War Comes to Broad River CHAPTER II
THE PEOPLE OF BROAD RIVER
The Dogwoods and Red Bud blooms of spring 1861 were gone, replaced by the shimmering green leaves of summer. The cool breezy mornings of April and May had given way to the warm dewy mornings of June and now the warm mornings and sultry afternoon and evenings of July. Ike Moore had secured a position as clerk in the general merchandise store owned by James Duncan "Jim" Power in the late 1850’s and as a result had become acquainted with almost everyone in the area. The use of his store as a satellite post office for the people in the Holly Creek area saved them the trip to the closest Post Office at Brookline several miles away and brought them all to his store.
Jim Power had been a bachelor in his late 30’s when Ike came to work for him in the late 50’s but was now beginning to court Ike’s sister in law Mary Elizabeth David who most folks called Elizabeth. Ike’s brother Bill was married to her older sister Keziah and Jim and Mary Elizabeth had become acquainted through that association and the fact that Jim’s store was just a short distance from where she and her widowed mother, also an Elizabeth, lived.
As Ike was sweeping the front porch of the store on a particularly warm morning in early July, Sam Power, Jim’s cousin and another family connection through his marriage to Martha David who was a sister to Keziah and Mary Elizabeth, came hurrying up the road almost at a trot. It was obvious that he was coming to see Ike and that he had what he thought to be important news.
"Ike," Sam yelled as he neared the store. "What do you think Ike?"
"What do I think about what Sam?"
"About the Grays," Sam said excitedly, "about the Grays," referring to the company being raised around their home area.
"Did you hear Jas had joined?" Sam continued referring to their neighbor James David. "He was made Sergeant. Danny Witcher, Bill Gholston, Tully Strickland and John King, too, they all joined."
All of these men were neighbors and often visited Jim Power’s store.
"Is that right?" replied Ike. "Hadn’t heard about Danny, that’ll worry John and Mary."
Danny’s older brother John was married to Ike’s wife’s sister and lived just up the road from the store.
"What’re you gonna do Ike?" quizzed Sam.
"Reckon I’ll wait a spell Sam. With the four we already have and Elizabeth expecting by year end I’m needed at home more than in some army."
"Guess you’re right," replied Sam, "I’m sure Martha would whole lot rather have me here than off fighting Yanks. I believe she could manage the darkies and see everything was done but I know she’d want me here with her and the kids. Hopefully these young bucks going in now will take care of things and us ole family men can stay home."
"Yeah, wouldn’t that be nice," laughed Ike.
"Ike, Ike!" It was Elizabeth calling from inside the store.
"Be right in," Ike called out before turning back to Sam.
"Maybe we’ll all get lucky and this thing will work itself out and we can all stay home."
"Yeah, that’d be nice," replied Sam, "But I reckon I wouldn’t mind getting a crack at those meddlers if I got the chance."
"Be careful what you wish for," replied Ike as he stepped through the doorway on his way to find out what Elizabeth needed.
Ike and Elizabeth had married almost nine years earlier when Ike was almost twenty-two and Elizabeth just sixteen. Their family now numbered three boys and a girl and the boys, especially John and Frank the two oldest and typical boys, were in to something all the time. Elizabeth, a strong self-reliant woman rarely asked for help from Ike with the children; however, this morning the youngest Ike’s namesake, thirty month old Isaac, had taken a tumble down the steps from the second story quarters in the back of the store, which was home for Ike’s family. He had suffered a cut, which for a moment had frightened Elizabeth because of the blood; however, by the time Ike reached them she was well in control of things.
"Ike, I’m going to take Isaac next door and let Doc take a look," said Elizabeth.
"Alright," said Ike, "probably best to be safe but it doesn’t look to serious."
Elizabeth was a dark-eyed, dark-haired, handsome woman nearly as tall as Ike, who like his brothers Bill and Tom were well under six feet tall. He felt he had made an excellent choice in Elizabeth. She was an excellent wife and mother as well as a big help to Ike and Jim in the store. She gathered young Isaac up and was off to the doctor’s office which was just next to the store. Doctor James Eberhart was only twenty-seven years old by the summer of 1861 but he had begun his medical studies to become a doctor early in life and had graduated from a medical school in Philadelphia by 1857. Elizabeth caught he and his wife Milly finishing breakfast. They had married shortly after the new doctor had returned to Georgia from Pennsylvania. After taking a quick look at young Isaac, the doctor assured Elizabeth the wound was superficial despite all the blood and walked with her back to the store to buy some coffee.
Sam Power was gone by the time Elizabeth and the Doctor reached the store and they found Ike gathering up an order for John Witcher, Elizabeth’s Brother In-Law. John had married Elizabeth’s older sister Mary and their farm was the next farm up the road from the store. Elizabeth could hear that the conversation between Ike and John was centered around the upcoming hostilities and the enlistment of close friends and relatives.
"I wish Danny had waited awhile but he’s full growed and it’s his decision to make. I just hope he didn’t let his hot-headed friends persuade him. I just got a bad feeling Ike," said John.
John felt much like Ike and Sam. Mary and the five children had to come first plus he was just a year shy of forty years old. War was for younger men, John had decided at least for the present.
Dr. Eberhart stopped and announced to Ike and John, "I’ve joined the Fireside Guards over in Elbert. We leave for camp in a couple of weeks."
"I didn’t know," said Ike. What made you decide to do that"?
"I wish I knew," said Jim. "I was just something I felt I was called to do. I take it you two are going to wait awhile?"
Ike and Sam indicated they were and the group broke up a few minutes later in order to get on with the day’s work.
The summer wore on and the men who had joined the Grays and a new company called the Danielsville Guards had begun to leave home marching away to camps of instruction and posts near the Georgia coastline. Their departures were always met with large crowds of friends and families, many waving the newly adopted Stars and Bars of the Confederate States. The younger children ran alongside the troops trying to stay in sight of their father or older brothers as they disappeared down the dusty summer roads. By late July word had reached Northeast Georgia of the exciting victory won in Virginia at a railway junction named Manassas. The Northern invaders and been stopped and sent back toward Washington City in defeat. Sadly along with the news of the victory had come the war’s first battle casualty lists from the ranks of the 7th, 8th and 9th Georgia Volunteer Infantry. Although these lists did not contain the names of any soldiers from Madison County, they had included men from neighboring counties including adjoining Oglethorpe which was just below the corner of Madison County where Ike and his neighbors lived.
As the men from Madison County continued to join the army and spread out over the southern states to various camps of instruction, the war began to extract casualties of a different kind. By the late fall of 1861, a dozen men from the Madison Grays had succumbed to the diseases that spread thru the ranks. Disease, including measles were widespread in the camps of instruction, as men who had been protected from many childhood diseases by their somewhat isolated lives on the farm, were thrown together in close and often unsanitary conditions.
On September 10, 1861 the following report was made in the Richmond, Virginia "Whig".
MORTALITY IN CAMP. - The deaths in the 16th Georgia Regiment, Col. Howell Cobb, (encamped at the Old Fair Grounds) during the week ending Sunday, the 8th ins., were as follows:
Privates, Jas. R. Lawless, Wm. Pinson, T. M. Falkner, Jas. Bradley, Co. A; Jeb Smith and L. D. Bowles, Co. B; James Byrd, Co. D; Gilham Wilbanks and Chas. Tankersly, Co. E; W. L. Tucker and T. L. Long, Co. F; M. J. Parks and J. W. Harwell, Co. G; Silas Kadle, Co. I; ___ Kidd.
One of the last named died at the General Hospital. Sickness prevails in this Regiment to such an extent, that it hardly musters half of its members on parade.
Illness in the camps was so prevalent that many companies including those from Madison County often had as many men confined to their beds or in hospitals as they had on the parade grounds drilling.
Most of Ike’s friends and close neighbors were not included in the early enlistments of 1861; therefore, the sadness and horror that would visit almost every Southern household in the next four years was not seen in the immediate area around Jim Power’s store during the summer and fall of 1861.
In October 1861 Ike’s brothers Bill and Tom joined the Goshen Blues from across the river in Elbert County. They were joined by three of their mother’s younger brothers and a number of Ike’s cousins. This company became part of the 38th Georgia Infantry Regiment and after receiving their instruction was sent to Savannah as part of the coastal defense. As more and more of Ike’s family and friends joined the southern forces and marched away to defend the besieged south and reports of battles on the Carolina Coasts, in Northern Virginia, Kentucky and other locations along the borders of the new nation reached Georgia, Ike began to wonder how long he could remain uninvolved.
Winter passed with only a smattering of news of battles and conflict. As the first signs of spring began to arrive in North Georgia, along with them came the news of new battlefronts in Tennessee, Missouri and on the ocean. Reports of the fall of Forts Henry and Donelson in Northwest Tennessee and the loss of the first Confederate State Capital at Nashville brought a temporary sadness to the folks near Jim Power’s store but did little to dampen their patriotic spirit and resolve.
One warm Sunday afternoon in late April after a particularly patriotic and rousing sermon by Reverend James Mankin Power, Elizabeth’s cousin and Sam’s older brother, Ike and a number of his friends who had tried to remain level headed and place their families first, were discussing the most recent news from the front and the new Conscription Act. This provision, for all men between 18 and 35 to serve unless they could provide a substitute or qualify for one of the exemptions, had left Ike and many of his friends with little choice but to consider enlistment. Word of the big battle at Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River had just reached the area followed a day or so later by news of the fall of Fort Pulaski on the coast and an invasion of Virginia in the James River area south of Richmond. It was now very obvious that this was going to be a lengthy struggle for the Southern States and all her sons would eventually be needed.
The group included Ike, Sam Power, Sam’s cousins Asa, Joe and Tom Power, who were Jim Power’s half-brothers, Frank David and his younger brother Henry, who was not yet eighteen, Jimmy White and his little brother Stephen, both less than eighteen as well, the Wynn and Russell brothers and others. Several of the area men had already joined one of the two companies being formed in Madison and Elbert Counties which would later be a part of the 9th Georgia Battalion. The four remaining companies in this battalion would come from the surrounding counties of Hart, Wilkes, Franklin and Muscogee. Neither company had been filled in the early March recruiting and were to be completed late the next month. Most of the local men seemed partial to the company of Captain Dabney Gholston of Madison County and several already had brothers who had signed up. These men had been in Camp McDonald north of Atlanta near Big Shanty since mid March and were expecting to receive orders to move, possibly to East Tennessee, at any time.
"What are you gonna do Ike"? quizzed Sam his neighbor. "Reckon it’s time for us to decide, now that we’ll most likely get conscripted anyhow. Think I’d rather join up with my friends and kinfolks if I’m gonna go".
"I expect you’re right", said Ike. "Look’s like the time’s come".
"Pete says they’re moving out next week," said Frank David, referring to his older brother who had joined in early March.
"Yeah that’s what Doc says too", echoed Sam speaking of his cousin who was always called "Doctor" Frank to separate him from two older cousins of the same name.
Frank or "Doc" was Junior Second Lieutenant of the Madison Company and had been by a week before recruiting to fill out the Company. Talk turned to Shiloh as some called the fight at Pittsburg Landing a couple of weeks before and the horrible loss of life on both sides.
"What kind of soldier do you think I’ll make?" Sam asked Ike.
"You’re a good man Sam and I reckon you’ll do your duty," replied Ike. "Don’t suppose they can ask or expect any more than that."
"Well I reckon you’re right but I sure would rather not go. Not that I’m afraid," Sam lied, "but it just seems like a man with a family needs to be home providing for them."
"I know exactly how you feel Sam," said Ike. "I’ve got five now with little Mary and it just seems they need me more than the army. But I suppose we all know it’s coming and we might as well set our minds to it". Ike felt a tug on his trouser leg and looked down to see John W. his oldest.
"Pa," he said, Mama sent me to fetch you, she wants to go home."
Ike rubbed little John, who was named for his Grandfather John Nathaniel Moore, on the head and said, "Run along and tell your mother I’m coming." Ike watched for a few seconds as John ran back toward where his mother and the other ladies were gathered, and turned back toward the group and wondered out loud to no one in particular. "What do you suppose this war is gonna mean for them?"
Later, when the whole family, Elizabeth, John W., Frank, Martha (who was named after Ike’s mother who had passed away two years before), little Ike and Mary, born only four months before, were in the buckboard heading home, Elizabeth after several minutes of silence said, "When will you be going"?
"How did you know?" asked Ike.
"Ike you know you can’t keep anything from me," she replied. "I’ve always known you’d go. Bill and Tom are gone; your friends from around here have all gone or will be going soon. I just knew your time would come."
Ike detected a sad tone in her voice and glancing at her caught her wiping away a tear.
"Elizabeth," Ike said, "I know it will be hard but this conscription act doesn’t leave me with much choice. I would rather volunteer and serve with men I know and trust. You know most of the local boys have joined Dabney Gholston’s Company. I think that’s probably the place for the rest of us." You and the children should probably go to live with your father and mother, they will be needing help. David has already joined (David Simmons was Elizabeth’s cousin and had been working on her father’s farm) and the two darkies are just kids and won’t be that much help."
"I know Ike," said Elizabeth, struggling to not let her emotions show in front of the children. "But I just cannot bear the thought of something happening to you. What would I do?"
Ike tried to think of something reassuring to day but determined after a moment or two that any words he chose would be empty and no solace to Elizabeth.
"Elizabeth," Ike said. "You know me well enough to know that I’ll be careful and take no chances but I must do my duty as all Georgians must. Hopefully the latest terrible battles will bring the leaders of the Union to their senses and they will stop this terrible war and leave the South alone."
"Oh Ike," do you think that might actually happen?" asked Elizabeth wishfully.
"All we can do is just pray that it does. It’s in God’s hands."
The remainder of the trip home passed in silence. Less than a month later, Ike joined most of the men who were in that Sunday afternoon discussion group in joining Captain Gholston’s Company.
Copyright Ron Jones
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