~How the Civil War was Fought on the Cumberland Plateau~ Renegades, Bushwhackers, and Guerrillas ~When the war began in Cumberland County, Tennessee, the plateau portion itself was primarily a poor and desolate place made up of simple yeomen farmers living off what the unimproved land could yield, as such, it was deeply divided in its sentiments. In the western districts over towards Sparta, down in Grassy Cove and the Sequatchie Valley, all being more prosperous sections, the shared views of the war were more Confederate leaning. Cumberland County, however, remains the only county in Tennessee where there is no known data concerning the vote on Secession, either for or against. What is known is that during the course of the war approximately one out of every fifteen inhabitants of the county served in some capacity with the regular units of both the Confederate or Union Armies. This ratio, out of an 1860 population of some 3,400 people spread out over a 660 square mile area means this; almost every able bodied male left the area to enlist in the army, Confederate or Federal, with an approximately 11% majority siding with the Confederacy. The remaining civilian population consisted of the old, infirm, slaves, women and children, all who became increasingly desparate in a still wild area, which overall was both cut off from the rest of the State and difficult to survive in, even in the best of circumstances. A Union soldiers diary, in reference to the Cumberland Plateau remarked, the only sound in the wind here is the forlorn song of starvation. A Tennessee Confederate colonel who had been ordered towards Jamestown protested the post, stating to superiors, the Cumberland Plateau is as sterile as the great African desert. ~To add to their misery, within the civilian population remaining, there existed an element of ner-do-wells and an ever increasing number of deserters from both sides coupled with Confederate draft evaders who would hide out and, as the war progressed, make war on the local population, waged in the most base of ways,- survival of the fittest. No home was safe. ~As we begin relating some of the War within the War that took place, it should come as no surprise, that unlike other areas of Tennessee where stories of the gallant Confederate soldiers rising up in opposition to the might of Lincolns Yankee Army defending hearth and home, Cumberland County would for many years bury its Civil War history, simply referring to the mid and late war period as the Dog Days.... In time Union Guerrillas and Confederate Partisan Rangers who many times were legal combatants in the treacherous backwaters of the war, would be lumped into the same group as local marauders and bushwhackers, which became synonymous with the word outlaw. ~My favorite quote from an old gentleman, now long past, with ties to the area dating to the early 1800s, and passed to him by his grandfather went like this, There was no war here!- just a bunch of raiders come in- stealing, and a bunch of people stirring up trouble. Owing to his family history, I happened to know that the old mans great uncle had served as a Confederate cavalry captain from this county. Why was there no mention of this in what he knew of the war here? I think, for years, due to regret, shame, lingering animosity, as well as a concerted effort to forget the hardships endured locally, statements like his were passed on, constituting the only history of the momentous events of Civil War as it pertains to Cumberland County. Much of the story remains, untold. Here is one of them. ~There is a place in Southeastern Cumberland County once known as Knox Chapel. Today this very rural mountainous area , if it is called anything at all, it is known as Alloway. In 1780 a man who would be called David Knox was born in South Carolina. In time he pioneered to Tennessee and established Knox Chapel. His wifes name was Mary Knight. Together they had a son named David Crockett Knox who was born in the year 1839, when both were well advanced in years. The son would become a Confederate soldier and noted to have been a gallant one. He enlisted first in the Infantry and was captured, but later paroled. Undeterred, he enlisted again and finished the war under General George Dibrells Tennessee Cavalry command. He later drew a Confederate pension from the State on behalf of his service. His grave is in the Harris Cemetery at Alloway and is adorned by an iron Confederate Cross of Honor, placed many years ago and the only original one in the county. His parents might have been proud of their son, had they lived out the war. ~In 1863 there was a raid at Knox Chapel. Family history contends, Union soldiers came to the Knox household finding both 83 year old David Knox and his wife Mary ill. With no one to protect the elderly couple, the marauding soldiers took what they wanted and killed both David and Mary, reporting later that they had died of small pox. The next day women and children recovered the bodies and dug a single grave, in which they were both buried. Today a modern headstone marks the grave of David and Mary Knox, just a few grave rows over from their son, a Confederate veteran of Cumberland County, Tennessee. No recourse was ever taken for the murders....
Posted on: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 00:48:12 +0000
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