went on to tell him that much of the furniture had been brought over the mountains in the late 1700’s by her late grandfather, General James Winchester. ‘Tennessee was just a raw frontier.’ Then she added, ‘Perhaps you would care to visit Cragfont some evening and listen to the stories Grandmother can tell about her childhood days at Bledsoe’s, and about Greenfield Fort and the Indian battles that were fought there. I’m just purely certain you would find her stories fascinating." (Grandmother was 82 year old Susan Black Winchester - Note: she may be related to my Black/Acklin family).

More about the Winchester family of Tennessee can be found here and here. A site dedicated to the early settlers can be found here.

p. 186 On January 19, 1862, Clayton’s wish (that a Yankee bullet would find Bailey Peyton because of his jealousy over Lettie – because she was Bailey Peyton’s fiancée) became a reality. General Zollicoffer’s 20^th Tennessee Infantry Regiment was decimated by General George H. Thomas’ Union forces. Dead on the field: General Zollicoffer; dead on the field, Lieutenant Bailey Peyton, Jr.; dead on the field…the list of Sumner County men went on and on.

It was the realization that left Clayton wishing it had been he, not Bailey Peyton, who had fallen in battle at a place called Fishing Creek, Kentucky.

On Feb 1, 1862, the very day on which Lettie had planned to wed, the General Assembly in Nashville interrupted its deliberations to follow Governor Harris and other state officials, including the members of the House and Senate, to the Louisville and Nashville Railroad depot to receive the bodies of Zollicoffer and Peyton. The procession then escorted the two heroes to the Capitol building, where they were to lie in state so the citizens of Nashville might pay their respects.

p. 187 On February second, Bailey Peyton’s casket was put aboard a train and removed to Sumner County for burial.

Bailey Peyton's father, also Bailey Peyton, was, in real life, the father-in-law of Fanny Trousdale; Fanny was also a character in the novel. Of futher interest to me, Fanny and I have common Trousdale ancestors.