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Aftermath of Glory by Guest Author, Randy Godwin

8/14/2013

 
It's my distinct pleasure to present the work of Randy Godwin, author and an all-around fine Southern gentleman's second guest offering here on Once Upon a History.  You can find more of Randy's writings on his link above.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did the first time around, and do remember friends Randy's many other subjects he writes about on his site include helping literally thousands of folks on questions concerning their camper equipment, pool vacs, and well, things like that.

I do believe you'll agree Randy is unique with his style of writing and the stories he chooses to employ it on. 

Until we meet again my friends.
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Author, Randy Godwin

Randy Godwin's Aftermath of Glory


My arms are so weak I can hardly lift them from my sides as I lie down on an old cot for a few minutes after hours of butchering my fellow human beings. Common men they were and are, for the most part.

Ordinary dirt farmer’s sons who vowed to fight for the honor of their cherished homeland against the godless Yankees threatening their very way of life. Yeah, they bought it, as did most of us. Now we are paying the price of loyalty and trust, innocence, chivalry, and honor, all fruitless dreams as we found out much too late.
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Photo via U.S. National Archives
Palisades and chevaux-de-frise in front of the Potter House, Atlanta, Georgia, 1864. Photographed by George N. Barnard.
My name is Jacob Slade-- Dr. Jacob Slade, if you care for professional titles--but you would never consider many of the procedures I’d been forced to follow lately as professional medical practices. I'm truly sorry for this, as I do the best I can with what I have.

My sixteen year old aide--a tow headed, loyal, and rather intelligent boy--has fallen immediately asleep, still holding a severed arm he intended to discard before instant weariness changed his mind. He even has blood in his hair.

Their blood - our sweat and tears ...

PictureGen. William Tecumseh Sherman
Damn that Frenchman, Claude Minie!

Yes, he had invented an easier way to load a rifle with his Minie ball, but the low velocity bullets would simply flatten out on impact, shattering any bones they hit instead of going though and leaving a clean wound. Seldom were there bones to set in this war; amputations of entire limbs being the rule instead of the
exception.

Having nothing but raw moonshine to use as an antiseptic in place of medicinal alcohol, I can't remember if I drank more than I applied to the wounds of our poor boys in gray. Great beads of sweat rolled off my face as I sawed through bone and tendon, dropping down into open wounds along with both mine and the patient’s tears.

A nightmare from the depths of Hades some had described it. But it was much worse than that. I still awaken nights, soaking wet with the same sweat which blurred my eyes during that awful time. I can still smell the coppery odor of fresh blood when I wake from these nightmares. I can still hear the cries of those I mangled with care. I still can.

Return to the living ... 

We were holed up just outside of Atlanta in an old farmhouse. The fighting nearby had been intense for quite a while as the boys in gray tried to slow down the inevitable surrender of the city. Finally, most of the rebels retreated with the noise of explosions and cannon firing diminishing along with their ranks.

We had finally patched up the remaining wounded, covering up the bodies of those we could do nothing for. Abel--my young aide--had finally awakened and quickly relieved himself of the cadaverous appendage he'd found himself still gripping. “That was a hell of a long day, wasn’t it Doc?” he observed.

It was amazing how quickly Abel had rebounded after his short slumber. I’d forgotten the resilience of youth long ago and wondered if I indeed had ever possessed such wonderful abilities of recuperation. “Too long, Abel," I replied. “We can’t last much longer taking on such a load of casualties.  At least I cannot!"

"Here, let’s go over to the old store and see if we can scrounge up something to eat. You’d think I wouldn’t be hungry after all of the blood and guts I’ve seen today.  A man’s got to eat though, no matter what his eyes remember.”
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Atlanta Depot, 1864
Civilians of Atlanta, Georgia scramble to board the last train to leave under the mandatory evacuation order given by General William T. Sherman. Many wagons and belongings had to be abandoned.  Photo taken September 1864, and published in 1911. 

Terminus lights in the sky ... 

It was quiet now on the outskirts of Atlanta, but in the distance northward the sky was ablaze as old Terminus was being cremated by the invading hordes of blue clad warriors. Many of them couldn't even speak English enough to ask for a drink of water they were so new to America.

There was no honor in this stupid war, no honor at all. But time to quit thinking about it now. A man has to think about pleasant things to be able to abide the horrible. I truly believe it’s a necessary survival instinct. I truly do.

Our boys had pulled out earlier and the wounded - those who had survived my surgical deficiencies, that is - were taken along with the Rebs in old farm wagons or carts.  Abel and I would have to leave pretty soon also if we wanted stay out of the invader's hands. But not just yet.

The orange glow from the burning Atlanta skyline was so bright we needed no lantern to see our way down to the old Jew store. I rapped on the door until Solly Cohen peeked back at me from behind the drawn shade. His look of concern changed just as suddenly to a smile of relief when he recognized my face.
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Atlanta Depot, September 1864
General Sherman's mandatory evacuation order in September 1864 led to this photograph of the last train leaving Atlanta. With overloaded cars, it will not have enough room for civilians to bring all of their belongings which can be seen littered beside the tracks beside the wagons they leave behind.  Photo published in 1911, taken in 1864.  

Preparing to travel south ... 

“Oh Doc, I was afraid it was the Yankees already and we’re not packed to go yet!” Solly gasped. “Here now, you're almost falling down with weariness!  Sit down and let me get you a drink!"  At that moment I could feel all of my 57 years, feel them individually it seemed.

“Bring the bottle, Solly,” I said. “May as well drink all of it.  It’ll just get broke anyhow when we hit them bumpy roads outside of Macon.”

Solly brought the whiskey bottle while his wife Ruth brought in a tray with two bowls of steaming stew and bread to sop the gravy with. The food was southern kosher I suppose, but at any rate, Ruth was a good cook. "Eat,” she said. The lady didn’t talk much either. Yes, Solly was a lucky man.

He was also my best friend in the world. We would be traveling in Solly’s large sales wagon. It took four horses to pull it, but we would travel in style. Solly had his entire life savings in jewelry in the enclosed quarters. He and Ruth were used to traveling around the country in the regular course of his business. But this wasn’t regular business as we all realized now.
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Ruin's of Atlanta's railroad-roundhouse.
Atlanta, Georgia shortly after the end of the American Civil War showing the city's railroad roundhouse in ruins. Albumen print.  Photo taken in 1866.  Photo available in U.S. Library of Congress.

Different similarities ...

Strange how such different souls can find kinship in the worst of times, but then, isn't it often that way? We either find differences to hate one another with, or differences to remind us of our similarities. I suppose it’s all the same, just that we can’t often recognize the sameness for what it is. But me and Solly, well, we hit it off from the very first.

Growing up in the very deepest part of the south, I had never been around anyone from anywhere but southern Georgia. Other than the slaves we owned to run our plantation, everyone else was about the same. I never thought I’d see the day when I’d cozy up to a Jew, especially after hearing all about them from the preacher at the Clear Springs Baptist Church.

“The Jews killed Jesus,” Brother Morgan would shout from the pulpit. “They turned on their own and let the Romans nail him up on that ol' rugged cross to die for our sins”. He had said this many times during the long Sunday mornings I had sat through his unchanging sermons. It’s a wonder I hadn’t socked Solly in the mouth the first time he revealed his Jewishness to me."
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Potter House's, Atlanta, Georgia
Potter's House in Atlanta housed Confederate sharpshooters until Union artillery made a specific target of it.  Published in 1911.   Photo taken in 1864.

Friend Solly ... 

I had met him during my college days while studying medicine in Atlanta. Solly was merely trying to get through his education so he could be a teacher of history in some school up north. But instead, I married his sister.

Yes, that’s right, Solly became my brother-in-law. I’d met his sister after he'd invited me to go home with him one weekend instead of taking the train for the 200 mile trip home to Clear Springs.

Sarah was more than beautiful. I had never before been so affected by any southern belle--and they were more than a few who affected me--like Sarah did. Her eyes were wonderfully dark, seemingly able to look into my very soul. I was instantly, hopelessly, entranced by them. We were married just six months after having met.

I had to promise to follow her faith, the same as if I had refuted my own. I had no problem doing so, not with those eyes. There are few things gods have no sway over in this world, true love being one of them.
Picture
Ruins of Atlanta Depot
Ruins of Atlanta depot after burning by Gen. Sherman's troops, 1864.  Published Nov. 9, 2011.  Photo via Wikipedia.

Mourning for lovers ... 

We were gloriously blissful in our joining and loved and lived as best we knew how. I finished my medical training and bought a new home, right in the middle of Atlanta. But happiness is sometimes short lived when it is so clear and easy.

Sarah died giving birth to our son after we had been married only a year. Even the bottle was no companion for me afterwards. Neither whiskey, nor the laudanum from my medical bag, could help dim the past. But they also had little effect on my memories.  I cannot decide if this is good or bad. Not really.

I never fell in love again. Sarah was the perfection I had sought so long in my life, and once found, isn't worthy of repetition. I would not dare to look again for the elusive happiness I had once tasted. No mortal would dare.

So, here we were. Atlanta burning all around us and nowhere to go but south. I know my folks haven't forgiven my easy betrayal of my religion for the Hebrew temptress. No, they never called her that, at least not to my knowledge. But it was in their minds, nonetheless.

I don’t know how we will be received back home, especially Solly and Ruth. But I will be there to show the others they are real people, not merely murderers of Jesus in their old book of judgment.

Keeping the gentlemen's oath ... 

Abel would also be coming along with us because he had nowhere else to go. His folks were both killed earlier in the war near the Tennessee/Georgia border. Abel volunteered to help me tend the wounded in a very bad battle near the area, so I can only do the same for him and repay his loyalty in kind. This seems to be another unspoken oath among ourselves. Oaths are often such, at least the best one’s are. But this is merely my humble opinion.

But I don’t really care at this point about the niceties of going home. Solly is my brother and his wife my kin also. They will go home with me, back to what’s left of my legacy among those who may often look askance in my direction.

I won’t worry about it now though, mainly because Sarah would not have approved. But she also knew I would never fail her family. After all, I gave her my oath as a southern gentleman.

Battle of Ramsour's Mill  

8/2/2013

 
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State marker in front of High School
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The famous American General George S. Patton once said that compared to war, all other human endeavors shrink into insignificance. It's easy to see what the General meant by that as war and battle do tend to bring out the very best in people: heroism, sacrifice, courage, deep comradeship, and the willingness to give one's all to defend the tribe, so to speak. All true and more.

But General Patton failed to mention in the same thought it can also bring out the very worst in humankind as well.  Personally, I don't believe our world
civilization will ever reach the stars until we leave the practice far behind us as a very sad collective memory. But that's another story; plus we should always admire the valor of those who gave their all for you and me and that certainly includes  those who do so now and those that have done so in the past.

The sentiments in the above thoughts certainly don't mean that a people, nation, world, or galactic federation doesn't have the God-given or natural right of Creation to defend itself from aggressors,  that wish only to take advantage of, plunder, enslave, harm, or exterminate  peaceful others.  And hopefully with your kind indulgence over all that said, let's begin this tale of a little battle that is generally unknown and that helped win the long-running war for American independence.  

Remembering the fallen ... 

PictureLarge rock dedicated to park's opening in 1997.
This large rock on the Revolutionary War's Ramsour's Mill battleground in Lincolnton, NC,  may be one place were some of the conflict's killed were buried. There may be graves yet to be discovered in the surrounding area, too.

It also reminds us of at least a few things that were mentioned previously: men willing to risk their lives for the defense of what they believed in, and the elected leaders and law-makers their families and selves would  live with.

 And last but not least, whether they wished to continue serving a far-away king and his expansive empire, or govern themselves on the frontier land they had hand-forged into communities and farms with blood, sweat and tears, 3,000 miles away from Great Britain across the world's second largest ocean.

The entirety of where this battle took place has the distinction of covering the Lincoln County High School, children's playgrounds, athletic playing fields, parking lots and streets. The area where the memorial and heaviest fighting took place is rather small and about 1200 hundred feet west of the street in front of the school.

It really isn't much larger than a normal park picnic area; but this in no way takes away from what happened here and in the surrounding area, over 230 years ago, not by a longshot, as we shall now see with a recounting of the Battle of Ramsour's Mill on the 20th of June, 1780.

PictureA prosperous North Carolina farmer's reconstructed cabin.
As the British high command considered its options in the late 1770s, the Southern colonies once again began to take on a most pleasing  possibility of breaking the stalemate in the North with a new campaign full of promise and new recruits.

Although the British overestimated the amount of support they thought would greet any invasion by them of the Carolinas and Georgia, they weren't off  the mark by much in this hope. Besides most of the Highland Scots and others in the eastern half of these states, there were literally tens of thousands of other inhabitants in the piedmont area of the Carolinas who were either actively loyal to Britain or leaning that way. 

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Part of the park where the patriots made their stand. Field and large parking lot beyond trees.
PicturePlaque on doughnut stone.
The British capture of Charles Town (Charleston) in May of 1780 emboldened those Tories, or Loyalists, in their hopes of a royal victory in the backcountry parts of the Carolinas.

Just a few groups of Patriots, or Whigs, were left in the Carolinas after that disaster, with leaders like the Swamp Fox  Francis Marion. There were other effective bands of fighters and other militia around Charlotte Town and other areas, too, for example, that were led by men such as Thomas Sumter and, of course, those in this story.

 Banastre  Tarleton's cavalry force, after the British victory at Charles Town, was soon far enough upstate to be running wild in the Waxhaws section, about sixty miles or so miles southeast of NC's west-central, Lincoln County, where Ramsour's Mill was located. At the time the county was much larger than it is today, being divided-up overtime into several others.

The patriot, General Griffith Rutherford, was camped with his small force close-by to Charlotte Town, towards the west of it, when he was informed that a large force of Loyalists were gathering at the mill near the small village of Lincolnton, not 20 or 25 miles away from where he and his volunteers were.

While moving his force that way, he called for help from other patriots, including those under the command of Lt. Col. Francis Locke, requesting they rendezvous with him at Mountain Creek, some 16 miles or so from were the Tories were gathering a much larger force at the Mill.  As it turned out, the Loyalists forces were to have the Whigs outnumbered at least three times over.

PictureMemorial stone in park with above the inscription.
The Loyalists in this region had been recruiting and assembling since the fall of Charles Town  to help prepare the way for a British army under Cornwallis to advance successfully deep into the two Carolinas. 

By mid-June the recruits signed up by Tories, Lt. Colonel Moore and Major Welch, began their assembling, over half a dozen miles west of some of their homes in Lincoln County, north of Lincolnton itself.

General Rutherford was far from being out of the loop concerning this concentration of men loyal to King George III, and sent word out through Mecklenburg County and, as far away east as Rowan County,  for fighters to join his own Lincoln County men in taking on, and hope-fully, defeating and dispersing these homegrown adversaries.

On the night of June the 19th, Lt. Colonel  Locke's  command of  400 rebellion men broke camp and headed for what was now, in all reality, many hostile folk and relatives, and in parts a hostile neighborhood. About twenty-five percent of the Colonel's men were mounted, the others were on foot. 

The local Tories may have assembled as many as 1300 men, encouraged by Tarleton's  recent "victory" at the Battle of the Waxhaws.   The cavalry commander was to for ever after gain the moniker of "Bloody Ban" after cutting down surrendering Americans there.  A formidable force of Royalists now came together in glad-handing encouragement on receiving this news to be sure. Has there ever been a better example of close neighbors, and in many cases kinfolk, ready to war against one another? with one seeking to gain independence and freedom while the other was determined to remain true to mother England. 

PictureColonial era spinning wheel from North Carolina
Perhaps this would be a good place  to stop and mention the womenfolk involved in this brutal local contest of a civil war inside the overall Revolution.

These women, besides sending off  many of their men with a kiss and victuals (food), would also have been busy tearing  sheets for bandages and preparing local herbs and medicines for the inevitably wounded and injured. They also began preparing their small and
humble abodes to serve as care facilities for the badly injured, who would be in need of a place to heal from their hurts, many requiring days, or even weeks and months of convalescing.

All of this despite taking care of and lessening the fears of any children, mending or making clothes, and tending to crops and livestock and the rest of life's daily chores. What a strong and caring breed of remarkable women they were in those days.

 And as an  added thought, I believe if called upon in our present day, many of  their descendants would be just as tough, caring and resilient. Many of our piedmont woman of today, including those in military service, prove this point, certainly they do.

PictureBattleground with a small memorial park behind trees.
On June the 20th, as Locke's force approached on the main road to the soon to be scene of action, the Tory pickets began firing at them from a distance and then high-tailed it back to their main force at the Mills. The patriots then charged and turned the right flank of the Tories, thereby gaining the ridge behind where these trees are. (See photo below.)

Fierce fighting then developed that caused Colonel Locke to begin to pull back his outnumbered men; but cursing, a Captain Dickey said no way to this move; and his men's muskets, some of which were rifled, and with his deadly shooters at the rifles triggers, were indeed to turn the day into a vital victory over their more numerous Royalists foes.

Interestingly, the official pension files have Dickey calling out, "Shoot straight,  my boys, and keep on fighting. I see some of them beginning to tumble!"

And tumble they did, for the Whig chaps dropped at least 150 opponents to their sharpshooting, not to mention some more in hand-to-hand combat.

The patriots leader, General Rutherford, hadn't even reached the field of battle yet, but when he did he found the Tories  confused and battered. A white flag was also waving among them, requesting a truce to aid the fallen.

The General simply took the opportunity to be merciful and take these beaten men prisoner, but while negotiations were going on, most of them that could, fled like scattered rabbits from the field and only about four dozen of the defeated were actually captured.

Both sides seem to have suffered about the same number of casualties, maybe as many as 140 killed and over 200 wounded plus those captured by Rutherford. A couple dozen Tories managed to reach Lord Cornwallis in South Carolina with the low down on the set back. The rest of the beaten skedaddled back to their cabins in their different counties with the onus of defeat hanging over them, and, with the knowledge of the independence-seeking inhabitants determination to fight, and fight hard at that.

In addition, this stunning, lop-sided defeat, in the weeks, months and even next few years to come, caused many of these loyalists to sit out the war or change their allegiances and actually join up and fight alongside their former foes. And many with outstanding service and heroism at that. It was a wise choice by those who did.

What if?

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What makes this generally unknown battle so important to many historians is its demoralizing affect on the King's followers in the central part of the Carolinas. It probably deprived General Cornwallis of untold numbers of indigenous recruits that might have turned several American victories over the next year or so into victories, or at least stalemates of some sorts, for the Royalist side.

Can we imagine what might have happened at King's Mountain the following October had the already uphill fighting,  Over-the-Mountain Men, who had encircled and fought to a victory their more numerous foes, been up against an extra six or seven hundred red-coated Tories- assuming that extra number could be armed properly-under the Scottish leader of these marauding soldiers, Patrick Ferguson?  In all fairness, though, the Tories had the less effective smoothbore guns compared to the mountain men's rifled muskets, which made a big difference. But the esprit de corps was with the Wataugans, and that is what, when you get down to it, won the battle.

Or what of his Lordship's trek up through North Carolina to do battle at the critical fight in 1781 at Guildford Courthouse? Which turned out a very pyrrhic victory for him, no less for the shortages of local loyalist's he had counted on rallying to his banners in that part of northern North Carolina.  What might have happened to patriot recruiting and intelligence gathering efforts had the opposite occurred at the Mill's battle? And for that matter, the far too many hard fought Patriot and Tory skirmishes and battles in both Carolinas that there later were, than to list on here?

Of course, all this is somewhat speculation, but there can be no doubt that several more thousand followers of the British and Cornwallis would have made things even dicier than they already turned out to be for those seeking independence and self-rule. Thank goodness for those 400 vastly outnumbered but brave, stalwart, and victorious Carolinian Americans at Ramsour's Mill that warm June day, way back when in 1780. They, and their womenfolk, holding the home fort down while their men fought, are not forgotten and nor should they ever be.

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