By Dale Welch
Many books and articles have been written about those who fought on both sides in the Civil War. We don’t hear much about what the children saw and endured, especially along the Upper Cumberland.
Margaret Elmore Wilson was just nine years old when the terrible war began. The daughter of Julius and Nancy Miller Elmore, she was named for her maternal grandmother, Sarah Margaret Hargis Miller. The Elmore’s lived near the Montgomery Turnpike, inside Putnam County. The toll road ran between Standing Stone and Montgomery, which was the county seat of Morgan County at the time. Before the war, Margaret would witness droves of cattle, hogs, turkeys and all kinds of livestock coming down the turnpike. On one occupation, she would relate to her great grandchildren many years later, a group of slaves being driven by their house, stopped for rest and watering.
Little Margaret heard one of the slave women crying. She noticed the woman was milking her breasts into the fire. Curious, Margaret asked what she was doing. “They’ve sold my babies away from me,” the distraught woman cried. Her young mind could not comprehend what had happened. Even as a great grandmother, it was too hard to understand why and how someone could do that.
Margaret marred Joseph Wilson, son of Berry and Julia Beaty Wilson. Berry rode with “Tinker” Dave Beaty’s Independent Scouts, a Union guerilla group. Julia was Beaty’s first cousin. Margaret lived her life out in the Lovejoy area of Overton County.
Martha Jane Stephens Phipps was born and raised in the Dry Hollow and Tyler Point of Overton County. Before the Civil War began, she sometimes would get to go with her family to take produce to the steamboats that made it up the Wolf River. She remembered seeing the boss man using a whip on slaves loading and unloading the boats. She mostly recalled the calliope on the steamboats. One song was “Molly Darling.” Oh, how she loved to hear that music! Sometimes, her daddy would get a job helping take logs down the river to Nashville.
Martha’s daddy, Nick Stephens was put in prison after he helped kill a whole family. However, when the war started, prison doors flew open. Martha Jane’s daddy joined the Confederate army, in Dibrell’s 13th Tennessee Calvary. He later wound up in his brother, Dode Stephens’ bushwhacker gang.
Back at home, Martha Jane went with her mother, Jenny to a neighboring farm, to help kill a hog. To get back home, they had to travel after dark to keep bushwhackers from stealing the meat. On one such trip home, she recalled a pack of wolves were determined to get the fresh meat. The family had to beat then off with sticks and rocks. Ty couldn’t risk firing a gun. That would bring on more trouble from thieves on two legs.
Martha Jane and her siblings had what they called a “ridey horse.” It was a large tree limb at the edge of the road, that she would bounce up and down on. Once, as some soldiers passed by, she was bouncing up and down signing, “Amongst the wild beasts of the field, I’d rather be a boar. I’d curl my tail and rut forevermore.” The soldiers would laugh and pass on.
Her daddy, uncle and more were killed in a raid by Tinker Dave Beaty’s Independent Scouts. Martha Jane grew up to marry Ben Phipps, in 1876. They had eight children. She died when her youngest child was only 10 years old. Ben remarried and had seven more children.
Alcy Whittaker Buckner was 13 years old when the War Between the States broke out. The daughter of Thomas Jefferson and Nancy Dillard Clark Whittaker, she was born at Standing Stone, along the Walton Road.
While the men folk were away at war, it placed great hardships upon their families. Since the 1790s, the Walton Road was a heavily travelled toll road. Now, it was mostly thieves, roughs and those persistent bushwhackers that would take everything they could get their hands on.
One day, Alcy was sent to the spring to get a fresh bucket of water. Upon her return, a man rode up on horseback. Alcy noticed the rough-looking man had a bright and shiny broach penned to his hat.
“Give me a drink of water” the man demanded. She wouldn’t give up her bucket, because she thought he’d pour it out or steal her bucket. The man finally convinced her. He took a drink and poured the rest out on the ground. At least he didn’t steal the bucket. He threw it down and laughed as he rode away. Poor Alcy went back and filled her bucket again.
A day or so later, the man and his group stopped at the Whittaker home and made Mrs. Whittaker and the girls fix them something to eat. The Whittakers lived in a dogtrot house. A walkway porch ran in the middle, dividing the rooms. The men had placed their hats and coats in one room and were eating in the other. While the thieves were eating, Alcy slipped into the other room and seized the shiny broach as contraband. It is said the broach is still in family hands.
Alcy married her brother-[n-law, Daniel Boone Buckner after her older sister, Elizabeth died in childbirth.
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