The Last Plantation - Part Five

Don Wright's novel, "The Last Plantation," lead to six posts on my "Relatively Fiction" blog [The Last Plantation, Parts One -Five and Adelicia's First Plantation]. Primarily set in Sumner County, Tennessee, in the Civil War era, there were several items of interest to me personally in the book.

-- Adelicia Hayes Franklin Acklin Cheatham, whose second husband, Joseph A.S. Acklin, was the nephew of my GGG...Grandmother Elizabeth Acklin Hinds, at one time owned Fairvue/Fairview Plantation, mentioned prominently in the book [See my blog Detour Through History for more information on the Acklins]

-- H. L. Hunley's brother-in-law, Robert Ruffin Barrow, was Adelica & Joseph Acklin's neighbor in the West Feliciana, Louisiana, plantations. Hunley, who was born in Sumner Co., TN, invented the Confederate submarine named for him.

--Trousdale Place, the home of Governor William Trousdale, was mentioned in the book, as was the Governor's daughter, Fanny (Frances) who married John Bell Peyton, a brother of Bailey Peyton, Jr., who was also featured prominently in the novel. Governor Trousdale and my ancestor, Alexander Trousdale, were from the same Trousdale lineage.

--Johnson's Island, a prison for Confederate soldiers, located in Ohio

---several Civil War battlefields

This work of historical fiction was an easy read, but tied many of my genealogical threads together.

The Last Plantation - Part Four

The Confederate submarine, Hunley, was discovered in its watery grave in the Charleston, South Carolina, area in 1995, and was put on display a few years later, where we viewed it. Inspired by the Hunley, we've seen the obelisk commemorating the men who died on the Hunley sailors in a Mobile, Alabama, cemetery and have visited their graves Magnolia Cemetery in Charleston.

We've also visited the town of Gallatin in Sumner County, Tennessee, the primary setting for the novel, "The Last Plantation." We just didn't know that H. L. Hunley, who invented the sub named for him, was born in Sumner County. The book mentioned Hunley as follows:

p. 413 [General] Paine arrested you (Lettie), didn’t he? …He questioned me about a boat that sinks under water…a thing he called a submarine. He said a Mr. Hunley , who used to live near here, and my father were building one. Paine’s crazy, Cotton, crazy as a bedbug. ..the general’s son, Captain Phelps Paine, brought me home in the general’s closed carriage.

General Paine [referenced in the quote above] had a long, sordid history with the people of Sumner Co., Tennessee; some of which was captured in a diary by Alice Williamson. The least of his transgressions might include scheming to confiscate the nicer homes in the area for his personal gain.

p. 308 On March 25, 1863, several slaveholders banded together to confront Paine. The general declared that the insistent owners were themselves guilty of a rebellious movement to undermine the Government of the United States of America. He ordered their arrest, and himself sitting in judgment, convicted them without a trial, then marched them to the Gallatin courthouse square and hanged them. On April 23, 1863, three bushwackers retaliated the hanging: Thomas Norvill, a staunch Union sympathizer suspected of being an informant, was abducted and murdered.

p. 324 July 26^th News of General John Hunt Morgan’s capture reached General Paine on the same day Paine’s wife arrived in Gallatin. Immediately the general put the wheels in motion to host a party in honor of both events. ... ‘inviting’ them (Sumner Co. residents) to the Fairview Plantation Mansion.. for a ‘Grand Gala.’ His officers’ wives spent the next week decorating the mansion, and the Fairview slaves were kept busy butchering cattle, sheep hogs….On August second, when the orchestra played its grand march welcoming the guests to Fairview, it was to a nearly empty house. The Southerners had not been intimidated by Paine’s command performance and, in fact, had not even bothered to decline his invitation.

p. 409 In Nashville, Tennessee, on the twentieth day of January, 1864, Ulysses S. Grant, spurred by a letter he had received from an old acquaintance, was investigating a high-ranking Federal officer. He was infuriated by his discoveries; the West Point graduate, Brigadier General Eleazer A. Paine, was entirely unfit to command a post. Grant was reminded that... he (Paine) is a close associate of Governor [Andrew] Johnson.

Gallatin was originally just a link in the Union Army's communications line to Nashville. That status was challenged by Confederate leader John Hunt Morgan. Gallatin became a "hot potato" between the Northern and Southern armies.

p. 215 Sparks from Morgan’s train-car bonfire [near Gallatin], however, had ignited a powder keg of repercussions that would keep the Confederate cavalry in the field for months to come. In Nashville, General Buell was furious. He immediately dispatched two companies of the 9^th Pennsylvania Cavalry to Gallatin, and on the first of April, the 5^th Regiment Kentucky Cavalry, consisting of 789 men, joined them. Then Ulysses S. Grant, taking the raid as a personal insult, placed the entire State of Tennessee under martial law. President Lincoln appointed Tennessee’s own son, Andrew Johnson, military governor of the state.

The Last Plantation - Part Three

The hero of the novel, "The Last Plantation," Clayton Harris, was 'based loosely on a real person who did indeed throw his Northern birthright to the wind and fight for the South. He was captured by the Federals...his uncle was the commanding officer who released him from captivity upon his signing the Oath of Allegiance.' He also bought beef in Oklahoma for the Confederacy, made trips from Fort Gibson to Fort Sill, and fell in love with an Indian princess. He also went to Texas, and in 1901 when the oil business started in Beaumont, he became rich.

In the novel, Clayton Harris was confined at Johnson's Island, Ohio, located here.

p. 317 On July 20, 1863, the door to Clayton Harris’ cell block…Union Colonel Charles Harris

p. 322 On July 22, 1863, Clayton Harris was ferried from Johnson’s Island across Sandusky Bay to the mainland. He stepped onto the rich Ohio soil and breathed deep. Even the air smelled free.

[Pictures Taken By Jim & Cathy During A Visit To Johnson's Island- click to enlarge]

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

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.

Adelicia's First Plantation

I found this novel, "The Last Plantation," through my research. When we visited the Angola Prison museum in Louisiana, the archives/office there had several items related to the original owners of the Angola Property -- Isaac & Adelicia Franklin (and later Adelicia's second husband, Joseph A. S. Acklin). My ancestor, Elizabeth Acklin Hinds, was Joseph Acklin's aunt. Adelicia and Isaac were the original owners of the Fairvue Plantation, later owned by Ellen Wemyss, and the subject of the dedication in the book.

[Letter From The Angola Prison Archives Relating To Fairview - click to enlarge]

THE LAST PLANTATION by Don Wright, published 1990

Dedicated to “Miss Ellen Wemyss,” “Mistress of Fairview”

“Clayton Harris was mistaken when he said, “We who came before eighteen sixty-five have seen the last plantation.” Through you, Mrs. Wemyss, a select few of us who have been fortunate enough to know you (we who came after 1865) have been given a renewed opportunity to see ‘The Last Plantation,’ for you, and Fairview are true, genteel Southerners of the old style.” We of Sumner county love you. ---Don Wright