Tyler County Town Bluff Man Recalls First-Hand Civil War Memories
submitted by Gary Adams

I am a descendant and have researched the Sheffield family from Southwest Georgia for several years. Thought that you might enjoy some of the following.
         
Tyler County Town Bluff Man Recalls First-Hand Civil War Memories-From the Cracker Barrel Journal-February 1990
 
Dear Madelon: I am sending this story about Thomas Jefferson Sheffield's service in the Civil War. As you can see it is a first hand account, taken from a letter to his relatives, concerning a family reunion to be held in Tyler County in about 1924.

He was the great grandfather of Mrs. Jessie Yawn, who lives in Fred, Tyler County, Texas. She gave me a copy of the letter and I would like for her to be given credit for it.

Thomas Jefferson Sheffield, with his wife and children, came to Town Bluff, Tyler County, Texas in 1868 from Miller County, Georgia. He lived out his life in the Spurger-Town Bluff area.

Best regards, Thelma Y'Barbo See

Dear children and friends,

I am still on the land of the living at this writing and doing as well in the way of health as could be expected owing to my age. If I can live to the year of 1924, I will have attained four score and one years (81) and I am so glad to see so many of my friends and relatives present. It proves to me that I am not entirely forgotten and do heartily appreciate the part you have taken in getting up the reunion for one reason in particular, and that is I cannot expect to remain with you all much longer. I realize that I am weakening both mentally and physically. However, I think I have held up wonderfully well under the great strain that I have been subjected to during almost my natural life up to this time.

Someone might ask the question what could have been your trouble. I shall not try to recall all the happenings that befell me, but will begin at my childhood days. I was born the 2nd day of January, 1843, in Early County, Georgia and about the time I grew to manhood, the war broke out between the states. I was then between 18 and 19 years old, there was a call for volunteers, the governor, Joe Brown, made a call for state troops and my father volunteered and told me to stay home and oversee the Negroes and the farm. Now, mind you, they volunteered for six months.

My father was elected 2nd Lieutenant. father's brother was elected 3rd Lieutenant, another uncle of mine, Thomas Floyd, was elected 1st Lieutenant, and F. R. Kendrick was elected Captain, so the company was mustered into service as Georgia State Troops and located near Savannah, Georgia. Soon after they were located, my father was sent back home as recruiting officer, so nothing would do me but I must go. So I went back with him and joined the company of 1st Georgia Regiment Troops. I remained with the company until the end of the six months, we were then mustered out of the service and went back home, but did not remain there but a short time. Our company, most of us, enlisted in the Confederate service with Captain F. R. Kendrick, 1st Lieutenant R. D. Chapman, 2nd Lieutenant James Lane, and 3rd Lieutenant Thomas J. Sheffield. Father did not go with us but joined a cavalry company as I suppose he preferred cavalry service and went into Florida and remained until the close of the war.

Our company was mustered into the service at Griffen Georgia as Company E., 55th Georgia Regiment of Volunteers. We were soon moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee and remained there under the shadow of the famous Lookout Mountain for a short time, from thence to Knoxville, Tennessee, from there to a place called Bridgeport on the Tennessee River. The Yankees were encamped on one side of the river and our company on the other. We were almost face to face in talking distance, if we had been allowed to, but we had orders not to talk to them. We did not remain at Bridgeport long; General Braxton Bragg was our commanding officer, so we soon had orders to move. Then some of our trouble began.

We were little prepared to take the trip that lay before us, but we had to go a hundred mile march, some of us almost barefooted and our clothes in tatters, our part of the company moved on to a little town called Clinton, Tennessee and remained at the place a few days so we had orders to move again. Several of our regiment was taken sick and were not about to go, and among them was our captain, so we started again on our long march over a rough mountainous country. This move was known as Bragg's raid into Kentucky as I understand for obtaining supplies for the army as much as anything else, so as above stated, we moved on into Kentucky after several days march, we came to a place called Big Hill, said to be 15 miles from Richmond, Kentucky. There we then saw some of the scenes of war. Our brigade was just one day too late to get into the battle. There was a pike road from the foot of the big hill to Richmond and on either side of the road lay dead mules and horses, casons and parts of cannons that had belonged to the federals. We marched on within about two miles of Richmond and came to a large church, there we beheld a terrible sight. Just outside of the churchyard there was a long ditch some fifty yards long filled with dead federals and after being filled with dirt some of their blue clothes was above the covering and in the church and church yard were the wounded. So our command was ordered to move on to Richmond. After arriving at the small town we went into camp were we met with some of the most generous people I ever saw. They came in from all quarters laden with baskets of provisions for the soldiers all or most all on horseback. We did not stay long at Richmond.

We were ordered to move down a few miles to a place called Dick Robinson on Dick's River near where the great battle was fought at Perrville. Our regiment did not get into the battle. We were left to guard a bridge on the river. My recollection was that great battle lasted about 6 days. The federals reinforced so fast that Bragg had to retreat. It was said that he went out with a 40 mile wagon train laden mostly with provisions. I think we were about five days and nights on the retreat. After the retreat, our brigade was sent back to a place called Cumberland Gap on Cumberland Mountain, Tennessee. We did not remain at that place long until General Burnside with 25,000 men surrounded our brigade of only 2,500 men. We were forced to surrender September 9, 1863. We were then sent to Camp Douglas prison, four miles at that time from the city of Chicago. Then came our greatest suffering. Now I have but one comrade anywhere around about here that belonged to the company I did and was with me during the war and that is Mr. S. Grimes of Woodville, and I asked that he have a special invitation to be at our reunion and I hope will be present on the occasion and if I have erred in my statements, I grant him the privilege to correct me. I will now endeavor to give a brief account of my prison life. Mr. Grimes being my witness.

There has been a great deal said about how prisoners were treated during the war of the sixties, if there were any prisoners that were treated any worse or suffered more than the prisoners at Camp Douglas, it seems to me a few of them would have escaped death from starvation and other bad treatment. Now I want to relate a few happenings that I was a witness to. There were 190 men in the barracks that I occupied and only one heater for the entire 190 men. It was also very cold weather in Chicago. There was a cook room adjoining the barracks, and just outside the cook room was slop up to their armpits after bones to gnaw on, and at other times, there was a dog killed and ate in the barrack next to the one we were in. I did not see that but was reliably informed that it was so by one of our company who was transferred to that barrack. His name was Joe Deason. who Mr. Grimes knew. It looked like we must starve and it was said that two of our company did actually starve to death. Their names were Bill Bates and Bill Hathron. Now there were several punishments inflicted on us, but time and space will not permit, and I will pass on. Now I started in the beginning of this letter that I had held up well in the way of life and health under the great strain I have been subjected to, now my dear children and friends, in my feeble way, I have tried to confine myself to facts. I do not claim to be a fallible being. Now I thank you and all for our presence here today and your help in making it an enjoyable day for all of us.

I remain your friend and relative,

Thomas Jefferson Sheffield

Letter from Robert W. Sheffield

I desire to write up a brief history of our ancestors, together with other happenings that came up during some of their natural lives, according to my father John C. Sheffield's story.

About the year 1800, my grandfather and five brothers, fled from Lee County, Georgia to escape the wrath of savages. Indians had gotten on the warpath and were murdering women, children, and everybody in their pathway they could catch. According to history, they were making their way to this country, at that time Mexico. They started out from some place in Lee County called Roanoke.

I will now give an account of how these old hero's did. Six brothers, one of the six being my grandfather, whose name was Westley Sheffield, the others being Arthur, John, Bryant, Wright, and Isham, all uneducated and I suppose owned no property, yet they had determination and grit.

They all settled down in what was then called the Wiregrass Region of Georgia. I presume there were very few settlements in that part of that country, however, they all went to hard labor building homes and clearing farms. Mr grandfather and two of the brothers settled on the east side of a stream called Spring Creek, while the other three settled on the west side. I suppose there were no schools at that time and no towns, Bainbridge might have been a small town on Flint River, twenty miles from where grandfather settled. Finally, I suppose the county and county seat was located and a little town started up by the name of Blakely. The Early County seat, Blakely was sixteen miles from grandfather's home.

Wild animals and fowls of most all description roamed over the country such as deer, turkey, bear, and panthers. Anyway the old settlers went to work on the soil and raised stock, hogs, cattle, goats, and sheep and by living hard began saving money and buying Negroes to till the soil. It was said that old Uncle Arthur Sheffield owned two hundred slaves up to the time they were freed. Before the surrender in May 1865 in Appomattox, my grandfather had several slaves. I cannot say just how many as my father did not say. The other brothers owned thousands of head of cattle and other stock.

My father had some education and after grandfather began to get old, Father managed most of his business, such as seeing after the farm and overseeing the Negroes and the stock. Then my father and grandfather joined plantations. My father also owned several slaves himself. My father seemed to be a favorite son of my grandfather.

Grandfather was married four times. His first wife, Father knew but little about, only from things that he had heard. They had one child, a boy, and she took the child and deserted Grandfather and they never knew what became of them. The second wife's maiden name was Clark. She had four children, two boys and two girls, by name: Katy, Betsy, Isham, and Bryant. His third wife's name was Renfro. She had ten children, five boys and five girls, by name: John C. Samp, Arthur, Tom, and the other boy died, the girls were, Rebecca, Nancy, Mary Ann, Louise, and Tabitha. The fourth wife was a widow by the name of Brown. They had no children, although she had some by her first husband, Brown. Some of them I knew, their names were Silas, Neal Bryan, and Martin, the girls were Polly and Harriet.

My mother's name, as most of you know was Susan Hooks and she immigrated from South Carolina to Georgia. I presume about the time that the Sheffields came from Lee County, Georgia. I have no recollection of my grandfather and grandmother Hooks, they both died, might have been dead before I was born. I do remember all of my Uncles and Aunts, then of them as follow: Austin, William, James, Allen, and George. Females were Susan, Rebecca, Anagane, Betsy, and Charlotte.

I never did hear what nationality the Hooks were, but the Sheffields were English. One of the largest cutlery manufacturing cities said to be in the world is Sheffield, England. This city possibly derived its name from some of the Sheffields in ancient times.

Now in conclusion I wish to make the statement in regard as to how the settlers lived at that time. After the country became more developed and after the towns of Bainbridge and Blakely were built up my grandfather lived on the road leading from Bainbridge to Blakely on about the halfway ground. People traveling from one town to the other would stop at grandfathers' to spend the night. When the meals were announced they would have to use their pocket knives to cut up their food as there would be no knives and forks on the table. Their meals usually only consisted of cornbread and beef and but little if any flour to make biscuits. I can remember after I had a family that we would only have biscuits on Sunday morning. After the war in the 60's, I hauled 22 bushels of sweet potatoes twenty miles and would get only one barrel of flour for them. The above will give some idea how some of us lived later on.

Now I will go back to some of the practices of those old folks. Some of them seemed to be superstitious for they believed in ghosts and witchcraft. Some were more superstitious than others, and seemed to be very determined in their illiterate way. They would have their gatherings on some appointed place, the crossroads or some other place and have what they called the shooting matches. Some party would put up a beef to be raffled off by the quarter. They would put up a target at some distance and those who did the shooting would pay so much a shot and the first nearest bullet to the bulls eye would get the first quarter and so on until the beef would be all taken up. They usually had a good lot of whiskey in bottles or jugs on the ground and maybe all or most all would get drunk, then most of the time the fun would come off. They would get up some dispute and get into a regular fist fight and the one that could knock the most of them down wore the belt. They called these fights friendly fights for they were not allowed to use knives or guns and might all make friends before leaving the ground.

Now the guns people used in those olden times were called flint and steel guns. I can remember when there was no other than the flint and steel guns or at least that is my impression. The locks were attached to the breach of those guns with an upright steel lid that covered the priming pan and the hammer was made so as to fasten a small flint rock by a screw on top of the hammer and when the gun would be loaded the little riming pan would be filled with powder and the upright steel or other covering would be pulled down so as to prevent the powder from escaping only into the gun barrel and when the gun would be cocked and the trigger pulled the flint would strike the steel and throw the sparks into the powder and fire the gun, finally the percussion lock was invented, cap and tube and the old flint and steel gun was done away with.

Now I wish to make a statement in regards to the ex-slave or Negro. Ever since I can remember, where he came from and the cause of their being in the South, most every one who has studied history knows the Negro is a native of Africa. I have been told that the Negro speculators would go over to Africa in large vessels and would take with them many attractive articles in order to get the Negro on their vessel and when they would get all they wanted they would pull off from the shore and land them in the United States. Now as Negro labor was not profitable in the northern states, speculators would bring them in bunches down South and sell them to the farmers where they were profitable in the way of raising cotton that could not be raised in the North. Those traders would have their camping outfits along the Negroes would all or most all be driven along like cattle. The masters as they called their owners would stop near some slave owner farm and would likely sell some of the slaves, or go onto the next farm until they were all sold.

Now, I will admit some slave owners would treat their slaves cruel while others treated them very humane and those that were treated all right were better off when slaves than after being freed. They had no home and were to be pitied, however, I think that their owners should have been paid for them, of which it would have cost the government less than that four year's war. I think a great many Southern slave holders paid hard earned money for their Negroes.

I have been married three times. I married Martha Lane and came to Texas in 1867. There were eight children born to our union: Tom, Rachel, Bart, Bright, Charlie, Douglas, Allen, and Lucy. My wife died and I later married Susan Hutto and there were eight children born to us: Lee, Rannie, Francis, Mattie, Robert, Sue, Jennie, and Peter.

Now I have written about all that I am physically able to write and I will quit. Some that I have written is from hear-say and some of my own knowledge.

This is Christmas Day of 1927 and if I live to the 13th day of May, 1928, I will be 82 years old.

Signed - R. W. Sheffield