They Made Me a Rebel, Were East Tennessee Soldiers True Confederates? ~Dont Bring a Walking Stick To a Gunfight~ ....Knoxville, Tennessee, the corner of Walnut and Main, July 10th, 1868- ~The War has been over for over three years, yet Tennessee still feels the brutal effects of Reconstruction. Knoxville is a snake pit of Carpetbagger industrialists bent on exploiting the timber and minerals of the region. Former Confederates were only beginning to return to East Tennessee because the Northern element, both local and outsiders, held sway......... There was about to be a killing........ ~Henry Marshall Ashby was born in Fauquier County, Virginia in 1836. His parents were Marshall and Lucinda (Cocke) Ashby. He was the cousin of another Confederate cavalry officer, Colonel Turner Ashby. Ashby attended The College of William and Mary in 1853 and 1854 but did not graduate. He was a trader in Chattanooga, Tennessee when the Civil War began although he was visiting an uncle in Knoxville, Tennessee when the war broke out. ~Henry Marshall Ashby, one of the Confederacys youngest colonels, enlisted in the Confederate States Army on July 6, 1861 at Knoxville, Tennessee, organized a company of cavalry and was elected captain. This company was assigned to the 4th Tennessee Cavalry Battalion which became part of the 2nd Tennessee Cavalry Regiment, made up of East Tennessee cavalrymen. Ashby was elected colonel of the regiment on May 24, 1862. Ashby was wounded in the right foot during one of three raids into Kentucky made by his regiment during 1862. ~Ashbys regiment helped destroy a Union Army wagon train at the Battle of Stones River. Pegrams brigade, to which he was assigned, again engaged in independent operations in Kentucky. The brigade fought with the Army of Tennessee at the Battle of Chickamauga on September 19 and 20, 1863. Under the overall command of Major General Joseph Wheeler, Ashbys regiment was heavily engaged in the Battle of Browns Mill near Newnan, Georgia on July 30, 1864. They helped turn back a raid south of Atlanta by Union Brigadier General Edward M. McCook, who had been sent by Major General William T. Sherman to cut supply and communication lines to Atlanta. In June 1864, Ashby was assigned to command a brigade of four Tennessee cavalry regiments in Brigadier General William Y.C. Humess division in Major General Wheelers corps during the Atlanta Campaign. Ashbys brigade harassed Shermans advanced units during the Carolinas Campaign in early 1865. ~Although sometimes referred to as an acting brigadier general, Ashby ended the war as a colonel. Major General Wheeler later wrote that he had been told unofficially by Confederate War Department officials that brigadier general commissions had been issued for Ashby, James Hagan and Moses Wright Hannon near the end of the war, no such commissions ever were delivered. Ashby signed a parole on May 3, 1865 as Colonel, commanding Division..... In 1866, after returning to Knoxville, a Union army major named E. C. Camp accused Ashby of cruelly mistreating 431 Union soldiers that had been captured by Confederate forces in 1862, leading to Ashbys arrest and indictment for treason. Ashby posted bail and fled to Atlanta, but returned to Knoxville in 1868 after the charges were dropped...... ~The Ohioan, Eldad Cicero Camp, Jr. (August 1, 1839 – November 21, 1920) was a Yankee Carpetbagger in East Tennessee after the American Civil War, a former Union Army officer, American coal tycoon, attorney, and philanthropist, active primarily in Knoxville, Tennessee, and the vicinity, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was president of the Coal Creek Coal Company, president of the Virginia-Tennessee Coal Company, a director of Knoxvilles Third National Bank, and at his height, was one of the wealthiest men in East Tennessee. ~At the outbreak of the Civil War, Camp enlisted in the 142nd Regiment of the Ohio Volunteer Infantry. Camp saw action at the Battle of Island Number Ten and the Battle of Petersburg. In June 1864, Camps regiment successfully guided supplies through the hostile Virginia wilderness to reinforce General Ulysses S. Grant at the Battle of Cold Harbor. In February 1865, shortly before he was mustered out with the rank of major, Camp accompanied General Joseph Alexander Cooper to Knoxville. Impressed with the virtually untouched mineral resources of the surrounding region, Camp decided to make the city his permanent home. He exploited East Tennessee in the aftermath of the war............ ~On July 9, 1868, Ashby encountered E. C. Camp on Gay Street, and a brief struggle ensued, with Ashby attacking Camp with a cane, and Camp striking Ashby with an umbrella. The following day, Ashby confronted Camp at the latters law office near the corner of what is now Walnut and Main. According to some reports, Ashby attempted to strike Camp with a cane, but according to Unionists, Ashby drew a derringer. In any case, Camp drew a pistol and fired, killing Ashby. Afterwards, Camp was arrested for murder, his bail was posted by several former Unionists, among them future Knoxville Journal editor William Rule. Knoxvilles pro-Democratic newspaper, the Daily Press and Herald, dubbed Camp a cold-blooded killer, while the citys pro-Republican paper, the Knoxville Whig, hailed him as a hero. The countys acting district attorney ( a Reconstruction appointee) eventually issued a nolle prosequi, and Camp was never prosecuted for the killing. Henry Marshall Ashby was buried in Old Gray Cemetery in Knoxville. ~In an ironic twist of fate, the two enemies that helped shape some of East Tennessees most turbulent history, Ashby and Tennessees notorious Reconstruction Governor William (Parson) Brownlow, lie just across from each other in Knoxvilles Old Gray Cemetery. It was Brownlows newspaper, the Knoxville Whig that was in large part responsible for the escape from justice of E. C. Camp, murderer of Colonel Henry M. Ashby a true Confederate of East Tennessee. (Photos) East Tennessee Confederate Colonel H. M. Ashby and the Yankee Carpetbagger E. C. Camp (I have six ancestors who fought for the Confederacy under Colonel Ashby)
Posted on: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 21:51:30 +0000