The Last Plantation - Part Two

As mentioned in the post "The Last Plantation - Part One," Fanny Trousdale, daughter of Governor Trousdale (after whom Trousdale County, Tennessee, is named) is a (minor) character in the book, The Last Plantation.

p. 146 In Sumner County every road to Gallatin teemed with eager young men bent on joining the Confederacy. Gallatin itself was swarming with would-be soldiers awaiting trains to transport them to Nashville, forty miles away. …The Cragfont ladies presented Captain Humphrey Bate with a company flag made by Sylla. Then Fanny Trousdale, daughter of the former governor of Tennessee, presented Bate with a silk flag made at her home in Gallatin.

From this link, a quote regarding Captain Humphrey Bate:

Col. Bate had a younger brother, Capt. Humphrey Bate to whom he was very much attached. During a lull in the fighting at Shiloh the two brothers met and while they were conversing the Colonel asked for a light for his cigar from the cigar which his brother was smoking, and as he was in the act of lighting the cigar, Capt. Humphrey Bate received a mortal wound from the enemy and died in a few hours. Col. Bate was often seen with cigars in his mouth afterwards, but never lighted one as long as he lived.

Frances (Fanny) Trousdale married John Bell Payton, son of Balie Peyton, Sr. They are buried in the Gallatin Cemetery, as are Fanny's parents.

Camp Trousdale, where the Confederate soldiers featured in the novel initially gathered and trained, was named after Gov. William Trousdale.

p. 147 By the middle of June (1861) there were over six thousand men at Camp Trousdale, a hastily erected training facility near Richland, sixteen miles north of Gallatin.

p. 153 ……Napoleon Winchester, son of George and Malvinia, who was training at Camp Trousdale, now called Camp Zollicoffer, rode to Cragfont to pick up the uniform Sylla had made for him.

p. 210 The first Union soldiers tramped into Gallatin on March second, their band blaring out the strains of “Dixie.” They had a billowing backdrop of black, oily smoke to the north, where the Confederate recruits had burned the barracks and buildings of Camp Zollicoffer, at Richland, before retreating. In Gallatin, church bells tolled as for a funeral. Citizens draped white bed sheets from their windows as the Federal soldiers hauled down and burned the Confederate flag.

Lettie, Susie and Fanny, along with old Mrs. Winchester, were visiting the Trousdales in Gallatin. They stood on the front stoop of Trousdale Place and watched the crisp, neat Union troops parade past.

Another character, Cotton Ferris, mentioned Fanny Trousdale in a letter:

..In Col. Forrest’s Cavalry…at Fort Henry guarding the Tennessee River in case of gunboats. Some of the men’s wives and sweethearts is supposed to come to Fort Donelson which is only fifteen miles across the peninsula on the Cumberland River on Jan. 9 of next year and will leave Nashville on the General Jackson on the 7^th. Fannie Trousdale has a beau in Gen. Head’s 30^th He told me she is coming to see him. Please send the package by her. Yours affectionately, Cotton Ferris