When a Confederate soldier came-a-courtin’ a Southern Unionist’s daughter

While shuffling through some family history notes lately, I came across a story that I had forgotten about. A distant cousin (half first cousin, three times removed), George W. Hillyard, who served in the 12th Virginia Cavalry, and was a native of Winchester, Virginia, found time during the war to find romance with a young lady “down the road a ways”. Now, George “was a man of powerful build, a noted athlete in young manhood, and some notable exploits were credited to him”. When he started to court Miss Jemima Windle (seven years his junior), it didn’t set too well with her father, Samuel Windle.

Samuel was a native of Shenandoah County, and a farmer/merchant near Cedar Creek, but, more importantly, when it came to the war, he is said to have held firm to his Unionism.

So, the story goes…

When George W. Hillyard came to court his daughter, the prospective father-in-law denied him the privilege of the Windle home, and went so far as to secure assistance from some Union soldiers in removing the obnoxious suitor. George, seeing the party in blue coming, jumped through the window, taking the sash with him. Despite his hurried departure, when some distance away, he waited in ambush until the boys in blue came along. When George attacked, he proved the more capable fellow, ultimately drowning all of his pursuers in Cedar Creek.

That’s quite an interesting story, but… I couldn’t help but wonder if there was more info out there on “Papa” Windle. In fact, there is…

In the early 1870s, Samuel Windle prepared a Southern Loyalist claim, and left some interesting details about life, as he recalled them.

When reflecting on his loyalty, Windle informed the committee (in an interview and in the documentation):

At the beginning of the Rebellion I was for the Union and not for the Rebellion. I voted for the ordnance of secession. A man came to my house the night before the election and told me all that did not vote for the ordnance of secession would be tarred and feathered and drummed out. The security of my life required that I should vote for the ordnance. I was a Union man all the time.

Of course, it can’t hurt to let the committee know that a good Unionist has suffered at the hands of the Confederates either…

The Rebels took hay, corn, & goods from out my store, they robbed my house and took 150 dollars in Greenbacks from me. They threatened to burn my house on account of my being a Union man.

Then, of course, it’s important to let them know how one helped the Union army when it was around…

I went at the hour of midnight to give Gen. Milroy notice of the coming of Confederate forces. I gave him the information a few hours before the fight.

Even so, being a Southern Unionist didn’t guarantee safety from depredations at the hands of Union soldiers, as they came through the area… hence the root of the reasons behind why Samuel Windle made application to be reimbursed from losses incurred from their “visit”, in the fall of 1864. Samuel testified…

I was at home when my property was all taken – it was all the same Regiment that took my property – it was in command of a Col. Benjamin and belonged to Sheridan’s army. The Col. and a Capt. Bliss took breakfast with me the morning it was all taken and came upon my invitation – it was in the fall of 1864. – the regiment had encamped close to my house the night before. They were up the valley on the scout. Sheridan’s was in camp at Kernstown at the time. I think so. There was no others to take the property and was all taken that night and the next day and done while Col. Bliss was encamped there.

He also noted that, while hauling wood, Union soldiers took his saddle (worth $10) and horse, though the horse was later returned. Also claimed were, at least, 150 fence rails for camp fires, and 15 stands of bees, and all the honey, estimated at 300 lbs, to which the Union soldiers “made themselves welcome”.

Samuel’s son, James, backed his father’s story, adding the following…

I don’t know that there was any officer present. The sheep was in the Barn yard. The Hay in the Barn, the Potatoes in the patch. The saddle was taken from the horse in the road. The Corn was in the field. The rails enclosed the farm. The Honey was in the Hives. It was all removed by the soldiers. It was taken for the use of the U.S. Army. I saw it used by the army. A complaint was made to Captain Bliss who gave a receipt for the Sheep & Honey. The property was taken both night and day. Did not see the sheep taken but saw them using the mutton. They were the best sheep. Coats would [bring] five or six dollars a piece. I saw fifteen hundred pounds of hay taken. The hay was in the barn & I estimate the quantity from the bulk. It was worth 18 or 20 dollars a ton. I saw eight bushels of Potatoes taken from the ground. From the quantity of land I supposed there was eight bushels. They were worth about seventy five cents a bushel. I saw ten bushels of corn taken judged the quantity from the buck and supposed there was 10 bushels was worth about one dollar a bushel.

James also added that his father sent he and his two brothers into the Union lines “to keep us out of the Rebel service” and, that he [Samuel]…

…gave the Union men all the information he could and aided Rebel deserters to get into the Union lines. They threatened to burn his house and took his property on account of his being a Union man. I do not think the claimant could have staid here had the south gained her independence, and further deponent sayeth not.

Joseph W. Hodge also provided testimony on behalf of Samuel Windle. Having been conscripted in the summer of 1862, into the 11th Virginia Cavalry, Hodge deserted on December 20, 1862. Taking refuge in the homes of Southern Unionists in the Valley, by the summer of 1863, he finally made his way to Ohio. Taking advantage of Sheridan’s occupation of the Valley, in the fall of 1864, he returned home for a while, before returning to Ohio, where he remained until the close of the war.

I did not return until the fall of 1864, and was at Windles for a day or two when I left again for the North. I had come home to see my friends while the Union army was here, but I left again for feat that Sheridan would fall back and leave me in the hands of the rebels. I had a great many talks with the claimant about the war – in his conversations he always expressed strong Union sentiments.

Hodge also let the committee know that Windle’s three sons had been conscripted into the Confederate army. This is where things grow a little fuzzy… but only because all of what was being told… between Samuel Windle, James Windle, and Joseph Hodge… did not all neatly mesh.

In fact, as service records reveal, Windle’s three sons, Addison, James, and William, were all prewar militia, who were activated for Virginia’s service (and, thereby, the Confederacy’s service), in July 1861 (James was mustered-in with the 146th Virginia Militia, July 11, 1861, while Addison and William were mustered-in with the 136th Virginia Militia, July 21, 1861). Of course, as I’ve pointed out before, such service, in the militia, is not an indicator of loyalty to the Confederacy, as many considered themselves conscripts, under such activation, even before the Confederacy passed its first conscription act.

Ultimately, all three were excused or dismissed from militia service at various times prior to October 1861 (Addison and William, in September; and James in October).

From what I’m able to weed-out, (though I can’t tell when, exactly) it appears that Addison was the one who first took his father’s advice, and went to Ohio, to avoid further Confederate conscription. There he remained, until after the war.

James and William, on the other hand, appear to have taken their chances… and lost.

William was conscripted on December 8, 1863, and assigned to Co. E, 11th Virginia Cavalry, on March 9, 1864. He appears to have deserted not long after, finally taking refuge in Ohio. he returned to Winchester, in April 1865, where he received his parole from Federal forces.

James was conscripted as well, and, though not on the rolls of the 7th Virginia Cavalry (I suspect the term of service being so short explains why), having received a disabling wound at Jack’s Shop, received a discharge (at least according to his postwar application for a pension for his service to Virginia). Such a situation, of course, would have enabled James to remain on his father’s farm without further pursuit by Confederate conscript hunters… thereby giving him the opportunity to witness events in the fall of 1864… for which he gave testimony, as seen above.

Hodge, by the way, in his testimony, lent credence to Samuel Windle’s claim, that he sent his sons North (though, I must say, Samuel was a big vague as to the details, while he explained this to the commission). When Hodge fled the Valley, in June of 1863, he stated that he went to Ohio where “Mr Windle’s son was living”.

Of course, I have to wonder if the Claims Commission could see all that we are able to see, in records today, as they are available to us now. At this point, I’d be very confident in saying that Windle was, indeed, a loyal Southern Unionist. However, as in the case of several others I’ve seen, it’s often some fine detail that spoils the whole story. In fact, the Claims Commission found out that Windle sold 3,341 lbs of hay to the Confederacy, at Sharpsburg, Maryland, on December 20, 1862 (for a total of $141.50). But, really, it appears that this wasn’t the factor that brought them to their decision. Who knows… for all they knew, they may have considered such a sale made under duress.

Rather, it was that part about Samuel Windle having voted in favor of secession, that wrecked his claim (albeit, really, a rather small claim). The decision of the Commission, inevitably came down to this…

Claimant stated that he voted for the Ordinance of Secession. We regard a vote for the dissolution of the Union and the overthrow of the Government as inconsistent with local adherence to the Cause of the Union and the Government of the United States. We reject the claim.

… and there you have it. A Southern Unionist… I feel certain… but, not one who went to the point of defying secessionists who threatened him with violence, and perhaps his very life.

Oh yes… and about that romance between George Hillyard and Ann Jemima Windle… they still stuck it out, and were married. Ann died in 1878, while George went on to marry again. Still, in those 13 years after the war, between the end of the war and Ann’s death, one has to wonder just how those family holidays at the Windle house may have been… 🙂

Harmon Levi Sumrall Testifies on Behalf of Newt Knight for the U.S. Court of Claims

By Victoria E. Bynum

The following post expands upon the story of the Unionist Sumrall brothers of Mississippi’s “Free State of Jones,” recently posted on Renegade South,

For thirty years, Newt Knight, Captain of Mississippi’s most notorious band of deserters, the Knight Company of Jones County, pursued compensation from the federal government for himself and his company. Newt initiated his first claim in 1870, before the Southern Claims Commission had been established (RG 233, Box 15, HR 1810). He did not base his claim on civilian loss of property, but rather on military services rendered to the Union Army. He asked that he and each of his “officers” and “privates” be granted the pay due them as soldiers by the U.S. government which they had fought for during the Civil War.

The only problem was that no matter how many battles the “Knight Company” had fought against Confederate forces during the Civil War—and there were plenty—it was never granted official military status by the Union Army. In 1870, 1890, and 1895, defenders of the Knight Company submitted affidavits and depositions attesting to the activities of the company on behalf of the Union Army. In the end, however, Newt failed to convince the U.S. Government to issue his men what in essence amounted to military back pay.

The following are excerpts from depositions provided in 1890 and 1895 by Harmon Levi Sumrall, one of Newt Knight’s strongest supporters. Harmon was beyond the age of conscription in 1862, but his younger brother, William Wesley, joined the Knight Company in 1863 rather than serve the Confederate Army. Harmon supported his brother’s decision, and, prior to providing depositions for Newt’s second and third claims (#8013 and #8464), had signed an affidavit for the first claim that attested to the sincerity of Newt’s Unionist beliefs.

In 1890, seventy-two year old Sumrall appeared before the Jones County Chancery Court to lend support to Newt Knight’s second round of claims. The 1870 claim had long ago died in committee, but in 1883 Congress passed the Bowman Act, followed by the Tucker Act of 1887, which allowed individuals to resubmit rejected or tabled claims. With lawyers now representing his case, Newt renewed his efforts to win pay for his “soldiers.”

Sumrall’s answers to questions posed by the government’s lawyers were brief and to the point. When asked what “Mr. Knight’s general standing” was in regard to loyalty to the U.S. government, he replied that “he was a union man all the time.” When asked whether Newt “commanded a company of men in your community during the war,” he answered that “he did.” When asked if he had any further “material” to offer the state, he responded that he had seen “Capt Knight’s company in time of battle twice but saw them in no other engagements.”

In 1895, for reasons not entirely clear, a new round of depositions were gathered and a new claim number assigned to Newt’s case (the claims would later be merged). Once again, Harmon Levi Sumrall was called on to testify on behalf of the Knight Company.
On January 29, 1895, at the Ellisville Court House in Jones County, Sumrall again recalled events that were now thirty years in the past.

Sumrall’s latest testimony began with his statement that he was not related to Newt Knight, but that his brother, W.W. Sumrall, had been a member of the Knight Company. When asked on “which side” Newt’s sympathies had been during the war, Sumrall stated, as he had in 1870 and 1890, that Newt “was on the Union side.” But this time, when asked whether he knew of any battles fought by the Knight Company, Sumrall was more specific. “Yes sir,” he answered, “He was in a battle with the Confederates. I know it. I was there with him. He fought Hensley, who was on the Confederate side.”

During the course of his testimony, Sumrall estimated that the Knight Company had consisted of about 60-65 men when it battled the forces of this “Hensley.” Hensley, he explained, was a Major who headed a “cavalry regiment, also some infantry.” (This may have been Major James O. Hensley of the 10th VA Battalion, Heavy Artillery.)

Sumrall replied “yes” to the government’s question of whether Major Hensley was “hunting up men who had deserted from the Confederate Army.” Most interesting of all, however, were his remarks about HIS own role in the skirmish that followed. He stated that “Hensley pressed me in to go with him to Knight. We hunted him all day; we found him in the evening when the fight occurred.” By his own testimony, then, Harmon Levi Sumrall was forced to join a search for a band of deserters that included his own brother! Major Hensley would not likely have known this; he was simply impressing the local population of men to assist him in a dangerous task.

Sumrall’s maddeningly brief remarks raise several questions about the complicated nature of home front battles between deserters and Confederate soldiers sent from outside the region. Did Confederate militia purposely enlist local men to search out deserters in hopes that those deserters would be less likely to fire on their own neighbors and possible kinfolk, or were they simply taking advantage of local manpower to lessen the dangers of their mission? And how did Sumrall respond to the task assigned to him? Did he just fake it, and hope that in the process he could somehow protect his friends and relatives from discovery? Does Sumrall’s testimony that it took them “all day” to find Knight suggest that he withheld knowledge of the band’s whereabouts? What, then, were his actions at the point of contact between Confederate forces and the Knight Company? And in the ensuing battle? I would love to hear from readers who may have encountered such scenarios in their own research on the Civil War home front.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: I provide a detailed account of Newt Knight’s long struggle with the U.S. Court of Claims in “Fighting a Losing Battle: Newt Knight versus the U.S. Court of Claims, 1870-1900,” chapter four of my book-in-progress, Southern Communities at War: Essays on Civil War Era Dissent and it’s Legacies.

The Civil War Experiences of Nancy Brewer, A Free Woman of Color

By Victoria Bynum
Renegade South

One of the women who will make a brief appearance in my book-in-progress, Southern Communities at War, is Nancy Brewer of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. In 1871, fifty-year-old Nancy applied to the Southern Claims Commission for compensation for wartime damages caused by the Union Army (#11545). Specifically, she testified that soldiers under the command of Gen’l S. D. Hopkins had in April 1865 seized a horse worth $100, forty lbs of bacon worth $10, and 1000 feet of lumber worth $20, from her farm.

Nancy Brewer’s claim was one of many submitted under the act passed by Congress in March 1871 allowing for “Claims of Loyal Citizens for Supplies furnished during the Rebellion.” Hers caught my eye because she was both black and a woman. I opened her folder not so much to learn what she believed the government owed her, but to glean whatever insights I could into what Nancy Brewer’s life was like in slaveholding and Civil War Chapel Hill.

Given that Nancy was claiming loss of property, I was not surprised to learn that she had been a free woman even before the Civil War. Although she could not sign her own name, Nancy had also been a prosperous free woman. Two years before the war, she explained, she had bought a lot and a house in Chapel Hill for $400. She had also purchased her future husband, Green Brewer, out of slavery in order that they might live as a married couple.

These are the sorts of personal family histories that we might never know about without the existence of records that address totally unrelated issues that happen to involve African Americans. Nancy’s deposition further reveals the complexities of life for people who opposed the Confederacy, yet suffered depredations committed by Yankee soldiers. According to Nancy, her late husband, Green, had belonged to the Union League, and they had always sympathized with the Union cause because it was “God’s will for the colored race to be free.” But during the last months of the war, as Union Army encampments surrounded Chapel Hill, the Brewers’ pro-Union views did not protect their property. Soldiers had taken the Brewers’ horse despite her protest that without it they could not make a crop.

Testifying on Nancy’s behalf was another African-American woman, Nelly Stroud, a washer woman who now lived with her. Nelly admitted that the Brewers had not shared their political views with her while the war was raging. “It would not do for colored people to talk here,” she explained, “a still tongue made a wise head.” But Nelly had little good to say about Union soldiers either. During the war, she washed and cooked for them, but feared them at the same time. They threatened to “show me the devil” if General Johnson did not surrender, Nelly told Commission agents. When asked why they would make such a threat, she responded that “I just believe the Devil made them do it.”

Thomas M. Kirkland, a white merchant, also testified on behalf of Nancy Brewer. Kirkland claimed to have known Nancy’s husband, Green, for about ten years, though he quickly explained that he had not been on “intimate” terms with him during the war because Green was a black man. In typical paternalistic fashion, he characterized him as “sober & upright,” and generalized that almost all blacks were loyal to the U.S. Government during the Civil War.

Nancy Brewer’s claim was approved by the Commission. This final comment from a Claims Commission officer appears on her file, giving us further valuable information about the experiences of this African American couple of the Civil War Era South:

The claimant is a colored woman & a widow—her husband having died since the war. He was formerly a slave, but she had bought him & he belonged to her!—or rather was freed during the war—. He was a rather superior colored man. After the war, Governor [William] Holden appointed him a magistrate—Loyalty proven.