Cazzie
April 15th, 2010, 06:11
The Battle of Stanton River Bridge
From the beginning of the Battle of the Wilderness in 1864 to the end of the war a year later in Appomattox, General Ulysses S. Grant's desire was to destroy the railroads that kept the people of Richmond and Petersburg fed and gave General Robert E. Lee the food and supplies he needed to continue fighting. Grant's overall goal was to destroy Lee's fighting capacity.
In late June 1864, Confederate General Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia were engaged in a desperate defense of the city of Petersburg. Victory for Lee depended on the steady flow of supplies brought in by rail. To force Lee from Petersburg, General Ulysses S. Grant planned to cut off Confederate supply lines and ordered a cavalry raid to tear up the tracks and destroy railroad stations and bridges.
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y168/cazmodel/Stanton%20River%20Bridge%202010/map_rrs.jpg
Union Brigadier General James H. Wilson and his Third Division, as well as Brigadier General August V. Kratz's small cavalry division of the Army of the James, had participated in Grant's railroad-breaking expeditions from the beginning. They received word from Grant that they were to lead the raid on the Richmond & Danville Railroad.
On June 22, 1864, Generals Wilson and Krutz, commanding more than 5,000 troops, left Petersburg to destroy track on the Richmond & Danville Railroad and the Southside Railroad.
Gens. Wilson and Kratz first raided the Southside railroad, then they attacked the Richmond & Danville Railroad. They marched steadily toward the Stanton River Bridge. By early morning of June 25, 1864, the Union cavalry had reached Keysville, seventeen miles northeast of the bridge. On the oppressively hot afternoon of June 25 they arrived at Roanoke Station on the north side of the bridge.
Each day had grown worse for the Union troops; the roads were dusty and the sun beat down on them with blistering intensity. Burning the rails in the hot sun and then marching through fire and smoke to get the next section drained the men physically. Although the heat and drought helped the raids by making them easier to light the fires, it was terrible for the men and beasts. Before long, they ran out of water, then the men and horses started giving out.
“The work of these last two days, performed under a burning sun and over hot fires, was extremely exhausting, and many of the men have not and never will recover from its effects.” - Lt. Col. George A. Permington, 2nd Ohio Cavalry
The Union soldiers were physically and mentally worn out as they came to gaze upon the wheat fields before them at Stanton River Bridge. The thought of fighting to burn a well-defended bridge was almost more than they could bear. Gen. Wilson quickly assessed the situation. The railbed was steeply elevated and fields were on each side of the railbed. He set up his artillery on the hillside to the right in the location of Mulberry Hill Plantation.
Gen. Wilson determined that Gen. Kratz's divisions would be sent out in the fields to fight. Gen. Kratz sent Colonel Samuel P. Spear and his 2nd Brigade to the left of the railbed. Colonel Robert M. West and his 1st brigade were sent to the right of the railbed.
On the Confederate side Captain Benjamin L. Farinholt had been in charge of the Stanton River Bridge post for forty days prior to the battle preparing his defenses and drilling his forces. Captain E. N. Fitzhugh was assigned to build earthworks on the Halifax County side (south side) of the bridge. Colonel Stanhope Flournoy and his cavalry of 50 men were sent downriver to the nearest ford and Captain Paul Edmunds, with as many men, was sent to defend the first ford of the bridge to the north and guard against Union crossings. A battalion of 296 Confederate reserves was stationed at the bridge. Within days of his message that a large Union force was heading to burn the bridge, Col. Farinholt was bolstered by 642 reinforcements. Of these, 150 were Confederate regulars who were home on leave or in transit, Col. Coleman on wounded furlough, and local citizens comprised of young boys and old men, either too young or too old to serve in the military.
Colonel Henry Eaton Coleman was a Virginian, born in Halifax County in 1837, He studied civil engineering at the College of William and Mary and Virginia Military Institute. He joined the 12th North Carolina Infantry, a company his uncle formed shortly after the Civil War began and elevated to the rank of Captain.
Col. Coleman's gallantry in battle at Second Manassas, Gettysburg, Chancellorsville, and the Wilderness earned him a promotion from Caption to Lt. Colonel and eventually Colonel. He was wounded five times, two being severe. A minnie-ball tore off the top of his skull exposing a portion of Col. Coleman's brain during the Battle of Spotsylvania on May 12, 1864. Surprisingly enough, he survived and received permission to stay with his father-in-law at “Oakville” in Halifax County, where he could recover. On June 24, Col. Coleman without any concern for his own well-being, set off to help the troops at Stanton River Bridge, a distance of 25 miles. He traveled to this site in a carriage driven by his father-in-law lying on a makeshift bed. Pillows surrounding his head eased the pain from the constant jolting.
Upon his arrival at the the bridge, Coleman volunteered his services to Col. Farinholt. He surveyed the area and realized that in order to save the bridge from destruction by Union forces, the north side of the embankment needed to be strengthened. Farinholt agreed with Coleman's assessment and put him in charge of building extra entrenchments and earthworks, By mid-morning on the 25th, the day of the battle, a small well-built semi-circular earthworks was completed just to the north of the bridge's embankment.
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y168/cazmodel/Stanton%20River%20Bridge%202010/earthworks.jpg
Many Confederates also felt that Coleman's suggestion to build small breastworks on the north side of the river saved the bridge and won the battle for them. These breastworks were dug to a depth of four feet “with old canteens, a spade or two, sticks and whatever the men could lay their hands on.” The fresh earth was thrown down the river bank so as to be invisible to the enemy advancing on the bridge.
The defenders in the lower trenches across the river were under orders to remain hidden until the Union troops were well within firing range. The bravery of the old men (Gray Beards) and young boys along with the element of surprise were to a large degree responsible for the Confederate victory.
By mid-afternoon on June 25, all was ready and the men were in position for battle. The wait for Union soldiers to appear seemed to last forever and both experienced and inexperienced men alike grew nervous. Veterans entertained the boys with jokes and old war stories. Tradition holds that Mrs. William Clark, Patrick Henry's granddaughter, played a French harp to calm the fears of the men.
Gun crews occupied the two small earthworks and helped guard the bridge. The main artillery was located in the larger earthworks on the left named “Fort Hill”. The Confederates were in charge of a battery of six guns, one 3-in. rifled gun, two smooth bore 12-pounders, and three iron 6-pounders.
“The Rebels had one superior piece of cannon, which treated us to horrendous discharges of grapeshot, which seemed as though they would take the breath out of the body as they flew like a flight of noisy birds close over us.” - Rowland M. Hall, 3rd New York
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y168/cazmodel/Stanton%20River%20Bridge%202010/fort_hill_photo_6.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y168/cazmodel/Stanton%20River%20Bridge%202010/fort_hill_photo_2.jpg
Order of Battle:
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y168/cazmodel/Stanton%20River%20Bridge%202010/fort_hill_5.jpg
Google Earth Image with my legend:
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y168/cazmodel/Stanton%20River%20Bridge%202010/google_legend.jpg
On the right flank the Confederates were hidden from view behind the tall wheat in the field. They rose out of nowhere with a unified Rebel yell surprising the union troops and trapping them in the open. Col. Robert West tried to get his men to climb the embankment no fewer than four times in the hopes of burning the trestle. But the Confederates had the upper hand and swept the sides and embankments with terrible fire. Men fell right and left, some from bullets, others from sheer exhaustion.
On the left flank, Col. Samuel Spear dismounted his men and sent them as skirmishers to the left of the railbed. The entire way across the field to the ditch line they were under heavy fire from artillery in the large earthworks called Fort Hill and musketry from the bridge. He was forced to pull his men back because of the superior force of the enemy and their protection by earthworks, while his men were exposed to all their fire.
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y168/cazmodel/Stanton%20River%20Bridge%202010/stanton_river_bridge_1.jpg
While the infantry and dismounted cavalry outnumbered the Confederates over ten to one; those untrained little boys and old gray-headed farmers arose from their position of partial safety and protection and with a firm steady step marched into the jaws of death. The shells striking the tin roof of the bridge made a fearful noise, scaring some of the small boys into outbursts of weeping.
At one point the Union almost claimed the bridge, but as they were putting a torch to it, the Rebels forced them back by “murderous discharges” of artillery fire. Later that night, West received orders to pull his men back.
Few of the Union troops knew where their fellow soldiers ended up, because in the confusion during the raid, many were wounded and the dead were abandoned. The heat was so intense that hospital wagons could carry only a few men at a time for fear of suffocating the injured. For this reason, many of the wounded were left behind. Cpl. Nelson M. Ward, of the 11th Pennsylvania Cavalry received the Congressional Medal of Honor for not leaving the field until he had retrieved all of the personal effects of his dead Captain.
Wilson and Kratz had no idea how many Confederates were defending the bridge. They believed they were up against several thousand men at least. Mrs. McPhail, a local plantation owner who lived on Mulberry Hill, had convinced them that Confederate soldiers were being brought in by the thousands. Wilson had no doubt that what she said was true, they had seen several trains pull up to the bridge during the battle to let off a constant supply of troops. The Union generals had, in fact, been fooled.
In the course of the night Colonel Farinholt had a train of empty cars run back and forth on the railroad at different times. Farinholt also order a number of his men to move about on the cars when they arrived and create an impression that he was receiving reinforcements. The ruse had the desired effect, as Col. Wilson thought he was facing a large Confederate army at the bridge and that Col. Farinholt could withstand any attack made upon him.
Wilson later wrote of his decision to break off the engagement of Stanton River Bridge, “Finding the bridge could not be burned or captured without severe loss and the enemy again being upon our rear, the Stanton River too deep for fording and unprovided with bridges for steam ferries, I determined to push no further South, but to endeavor to reach the Army by returning to Petersburg.”
At daylight on on June 26, Col. Farinholt advanced a line of skirmishers half a mile and discovered that the enemy had left quite a number of their dead on the field. In this advance 8 prisoners were captured. Of the dead left on the field, the Confederates buried 42, among them several officers. The Confederate casualties were 10 killed and 24 wounded.
With Confederate reserves and volunteer forces totaling a mere 938, Captain Farinholt pulled off a surprising victory on that hot June afternoon. Gen, Kratz's fourth and final attack on the bridge had just been launched toward dusk when Confederate Col.Rodney Lee arrived to bear down on Union Cap. Chapman, who was guarding the Union rear. Wilson was hemmed in and could not push forward any longer. As they were no further ahead than before the assault began, there was nothing left but retreat. On that oppressively hot afternoon of June 25, 1864, the Union cavalry arrived at Roanoke station. Though badly outnumbered and outgunned, Col. Farinholt's determined forces, following Col. Coleman's defense strategy, successfully repulsed four separate Union assaults and saved the bridge. It was the one of the last true Confederate victories of the war, the other two being the similar Battle of Natural Bridge in Florida, where a band of young men from Florida Military Institute and old men in a Confederate militia held off Union troops from capturing a bridge and the final battle of the American Civil War, the Battle of Palmito Hill (also known as Battle of Palmito Ranch), which occurred after the official surrender of the Confederacy in Texas near Brownsville in mid May 1865. But among my people, the “Battle of Stanton River Bridge” has been retold countless times and has become an important part of the history and heritage of Southside Virginia.
Footnote:
My maternal great-great Grandfather, Dodson Henry Conner, was a lad of 15 at the time and was one of the young volunteers. The Conner family had immigrated from Ireland in the late 1840s, but it is documented in the Conner family bible that Dodson Henry Conner was born in Nathalie, Virginia on March 15, 1849. Dotson Henry Conner's second son was Addison Caviness Conner, my great Grandfather, who beget Roy Hazelwood Conner, the father of my mother, Andean Leonora Conner. For the record, my middle name is Addison and my oldest son's first surname is Addison. In the south, a name is considered an honored tradition.
There is a strange feeling when one walks the footsteps of one's ancestor at a combat battlefield site, whether Normandy, the Somme, or Gilford Courthouse. This day was perfect; warm, still, birds singing, yet there was an ethereal calm. Oddly, I was alone, there was not one other sole the entire three hours I was there. I took it all in, studying the maps and making notes of various plaques and the positions of the troops and fortifications. Somehow, God meant for me to do this on this day I am sure. Maybe most of you are not into the supernatural all that much, I am not myself. I know much of the hype shown on it on TV is “fo sho” hokum, but I swear when I entered the smaller earthworks built by Col. Coleman, a cold chill went all over my body. I cannot explain it. I sit down and started taking photos, but I stayed cold the whole time I was in that fortification. Did my great-great Grandfather occupy this sacred piece of ground? At no other place along my near four mile walk of the battlefield did I incur such a feeling.
Also to be mentioned, Fort Hill, the larger fortification seen in the photographs, was reworked after the raid and more gun placements were worked in, as Farinholt expected another raid. The old covered wooden trestle bridge was razed in 1902 and a new steel-span bridge was built. The narrow-gauge Richmond & Danville Railroad eventually became part of Southern Railroad and ran until 1976. The line was abandoned in that year and parts of it are steadily being made into rails-to-trails programs. Five and a half miles of the old railbed near my home from Ringgold to Sutherlin have been made into a walking and biking trail.
Caz Dalton, April 2010
From the beginning of the Battle of the Wilderness in 1864 to the end of the war a year later in Appomattox, General Ulysses S. Grant's desire was to destroy the railroads that kept the people of Richmond and Petersburg fed and gave General Robert E. Lee the food and supplies he needed to continue fighting. Grant's overall goal was to destroy Lee's fighting capacity.
In late June 1864, Confederate General Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia were engaged in a desperate defense of the city of Petersburg. Victory for Lee depended on the steady flow of supplies brought in by rail. To force Lee from Petersburg, General Ulysses S. Grant planned to cut off Confederate supply lines and ordered a cavalry raid to tear up the tracks and destroy railroad stations and bridges.
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y168/cazmodel/Stanton%20River%20Bridge%202010/map_rrs.jpg
Union Brigadier General James H. Wilson and his Third Division, as well as Brigadier General August V. Kratz's small cavalry division of the Army of the James, had participated in Grant's railroad-breaking expeditions from the beginning. They received word from Grant that they were to lead the raid on the Richmond & Danville Railroad.
On June 22, 1864, Generals Wilson and Krutz, commanding more than 5,000 troops, left Petersburg to destroy track on the Richmond & Danville Railroad and the Southside Railroad.
Gens. Wilson and Kratz first raided the Southside railroad, then they attacked the Richmond & Danville Railroad. They marched steadily toward the Stanton River Bridge. By early morning of June 25, 1864, the Union cavalry had reached Keysville, seventeen miles northeast of the bridge. On the oppressively hot afternoon of June 25 they arrived at Roanoke Station on the north side of the bridge.
Each day had grown worse for the Union troops; the roads were dusty and the sun beat down on them with blistering intensity. Burning the rails in the hot sun and then marching through fire and smoke to get the next section drained the men physically. Although the heat and drought helped the raids by making them easier to light the fires, it was terrible for the men and beasts. Before long, they ran out of water, then the men and horses started giving out.
“The work of these last two days, performed under a burning sun and over hot fires, was extremely exhausting, and many of the men have not and never will recover from its effects.” - Lt. Col. George A. Permington, 2nd Ohio Cavalry
The Union soldiers were physically and mentally worn out as they came to gaze upon the wheat fields before them at Stanton River Bridge. The thought of fighting to burn a well-defended bridge was almost more than they could bear. Gen. Wilson quickly assessed the situation. The railbed was steeply elevated and fields were on each side of the railbed. He set up his artillery on the hillside to the right in the location of Mulberry Hill Plantation.
Gen. Wilson determined that Gen. Kratz's divisions would be sent out in the fields to fight. Gen. Kratz sent Colonel Samuel P. Spear and his 2nd Brigade to the left of the railbed. Colonel Robert M. West and his 1st brigade were sent to the right of the railbed.
On the Confederate side Captain Benjamin L. Farinholt had been in charge of the Stanton River Bridge post for forty days prior to the battle preparing his defenses and drilling his forces. Captain E. N. Fitzhugh was assigned to build earthworks on the Halifax County side (south side) of the bridge. Colonel Stanhope Flournoy and his cavalry of 50 men were sent downriver to the nearest ford and Captain Paul Edmunds, with as many men, was sent to defend the first ford of the bridge to the north and guard against Union crossings. A battalion of 296 Confederate reserves was stationed at the bridge. Within days of his message that a large Union force was heading to burn the bridge, Col. Farinholt was bolstered by 642 reinforcements. Of these, 150 were Confederate regulars who were home on leave or in transit, Col. Coleman on wounded furlough, and local citizens comprised of young boys and old men, either too young or too old to serve in the military.
Colonel Henry Eaton Coleman was a Virginian, born in Halifax County in 1837, He studied civil engineering at the College of William and Mary and Virginia Military Institute. He joined the 12th North Carolina Infantry, a company his uncle formed shortly after the Civil War began and elevated to the rank of Captain.
Col. Coleman's gallantry in battle at Second Manassas, Gettysburg, Chancellorsville, and the Wilderness earned him a promotion from Caption to Lt. Colonel and eventually Colonel. He was wounded five times, two being severe. A minnie-ball tore off the top of his skull exposing a portion of Col. Coleman's brain during the Battle of Spotsylvania on May 12, 1864. Surprisingly enough, he survived and received permission to stay with his father-in-law at “Oakville” in Halifax County, where he could recover. On June 24, Col. Coleman without any concern for his own well-being, set off to help the troops at Stanton River Bridge, a distance of 25 miles. He traveled to this site in a carriage driven by his father-in-law lying on a makeshift bed. Pillows surrounding his head eased the pain from the constant jolting.
Upon his arrival at the the bridge, Coleman volunteered his services to Col. Farinholt. He surveyed the area and realized that in order to save the bridge from destruction by Union forces, the north side of the embankment needed to be strengthened. Farinholt agreed with Coleman's assessment and put him in charge of building extra entrenchments and earthworks, By mid-morning on the 25th, the day of the battle, a small well-built semi-circular earthworks was completed just to the north of the bridge's embankment.
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y168/cazmodel/Stanton%20River%20Bridge%202010/earthworks.jpg
Many Confederates also felt that Coleman's suggestion to build small breastworks on the north side of the river saved the bridge and won the battle for them. These breastworks were dug to a depth of four feet “with old canteens, a spade or two, sticks and whatever the men could lay their hands on.” The fresh earth was thrown down the river bank so as to be invisible to the enemy advancing on the bridge.
The defenders in the lower trenches across the river were under orders to remain hidden until the Union troops were well within firing range. The bravery of the old men (Gray Beards) and young boys along with the element of surprise were to a large degree responsible for the Confederate victory.
By mid-afternoon on June 25, all was ready and the men were in position for battle. The wait for Union soldiers to appear seemed to last forever and both experienced and inexperienced men alike grew nervous. Veterans entertained the boys with jokes and old war stories. Tradition holds that Mrs. William Clark, Patrick Henry's granddaughter, played a French harp to calm the fears of the men.
Gun crews occupied the two small earthworks and helped guard the bridge. The main artillery was located in the larger earthworks on the left named “Fort Hill”. The Confederates were in charge of a battery of six guns, one 3-in. rifled gun, two smooth bore 12-pounders, and three iron 6-pounders.
“The Rebels had one superior piece of cannon, which treated us to horrendous discharges of grapeshot, which seemed as though they would take the breath out of the body as they flew like a flight of noisy birds close over us.” - Rowland M. Hall, 3rd New York
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y168/cazmodel/Stanton%20River%20Bridge%202010/fort_hill_photo_6.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y168/cazmodel/Stanton%20River%20Bridge%202010/fort_hill_photo_2.jpg
Order of Battle:
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y168/cazmodel/Stanton%20River%20Bridge%202010/fort_hill_5.jpg
Google Earth Image with my legend:
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y168/cazmodel/Stanton%20River%20Bridge%202010/google_legend.jpg
On the right flank the Confederates were hidden from view behind the tall wheat in the field. They rose out of nowhere with a unified Rebel yell surprising the union troops and trapping them in the open. Col. Robert West tried to get his men to climb the embankment no fewer than four times in the hopes of burning the trestle. But the Confederates had the upper hand and swept the sides and embankments with terrible fire. Men fell right and left, some from bullets, others from sheer exhaustion.
On the left flank, Col. Samuel Spear dismounted his men and sent them as skirmishers to the left of the railbed. The entire way across the field to the ditch line they were under heavy fire from artillery in the large earthworks called Fort Hill and musketry from the bridge. He was forced to pull his men back because of the superior force of the enemy and their protection by earthworks, while his men were exposed to all their fire.
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y168/cazmodel/Stanton%20River%20Bridge%202010/stanton_river_bridge_1.jpg
While the infantry and dismounted cavalry outnumbered the Confederates over ten to one; those untrained little boys and old gray-headed farmers arose from their position of partial safety and protection and with a firm steady step marched into the jaws of death. The shells striking the tin roof of the bridge made a fearful noise, scaring some of the small boys into outbursts of weeping.
At one point the Union almost claimed the bridge, but as they were putting a torch to it, the Rebels forced them back by “murderous discharges” of artillery fire. Later that night, West received orders to pull his men back.
Few of the Union troops knew where their fellow soldiers ended up, because in the confusion during the raid, many were wounded and the dead were abandoned. The heat was so intense that hospital wagons could carry only a few men at a time for fear of suffocating the injured. For this reason, many of the wounded were left behind. Cpl. Nelson M. Ward, of the 11th Pennsylvania Cavalry received the Congressional Medal of Honor for not leaving the field until he had retrieved all of the personal effects of his dead Captain.
Wilson and Kratz had no idea how many Confederates were defending the bridge. They believed they were up against several thousand men at least. Mrs. McPhail, a local plantation owner who lived on Mulberry Hill, had convinced them that Confederate soldiers were being brought in by the thousands. Wilson had no doubt that what she said was true, they had seen several trains pull up to the bridge during the battle to let off a constant supply of troops. The Union generals had, in fact, been fooled.
In the course of the night Colonel Farinholt had a train of empty cars run back and forth on the railroad at different times. Farinholt also order a number of his men to move about on the cars when they arrived and create an impression that he was receiving reinforcements. The ruse had the desired effect, as Col. Wilson thought he was facing a large Confederate army at the bridge and that Col. Farinholt could withstand any attack made upon him.
Wilson later wrote of his decision to break off the engagement of Stanton River Bridge, “Finding the bridge could not be burned or captured without severe loss and the enemy again being upon our rear, the Stanton River too deep for fording and unprovided with bridges for steam ferries, I determined to push no further South, but to endeavor to reach the Army by returning to Petersburg.”
At daylight on on June 26, Col. Farinholt advanced a line of skirmishers half a mile and discovered that the enemy had left quite a number of their dead on the field. In this advance 8 prisoners were captured. Of the dead left on the field, the Confederates buried 42, among them several officers. The Confederate casualties were 10 killed and 24 wounded.
With Confederate reserves and volunteer forces totaling a mere 938, Captain Farinholt pulled off a surprising victory on that hot June afternoon. Gen, Kratz's fourth and final attack on the bridge had just been launched toward dusk when Confederate Col.Rodney Lee arrived to bear down on Union Cap. Chapman, who was guarding the Union rear. Wilson was hemmed in and could not push forward any longer. As they were no further ahead than before the assault began, there was nothing left but retreat. On that oppressively hot afternoon of June 25, 1864, the Union cavalry arrived at Roanoke station. Though badly outnumbered and outgunned, Col. Farinholt's determined forces, following Col. Coleman's defense strategy, successfully repulsed four separate Union assaults and saved the bridge. It was the one of the last true Confederate victories of the war, the other two being the similar Battle of Natural Bridge in Florida, where a band of young men from Florida Military Institute and old men in a Confederate militia held off Union troops from capturing a bridge and the final battle of the American Civil War, the Battle of Palmito Hill (also known as Battle of Palmito Ranch), which occurred after the official surrender of the Confederacy in Texas near Brownsville in mid May 1865. But among my people, the “Battle of Stanton River Bridge” has been retold countless times and has become an important part of the history and heritage of Southside Virginia.
Footnote:
My maternal great-great Grandfather, Dodson Henry Conner, was a lad of 15 at the time and was one of the young volunteers. The Conner family had immigrated from Ireland in the late 1840s, but it is documented in the Conner family bible that Dodson Henry Conner was born in Nathalie, Virginia on March 15, 1849. Dotson Henry Conner's second son was Addison Caviness Conner, my great Grandfather, who beget Roy Hazelwood Conner, the father of my mother, Andean Leonora Conner. For the record, my middle name is Addison and my oldest son's first surname is Addison. In the south, a name is considered an honored tradition.
There is a strange feeling when one walks the footsteps of one's ancestor at a combat battlefield site, whether Normandy, the Somme, or Gilford Courthouse. This day was perfect; warm, still, birds singing, yet there was an ethereal calm. Oddly, I was alone, there was not one other sole the entire three hours I was there. I took it all in, studying the maps and making notes of various plaques and the positions of the troops and fortifications. Somehow, God meant for me to do this on this day I am sure. Maybe most of you are not into the supernatural all that much, I am not myself. I know much of the hype shown on it on TV is “fo sho” hokum, but I swear when I entered the smaller earthworks built by Col. Coleman, a cold chill went all over my body. I cannot explain it. I sit down and started taking photos, but I stayed cold the whole time I was in that fortification. Did my great-great Grandfather occupy this sacred piece of ground? At no other place along my near four mile walk of the battlefield did I incur such a feeling.
Also to be mentioned, Fort Hill, the larger fortification seen in the photographs, was reworked after the raid and more gun placements were worked in, as Farinholt expected another raid. The old covered wooden trestle bridge was razed in 1902 and a new steel-span bridge was built. The narrow-gauge Richmond & Danville Railroad eventually became part of Southern Railroad and ran until 1976. The line was abandoned in that year and parts of it are steadily being made into rails-to-trails programs. Five and a half miles of the old railbed near my home from Ringgold to Sutherlin have been made into a walking and biking trail.
Caz Dalton, April 2010