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A Day at Holly Springs Forgotten Triumph in a Tragic War Garvin Tate
Abstract The citizens of Holly Springs recall a day of fiery destruction and unmatched devastation as the grandest and most celebrated day in the long history of their town. The unexpected cavalry raid on the Union Arsenal at Holly Springs, Mississippi on December 20, 1862 caused General Grant to withdraw his entire army of 75,000 from Mississippi. At Holly Springs a makeshift band of 3,800 Southern cavalry troops irrevocably changed the course of the Civil War. Even so, this unique event is largely ignored in most accounts of those tragic times. Likewise, the role of General John Summerfield Griffith, then a young Lieutenant Colonel commanding the Texas Brigade, is almost completely forgotten. Although Griffith conceived, planned and proposed the Raid, his contribution is little known and rarely noted. Even in his home town of Rockwall, Texas where Griffith organized the Rockwall Cavalry in 1861; Griffith, the Texas Brigade and the Raid on Holly Springs have, actually been completely forgotten. Today the incredible story of Holly Springs is being retold and kept alive by a few amateur historians working with local history societies in both Mississippi and Texas. This is not enough. Our task is to tell their forgotten story. The purpose of this project is to bring the sophisticated communication tools of our present day to bear on this important, but forgotten, day of our past. The story of the people and events of Holly Springs needs to be told again; this time employing our best tools for research, documentation and public presentation. Now, in an electronic age they could not imagine, we can finally tell their story with the accuracy, thoroughness and widespread distribution it deserves. With the technologies of our time, we can penetrate the silence of the one and one third centuries that have passed since this story was first told. No one in Holly Springs on Dec. 20, 1862 would ever forget the unexpected and unparalleled events of that day. In Mississippi, in Texas and across the country, the story would be told again and again. Now it is our turn; it is up to us to retell their tale, and we are obliged to do our part well. There is, without doubt, much for us to learn about them; and we may also be surprised to find we have much to learn from them. But, we must listen very carefully.
A Day AT Holly Springs
Context The Towns The small towns of Holly Springs, Mississippi and Rockwall, Texas are linked together by 500 miles of modern divided highway. Today, these two towns have little else to connect them; but the web of fate brought them together for a single day, 133 years ago. The young Texans who visited Holly Springs on that decisive day were soon forgotten, but the consequences of their day at Holly Springs would last forever. At that time, in 1862, Holly Springs was one of the largest cities in Mississippi, a beautiful and prosperous center of commerce and trade. In large part Holly Springs was settled by Virginians who brought to the town a distinctive style of elegant architecture that even today expresses their world of civility and grace. At the outbreak of the Civil War the citizens of Holly Springs had no way of knowing that their charming world rested on an unstable foundation of social and economic institutions that were already obsolete and which would soon come to an abrupt end. The economic and institutional collapse that accompanied the Civil War and the Reconstruction period would place a powerful hold on Holly Springs. The citizens of this beautiful and already historic community could not know that, in an extraordinary way, their treasured home town would become caught in time. Through an improbable chain of events, many of the fine homes in Holly Springs were spared from massive destruction that was typical to the Civil War in Mississippi. Today, timeless homes of classic proportion greet the awed visitors to this unique town. The courthouse, the town square, the old train station present an elegant symmetry that is absent from the architecture of later years. Since the Civil War, due to the economic constraints of the ensuing years, few changes occurred in Holly Springs. Through the decades, and even to the present time, little new development has taken place. In size and appearance the town has changed remarkably little since the day so long ago that the Texas Brigade visited Holly Springs.
Immediately at the close of the War, in 1866, Rust College was created in Holly Springs for the education of the children of the blacks whose labor built the town. Rust College was the first of many new centers of learning that were to be built across the country, and it operates today on its historic campus on the north side of town. One and one third centuries later it still continues its mission of liberation. It seems fitting that even after all these years, Rust College constitutes the largest and most important enterprise in Holly Springs. Its presence provides a timeless lesson for every generation. As the first center of learning to arise from bondage, Rust College makes us all more conscious of the bondage of ignorance each one of us must escape. Today, a collective consciousness of the past pervades Holly Springs. The citizens of the area operate an interesting museum in one of the town’s largest buildings. Pageants, pilgrimages and tours of historical homes are an accepted part of everyday life in Holly Springs. Stories of the past have been continually passed down through succeeding generations and many remember the crucial December day of 1862 as though it were a vivid personal recollection. Rockwall, Texas has a much different story to tell. At the beginning of the Civil War Rockwall was a frontier boom town, then only five years old. It was named for a local subterranean geological formation that gives the appearance of having been built by a long forgotten civilization. Located in the rich belt of blackland prairie that separates the forests of East Texas from the dry grasslands of West Texas; the town of Rockwall was growing rapidly due to its agricultural potential. Of all the town’s new enterprises the saloons seemed to be the most prosperous, and a few years later, following an incident at one of these saloons, A. W. Stark the community’s first sheriff would be gunned down in the performance of his duties. Like Holly Springs before it, Rockwall would later become the county seat of a new county with the commercial district centered on the Courthouse Square. At the time of the Civil War, Rockwall and Kaufman were the two leading towns in Kaufman County, Texas. The County of Rockwall would not be established until eleven years later when John Summerfield Griffith, along with C. L Jones, another early settler, would make the long journey on horseback to Austin to petition for the founding of a separate county. It was formed from the extreme northern part of Kaufman County. This remnant of Kaufman County continues today as the smallest county in Texas-- Rockwall County.
The Holly Springs Expedition Through surprising coincidence, the first, non-Indian inhabitants of this area of Texas were refugees from Holly Springs. In the late 1830’s Holly Springs experienced its first cycle of boom and bust; and Marshall County was organized in 1836. A valuable history of Holly Springs was written by William Baskerville Hamilton in 1931, but not published until 1984 by the Marshall County Historical Society. Hamilton begins his account with a description of those early days.
In this mania of speculation, several banks sprang up which were backed by inflated real estate. When the speculative bubble burst, not only did the land lose a great part of its value, but the banks collapsed and the Holly Springs money they had been printing became worthless. Among the banks founded in this frenzy of greed and speculation in Holly Springs in 1873 was the Bank of McEwen, King, and Co., the first bank of Northern Mississippi. Its principal stockholders were A. C. McEwen and William P. King. Another was the McCorkle Bank, which also failed as a result of artificially overvalued land. "Both McEwen and McCorkle gave up their estates and retained their honor;" According to Hamilton. The mysterious King chose a different road; he went to Texas. He began organizing an expedition to the Texas frontier. King made his temporary headquarters in San Augustine, Texas in 1840 and was responsible for bringing a company of about forty settlers from Holly Springs to a site on the Texas prairie that would later be designated as Kaufman County. A 20-year-old surveyor named Robert A. Terrell joined King’s expedition from Holly Springs in San Augustine. He would go on to found the town of Terrell which in the last quarter of the nineteenth century would become the largest town in Kaufman County and the hometown of the entire Griffith family. This included General Griffith’s cousin, Dr. Lycergus. C. Griffith, who is well remembered for the medical care he provided to Sam Houston after he was wounded at the battle of San Jacinto in 1836. After arriving in Texas, William P. King went by the title ‘Dr.’ He was apparently the first to earn an advanced degree in transit. The documents that granted him a gigantic claim of land on the Texas frontier turned out to be bogus. He called his new settlement ‘King’s Fort’. It was later called ‘Kingsborough’, and shortly after his death the little community was re-named ‘Kaufman’. William P. King was largely forgotten, but the small settlement lived on. King had brought with him his new bride whom he had met in Holly Springs while she was visiting relatives who lived there. Her name was Francis A. Moore (Clark) King.. Today there is a marker on the Courthouse Square honoring Mrs. King; it commemorates her donation of the land for the county seat and her contribution as one of the first pioneers of the area. When Kings’ expedition was being organized in San Augustine, in 1839, among the new residents of the town were Michael and Lydia Griffith who had arrived in San Augustine on April 15, 1839. They were originally from Montgomery County, Maryland, and for the last four years had been living in Missouri. With them in their new home were their ten-year-old son John Summerfield Griffith, their second son and one of six children. The young boy may have looked on in wonder at the passing wagon trains of settlers heading for the frontier, setting out to make a new life on the empty prairie to the west. As the caravan of settlers from Holly Springs, Mississippi passed through town, the young John Summerfield Griffith had no way of knowing that years later he would conceive of a plan that would destroy most all of the important buildings in their former home in a single day. Griffith’s plan for Holly Springs would change the course of our most tragic war. Twenty years later Griffith followed the path of King and the refugees from Holly Springs. He moved to Kaufman County in 1859, taking a large herd of horses with him, eventually settling in the new boomtown of Rockwall. Making the move with him was his wife Sara Emily Simpson Griffith who was the daughter of John Gordan Simpson and Jane Mercer Brooks. She was born in Nacogdoches, Texas in 1832. They would have a total of ten children, three of whom would survive into adulthood and carry on the family heritage. They were William Crabb Griffith, Augustus Bascom Griffith and Emily Griffith Roberts.
The Rockwall Cavalry
In March of 1861, now that war was inevitable, Rockwall merchant and stockman, John Summerfield Griffith, began to organize a company of volunteers. From his headquarters on the southeast corner of the Town Square, Griffith began the task of organizing the Rockwall Cavalry. Even though it consisted of virtually every able- bodied man in the area, the Rockwall Company was undersized and it consisted entirely of amateur soldiers. These citizen volunteers, with no military background, carrying a random variety of weapons, must have presented an unimpressive appearance. But appearances can be deceiving. The Rockwall Cavalry was first organized as a company of the Texas Militia; and when Griffith and his men arrived at Camp Bartow, seven miles south of Dallas, they were disappointed to find, that for reasons of bureaucratic inefficiency, they could not be mustered into the Confederate army. Not one to tolerate a senseless delay, Griffith offered to pay the way of his company for three months out of his own purse. Even this proved ineffective and it was many weeks later when a new Regiment was organized under Colonel Warren B. Stone that their ambition was realized. The Rockwall Cavalry was one of ten local Texas companies joined together to comprise the new Sixth Texas Cavalry which totaled about 1000 men. Griffith was elected Lieutenant Colonel of the new regiment. Since they lived in an area with little commercial trade, the men of Griffith’s company had always relied heavily on their familiar weapons to provide food for their families. Also, like many other sons of the South they spent their lives raising and riding the finest horses. In spite of their unprofessional appearance these amateurs made up part of what would soon become regarded as the finest cavalry in the world. In fact, the move to cavalry service came so naturally to Texans that more cavalry regiments were organized in Texas than infantry units. Selected as Major of the Sixth Cavalry regiment was L. S. (Sul) Ross. He was already famous as the Texas Ranger who had just a year earlier re-captured Cynthia Ann Parker after she spent 20 years with the Comanches. The Indian wars in Texas proved to be an excellent training ground for the Texas Cavalry Brigade, superior to the training available in, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio or even West Point, New York. Later in the war Ross would succeed Griffith as the commander of the Texas Brigade, and, in fact, it later would often be remembered as "Ross’ Brigade". After Griffith returned to Texas, in 1863, due to poor health. He continued to serve his state during the war as State Representative and head of the Military Affairs Committee of the Texas House and as Adjutant General of the Texas Militia. His eventual successor was the young Sul Ross who quickly rose to rank of General. He assumed the unpleasant task of dealing with the political and military bureaucracy. When the Secretary of War from Richmond complained about the lack of conventional military discipline and shortage of unthinking obedience in the Texas Cavalry Brigade, Ross’ reply remains unsurpassed for candor in an official military dispatch. "My men only follow me because of their love for me. Whose fault is that?" Years later Lawrence Sulivan Ross would serve Texas as one of its most popular governors, serving two terms between 1886 and 1890. Another well-known Texan served the Sixth Cavalry as the first captain of company K from Collin County. Respected legislator J. W. Throckmorton had been one of the state’s leading opponents of succession. Throckmorton had the foresight to predict with uncanny accuracy the suffering that would ensue as a result of the war. Now that war had come, Throckmorton turned his full efforts to the defense of his homeland. Immediately after the war in 1866, Throckmorton was elected Governor of Texas and served until the Radical Republicans illegally removed him from office. Throckmorton was without doubt the most popular and highly regarded political figure of his state. During the Reconstruction years, when the South desperately needed honorable, moderate and intelligent leaders like Throckmorton, a cadre of corrupt and self-serving political enemies would repeatedly hamper his service to Texas.
This was the opinion of none other than General William T. Sherman who, early in the war, during the Mississippi campaign, recognized the merits of his mounted opponents. In his Memoirs Sherman expressed contempt for all other social classes in the South. In a confidential letter he expressed his view that people of Mississippi would never again deserve civil government. But regarding the cavalry, he said that if they were not all killed during the war; then after the war, they should be hired. Sherman had no doubt that in Tennessee and Mississippi he faced the best cavalry in the world. The life of a officer on Texas frontier and the Indian Wars proved to be excellent training ground for cavalry officers in the years before the war. The flamboyant Earl Van Dorn served in Texas before the war. Another cavalry commander had been serving in a remote West Texas outpost, since 1855, and unlike Van Dorn, the conscientious commanding officer at Camp Cooper on the Comanche Reserve was attracting little attention to himself; his name was Colonel Robert E. Lee. During the war, as a matter of necessity, and during Reconstruction, as a matter of policy, these frontier defenses were abandoned. For over a decade the problem of marauding Indians remained unchecked, and the hard-won Texas frontier continuously receded eastward; but this would soon change. At the height of Reconstruction, in 1871, William T. Sherman, by then commanding General of the U.S. Army, personally inspected the Texas frontier forces under his command. Sherman and General Philip Sheridan shared a common vision of providing a final solution to problem of the Southern Plains Indians in Texas. As a result of their efforts, by the end of Reconstruction in 1875, no free Indian inhabited the Texas frontier.
Griffith and the other 15 officers of the Sixth Texas Cavalry Regiment averaged 33 years of age with an average wealth of $16,538. Unlike the enlisted men who served with them, most of them owned a few slaves; Griffith owned four; a few less than the average officer. Not one of them had been born in Texas, the state they had resolved to defend. The Texas Brigade The Sixth Texas Cavalry Regiment joined with the Third, the Ninth and the First Texas Legion to constitute the First Texas Cavalry Brigade. The Texas Brigade, like most Confederate brigades, was comprised entirely of amateur soldiers who, unlike Union cavalry, provided their own horses. Selecting their most favorite and well proven mount gave them a decided advantage; but there was an even more important choice made by these troopers that was not available to their Union counterparts.
Breaking with conventional military structure, the Southerners elected the officers under which they directly served. The Union had a pre-existing army and was saddled with an elaborate and entrenched military hierarchy; and there was therefore, much less opportunity for democratic expression in the Union ranks. Some risk is inevitably intrinsic to the democratic process; but this unconventional approach to military command proved its effectiveness time and again. This was a large part of the reason that the undisciplined and assertive amateur soldiers of the south would follow there leaders anywhere. At the outset of war Grant could see that the Union army was bureaucratically moribund and once went as far as proposing that every Federal officer resign and volunteer anew for service during the war. (Memoirs) Griffith and his men reached Mississippi in the spring of 1862 after a successful campaign in Arkansas against hostile Indians. Due to a lack of forage, when they crossed the Mississippi River, their horses were left behind and taken back to Texas. During the bleak and cheerless summer of 1862 they served as ‘dismounted cavalry’. As their demoralized army fled south following Van Dorn’s loss at the Battle of Corinth, the Texas Brigade was camped seven miles south of Holly Springs at Lumpkin’s Mill. It was here they received the long awaited news; their returned horses were nearby. When it became time for the Texans to move out with the infantry, the men refused, shouting ‘Horses!’, ‘Horses!’ Several officers gave the order to fall in, but the humiliated and weary men stubbornly refused to move out. Colonel Griffith then made eloquent appeal to the Texans’ sense of duty and honor. The men fell into the line of march. Only one obstinate trooper was unmoved by Griffith’s appeal; and he quickly joined the march when Griffith made it clear that he intended to continue the dialogue with the point of his saber. After remounting, the combined Texas cavalry regiments, known as the Texas Brigade, totaled about 1800 men. This substantial force was placed under Griffith’s command. Their duties would take them throughout the state of Mississippi and far into Tennessee; but the Texas Brigade would spend their most momentous day of the War at Holly Springs, December 20, 1862. The fame of the Texas Brigade would be overshadowed other celebrated cavalry brigades of the Confederacy. In the Eastern Theater Hoods’ Texas Brigade fought and died with incomparable valor. In the West all other cavalry commands were measured against the unequaled resourcefulness and boldness of Nathan Bedford Forest. Later in the war the Texas Brigade was generally identified as "Ross’ Texas Brigade", to distinguish it from other Texas cavalry brigades. Today, Rockwall, Texas has little in common with Holly Springs. While they are both still small towns, Rockwall is one of the most prosperous and fastest growing communities in the state. In Rockwall, few historic buildings remain; and, as in much of Texas, there is little appreciation of the past. Presently, the fifty-five year old courthouse is being closed and replaced by a modern office building at a nearby shopping center. The historic courthouse and the Town Square that surrounds it face an uncertain future. Incredibly, the future-directed citizens of Rockwall remember absolutely nothing of the Rockwall Cavalry, the Texas Brigade, Holly Springs, or John Summerfield Griffith. Today, Holly Springs gives the appearance of a town caught in times past. Rockwall, on the other hand, is a town with a past largely forgotten. One town is fully submerged in the past, and the other town sees only the future, but ironically, this provides a great strength to both communities. The residents of both towns would chose no other place in the world in which to make their homes. In spite of these many differences, there is an invisible thread that ties these two small towns together. This thread stretches into the past to that single December day in 1862. The citizens of present day Rockwall, Texas have forgotten about the day at Holly Springs that changed the course of the Civil War. Likewise, the citizens of Holly Springs, Mississippi know nothing of the young cavalry officer from Rockwall who conceived, proposed and planned the events that constituted the most important day in the long history of their extraordinary town. The purpose of our joint project is, at last, to tell both parts of the story.
A Day AT Holly Springs
Historical Background
The Engagement at Oakland In early December 1862, the month of the Raid on Holly Springs, the Confederate Army, under the new command of General Pemberton, was in full retreat southward. Out of touch with his commanders, Lt. Colonel John Summerfield Griffith, on his own initiative, determined that his Texas Brigade could best serve their cause by carrying out a direct attack against the superior cavalry forces of General Caldwaller C. Washburn. The substantial infantry forces of Brigadier General Alvin P. Hovey supported Washburn’s cavalry. These fresh Union troops, totaling 7000, had been called in from Arkansas. While Grant’s main army pressed unremittingly toward the south, Washburn and Hovey’s mission was to cut off the withdrawal of the beleaguered Confederate army heading toward Grenada. Their mission constituted the most southern overland advance of Union troops in Mississippi for the entire year. Griffith and his men engaged the mounted troops of Washburn at the small town of Oakland on the third day of December and soon captured Washburn’s artillery. Learning that they were being flanked by Washburn’s superior forces the Texan called for his men to withdraw and make camp a few miles west of town. That night as Washburn pondered who these determined and unexpected defenders were; he decided that his position, far into hostile territory, was too tenuous to tolerate. He decided to withdraw. His mission to destroy the train lines and block the retreat of Pemberton’s army was left uncompleted. The Confederate Army was able to reestablish a defensive line along the Yalobusha River at Grenada and to provide needed reinforcements for Vicksburg. This little-known incident was an important accomplishment for Griffith and his hard riding men from Texas; but it was at this time that Griffith would conceive of another military venture that is, likewise, often left out of the history books. Only, this time the engagement he imagined would actually determine the course of the Civil War.
The Plan In early December 1862 while in their new base camp at Grenada, John Summerfield Griffith, in consultation with his fellow officers, conceived of a radically new use of cavalry. Rather than serving merely as support for the much larger infantry, the cavalry could be used as an independent striking force, hitting targets of great strategic value, far behind enemy lines. Generally the functions of the cavalry have been viewed as rather limited. They have been summed up as: "to serve as a reconnaissance force, the eyes of the army; to ride on the flanks of the army, in order to protect it from surprise; to destroy the communications of the enemy, particularly railroads and bridges, and to pursue the retreating enemy." (Eaton 197) There would be countless cavalry raids during the Civil War; but the Raid on Holly Springs differed from all others in three important ways: the magnitude of its objective, the degree of its success, and the significance of its consequences. In a letter, dated December 5, to General Pemberton, his new commanding officer, Griffith suggested that General Earl Van Dorn, be placed in charge of a combined cavalry force for this new type of mission. Van Dorn had just been removed from command of the Southern armies in the West following his unsuccessful attempt to recapture Corinth, Mississippi; and he was now without significant command. Griffith’s proposal called for three cavalry brigades to be combined under Van Dorn’s command. General Earl Van Dorn would himself ride with Griffith’s Sixth Cavalry regiment that consisted of several companies of volunteers from the towns around Dallas, Texas. They would soon be joined by Colonel William H. Jackson’s brigade, consisting of troops from Mississippi and Tennessee; and Colonel Robert McCulloch’s brigade, composed of the 1st Mississippi Cavalry and the 2ed Missouri Cavalry. Even though John Summerfield Griffith proposed, planned and helped manage the raid on the Union Arsenal at Holly Springs, this crucial turning point in the Civil War will, naturally, always be know as "Van Dorn’s Raid". The other field officers of the Texas Brigade, also signed Griffith’s proposal. It read in part:
The next day, Pemberton asked to meet with Griffith to discuss his proposal and was quickly convinced of its merits. After the mission was officially approved the officers kept the objective of the mission strictly secret, but the men observed clues that indicated the nature of their mission. First, all of the turpentine that could be found was distributed with each man carrying his own container of the combustible liquid. Each trooper was issued three day’s rations, but tellingly, fifteen day’s rations of salt. Every company was issued axes to aid in the destruction that lay ahead. As the unprecedented cavalry force assembled on the North shore of the Yalabusha River, between the two great armies, the men could sense that they were participating in an singular endeavor of uncommon importance.
The Raid It would take four days of hard riding and short rations in chill December weather for the 3800 troopers to reach Holly Springs. Circling far to the east of Grant’s huge forces at Coffeville and Oxford their journey totaled about 150 miles. Van Dorn’s Union counterparts were soon aware of the unexpected and unexplained troop movements; and the Union cavalry was in constant, though ineffective, pursuit. The Federals were so certain of the security of Holly Springs that in addition to their enormous arsenal they had also based their Paymaster and Quartermaster in town. Furthermore, they were using the idealic town as a convenient and comfortable temporary home for Union officers and their wives. Among these residents was the premier guest of the community, Mrs. U. S. Grant. Her youngest son Jesse and her slave maid Julia accompanied her. Virtually all of the men of Holly Springs were off fighting elsewhere and an amicable relationship existed between the ladies of Holly Spring and their mandatory guests. In 1924 Jesse Grant published his recollection of these events. He said that his earliest memory of the war "is the escape of mother and myself from Holly Springs, Mississippi...I remember now, as though it were yesterday, the young officer coming to tell us that the enemy was close upon the town, and the confusion of our hurried departure, at night, in a box car, I can see the dim, shadowy interior of the empty box car, with mother sitting quietly upon a chair, while I huddled fearfully upon a hastily improvised bed upon the floor...." In the Days of My Father General Grant, New York Times June 9,1934 and July 2 1924 The raid on the Union arsenal at Holly Springs was a complete military success and it resulted in the destruction of over two million dollars worth of Federal military supplies. Encountering little resistance from the unsuspecting and bewildered Union occupation forces, the Confederates captured 1500 Union troops with few shots fired and fewer casualties. The Confederates, half of whom were Texans from the relatively modest, small and young communities of the Lone Star State could not believe their eyes. They arrived at a beautiful and prosperous town full of stately homes that had been spared destruction. The poorly supplied and ravenous Southerners were amazed to find that all of the major buildings in town were filled with quantities of clothing, munitions, medical supplies, military rations and explosives. The streets were filled with barrels of flour and bales of cotton awaiting shipment north. In addition, Grant’s arsenal contained unimaginable quantities of whiskey and cigars that were quickly commandeered by the amazed victors. Whiskey literally flowed in the streets and one eyewitness estimated that three thousand cigars were being smoked at one time. Acting quickly, the Rebels immediately paroled their captives and begin the destruction of twenty to thirty large buildings full of union supplies. They also destroyed the trains that were already packed with supplies and pointed south to serve Grant’s army. One trooper recalled that "cars after cars of bacon were burned." We can only imagine the odor and sounds of the tons of burning bacon at the train yard, finally rendering what must have been the 19th century equivalent of the Exxon Valdeze. Hundreds of bales of cotton lined the streets waiting shipment to northern mills; these were burned along with thousands of barrels of flour. The fires filled the sky with smoke, and throughout the day and into the night the air was filled with the sound of the exploding munitions that had been intended for supplying the world’s largest and most modern army. Their stealth was perfect, their success was total, their losses light. The amount of Federal supplies destroyed was almost unimaginable, the strategic significance for the ensuing war, incalculable. In the light of unfolding military history, the total success of the surprise attack on Holly Springs, its unalloyed success, its dollar value, and its strategic consequences would not be surpassed for many years to come; possibly not until the most infamous December surprise attack, almost eight decades later.
The Retelling As amazing as these sights were for the Texans, who for years to come, told and retold the story of their day in Holly Springs; these visions of holocaust were not the first to come to mind. Foremost in their minds of the veterans were powerful memories of images even more deeply felt. It was not the massive destruction of the arsenal that they would recall; it was their first moments in Holly Springs, just after they took control of the town. As the Cavalry raced into the center of Holly Springs, to an unknown fate, they were amazed to be greeted on the square by an entire town of women. Running into the streets in their night robes and dressing gowns with their hair flowing behind, greeting and encouraging their liberators with enthusiastic cheers; the ladies and maidens of Holly Springs presented a vision of uniqueness and beauty that would stay with them forever. Years later John Summerfield Griffith was asked about this extraordinary greeting, ‘General, how did that make you feel?’ Thinking of the cheering figures in the morning light, he quickly exclaimed, "‘Feel!’ I felt as though I could have stormed the gates of Hell and captured the Devil himself!" The women, children and elderly men of Holly Springs did not know that their liberation was only for a single day. There their celebration was soon tempered with dismay when they realized that the chief mission of their liberators required the destruction of virtually every important building in their beautiful town. Laboring throughout the day, the raiders made sure that every component of Grant’s huge arsenal was incinerated or detonated. They made sure that every resource that could aid the Union army in their crucial Mississippi campaign was destroyed. That same evening, the raiders left Holly Springs, heading still northward deeper into occupied territory. Many of them, like one soldier who recalled having to wear six shirts to keep warm, replaced their worn and inadequate garments with blue greatcoats; others now sported the fine boots and large hats of Union officers. Every man acquired a variety of fine weapons, with one trooper finding a way to carry six pistols. Each man carried as many provisions as he could, each according to his particular taste. By all accounts they now constituted the best-equipped cavalry in the world. As evening approached and they were leaving town, the sky continued to glow and the residual explosions could still be heard.
The Devastation One of the best inventories of the incredible losses of Union supplies was offered by the Richmond Dispatch of January 15 which contained the following estimate of the victory gained at Holly Springs:
We can expect that the numbers available to this reporter were not completely accurate, but all of the first-hand accounts of that day in Holly Springs confirm and verify this one overriding point-- "Surely such a scene of devastation was never before presented to the eye of man." The Aftermath The success of this unexpected raid forced Grant to immediately cancel his march toward Vicksburg. In his Memoirs Grant relates that he did not yet know a huge modern army could live off the land by confiscating the stores of civilians. Now with his enormous cache of supplies destroyed, Grant in desperation, gave the order for the pillaging to begin. He ordered that most of the food be commandeered for 15 miles in both directions; and he was amazed at the ease with which he supplied the needs of his great army. Grant embraced this new style of warfare and regarded this as one of the major lessons he learned during the Civil War. Later in the war it became clear that this lesson was also well learned by Grant’s most trusted and loyal subordinate, Sherman. Grant proceeded immediately to Holly Springs and gave orders for his forces to withdraw from Coffeeville and Oxford, eventually withdrawing to Memphis. Since the telegraph had been cut, Grant’s sudden withdrawal from Northern Mississippi was unknown to General Sherman who expected Grant to carry out his part of a cooperative assault on Vicksburg. Sherman’s command numbered 32,000; those remaining under Grant’s direct command numbered 40,000. For Grant and Sherman, Vicksburg constituted the most important strategic prize of the War, even more important than either Atlanta or Richmond. Whoever controlled Vicksburg controlled the Mississippi River and in this way the entire center of the continent. Sherman’s five attempts to take Vicksburg, during the last week of December, without the expected cooperation from Grant’s forces, resulted in heavy Union losses. Sherman, like Grant, eventually withdrew to Memphis. The next spring, on April 8, Sherman advised Grant to take the army back to Memphis and again approach Vicksburg overland, through Holly Springs, along the line of the Mississippi Central Railroad. Grant would have nothing of it; and he proceeded with his elaborate efforts to encircle Vicksburg: from east, to south and back up to the west. Grant had no desire to go back to Holly Springs, the site of his previous humiliation. Although Vicksburg finally fell, the great Union victory was a belated one. After a series of incredible engineering projects involving a variety of canals and river diversions, Grant’s army finally fought its way down the Mississippi River and past the Vicksburg blockade. They then circled around Vicksburg back up to the more vulnerable eastern side of the well-defended city. After a long siege that resulted in many civilian as well as military casualties, the city finally fell on July 4, 1863. In his Memoirs, while summing up a peculiar trait of his personality that became apparent at an early age, Grant, unintentionally described the course of the entire Vicksburg Campaign:
It would not be until the summer of the next year, July 4 of 1863, that Vicksburg finally fell. The fortified city fell after a prolonged siege and the repeated bombardment of the military and civilian population of the town. After the surrender of Vicksburg, Grant’s unrelenting army finally gained access to the well-defended city and total control of the Mississippi River. No person can be adequately measured by a single phrase, but all of Grant’s biographers emphasize a single defining characteristic---resolute determination, regardless of the cost. Neither in his private life nor in the grim arts of his profession that he mastered so well, would Grant ever turn back. This is, no doubt, a principal reason for his high degree of success on the battlefield. This personal trait of Grant’s was so extreme that it is sometimes described in psychological terms as bordering on obsession. No two men could be more unlike each other than General U. S. Grant and General Earl Van Dorn. Unlike Grant, Van Dorn dwelled on appearances and was preoccupied with a search for glory; Grant focused only on the military objective at hand. Van Dorn was an unfaithful and neglectful husband; Grant was forever devoted to his one lifelong love, Julia Dent Grant. Lincoln recognized that in Grant he finally had a general who would decisively pursue the tragic and inevitable course of the war, regardless of all other considerations. Lincoln experienced repeated frustration with Grant’s predecessors in the Eastern Campaign. The President found that any of his generals who added any personal, political or humanitarian factors to the equation of the War would inevitably hesitate and ultimately fail. For Grant, who once had ambitions of being a mathematics professor, victory was inevitable; "It was a mere question of arithmetic."(Memoirs P.688) With his analytical and dispassionate mind Grant was the man who could bring to reality the harsh vision of total victory that he and Lincoln shared. No compromise, no second thoughts, no turning back. When Pemberton’s army was on the run and the fall of Vicksburg was in sight, the unexpected Raid on Holly Springs was the one thing that could force U. S. Grant to turn back. This event must have shaken him in a deeply personal way. His uncharacteristic wrath for the bungling defender of Holly Springs, Colonel Robert C. Murphy, indicates the depth of his distress. In an unprecedented departure from normal procedures, the hapless Murphy was removed from duty, without even a hearing. His one sentence dismissal, which came from Washington on January 10, was made retroactive, to take effect on December 20, the day of his disgrace; "his troops having been found in bed at the time of the attack." It went against every fiber of Grant’s character to withdraw; but, immediately after the capture of the arsenal at Holly Springs, he ordered the removal of his army entirely from the State of Mississippi. Undefeated but outsmarted, Grant’s magnificent army consisting of 40,000 well-nourished soldiers was placed on half rations during their humiliating withdrawal from Mississippi. This one brief but crucial event had changed the face of the war, just as John Summerfield Griffith had predicted in his original proposal to General Pemberton. In mid-December Grant and his Union colleagues expected that Vicksburg would be in their hands in a matter of days. Grant never would be successful in his intended overland assault on Vicksburg through central Mississippi. In an extraordinary violation of the core of his character, Grant had turned back. The fall of Vicksburg, a uniquely important Union military objective, was delayed for at least six months by the decisive and courageous efforts of Earl Van Dorn, John Summerfield Griffith, and the other brave men who responsible for success of the Holly Springs Raid. Through their cleverness and decisiveness this small band of cavalry was able to turn back Grant’s huge well equipped army. They would always remember their day at Holly Springs. As would Ulysses S. Grant.
A Day AT Holly Springs Cast of Characters
December 1862 in Holly Springs brought together an amazing cast of characters. This story can be seen through the eyes of the following four groups of people.
1. The residents of Holly Springs. Equally divided between white and black, the residents of Holly Springs were used to military raids and had learned to live with occupation; but on December 20 they witnessed an unparalleled day of mass destruction unlike anything seen before. Holly Springs was the site of about sixty separate military actions during the war, but the events of this one day surpass all the others in importance. The citizens of Holly Springs it were in the inconceivable position of supporting the troops whose mission was to destroy almost every important building in their beautiful town. One of the remarkable women of Holly Springs was Sherwood Bonner. Born in Holly Springs on February 26, 1849 she spent her adolescent years watching the tragic war that engulfed her hometown. Her first name was Katherine and to her friends was known as "Kate". She began publishing in national literary journals at the age of fifteen. William Baskerville Hamilton provided a brief summary of her life: She married in 1871, Edward McDowell, to whom she bore a daughter. Shortly thereafter, her husband having made unsuccessful business ventures in Texas, the courageous woman set off to Boston to make her fortune. She became there the secretary and friend of the poet, Longfellow. It was at his suggestion that she wrote the Southern Stories on which her claim to merit as a writer is founded. When the news of the terrible yellow fever epidemic of 1878 reached her she set off to be with her people in their affliction. She lost her father and her brother in the epidemic, but survived her work of nursing and the loss. It is said, however, that the strain under which she labored cost her life; she died February 14,1882. While most sensible people were fleeing from the epidemic, Sherwood Bonner eschewed the comforts of life in Boston and was among the heroic group who chose to directly engage the terror of the day and render aid to its helpless victims. Some of the most telling events of December 20, 1862 took place at the home of Colonel Harvey W. Walter who was away in the Confederate service and whose family had been sent south to safety. The wife and children of Eaton Pugh Govan were using his magnificent new home. Mrs. Govan’s husband, her son and her brother-in-law Brigadier General David Govan were also away in the service of their homeland. Incredibly, Mrs. U. S. Grant was also a guest in Colonel Walter’s splendid new home, sharing it with the Govan women and children. Colonel Walter must have realized that the presence of Mrs. Grant would provide the best insurance for protecting his home from indiscriminate destruction. In trying to reconstruct the perspective of the black residents of Holly Springs, four amazing characters stand out. First of all is Mrs. Grant’s slave maid Julia (Jule). Her perspective on the events of her times was, to say the least, unique. It challenges the imagination to try to understand her world as she must have viewed it. Only a few days after the Raid on Holly Springs, on January 1, 1863, Lincoln signed the final Emancipation Proclamation. Julia, unlike the slaves of Mississippi, would not be covered by the Emancipation Proclamation, since she was from Missouri. The Proclamation only applied to states that were in active rebellion against the Union. Julia’s fate is presently unknown and her life story presents one of the challenges of this project. Another slave who worked at the Walter house was Cato Govan who in 1874 reported his recollection of the events at Holly Springs for the Southern Claims Commission. He recalled Mrs. Pugh Govan’s determined defense of Mrs. Grant’s possessions as the Walter house was being searched in accord with the orders of Colonel Griffith. One of the slaves of Holly Springs, James Hill became Secretary of State of Mississippi from 1874-1878. He had served the family of James W. Hill, one of the towns leading citizens and after his emancipation continued to maintain a cordial relationship with the family of his former owner with whom he shared both first and last names. He was admired for his competence as a public official and for his generosity to his former masters during their times of need. It is remarkable that his public service extended beyond the time of domination by the Radical Republicans and he was reelected even after the franchise was returned to the entire voting population. During the Civil War he served as the personal servant to two of the Hill boys, John H. and W. B. Hill. The most accomplished black who was connected to Holly Springs was Hiram Rhodes Revels, the first black to hold the office of United States Senator in 1870-1871. He held the seat formerly held by Jefferson Davis. Even though he was a carpetbagger, he was admired for his opposition to the corruption that plagued the state government during this time. His eloquent letter to President Grant in 1874 on the subject of political corruption presents us with a rare window on the troubled times that followed the Civil War. He died in 1891 and was buried in Hillcrest Cemetery at Holly Springs. 2. The victorious cavalry under Van Dorn and Griffith. General Earl Van Dorn would be murdered just a few months later by Dr. Peters who was either a cuckold or a Union spy. Peters was later tried by a Confederate jury and acquitted. Van Dorn’s brief but intense life left little time for reminiscence, but a few of his important documents exist. Colonel John Summerfield Griffith, on the other hand, lived a long and productive life, surviving until the first year of the 20th century. Incredibly, this places Griffith only two generations away. This writer, who lives in what is now the only house on the Griffith League, knew a man who previously farmed on the Griffith League for 50 years; the old farmer, as a youngster, actually knew General Griffith and told stories of him that have never been recorded. One of Griffith’s amazing recollections that was published by eyewitnesses and also passed down orally by the Griffith family may be called the "crinoline encounter". After Holly Springs was secured and the Union arsenal was being put to flames, Griffith ordered that the houses be searched for Union officers in hiding. After some time had passed, Griffith received word that only at the Walter house could his orders not be carried out. True to his nature, Griffith went to solve the problem himself, and there he found three resolute women standing in the gate in front of Walter Place, with their full dresses completely blocking access to the property. The ladies were certain that no southern gentleman would take any direct action against them, and they were confident that they had won the day. The three determined women only relented after the resourceful Griffith initiated a flanking maneuver, ordering his men to remove sections of the fence on either side of the gate. From this crinoline encounter at Walter Place arose the often-published story of the capture of Mrs. Grant. Unfortunately, due to its complexity, the full telling of the Colonel Griffith’s most memorable encounter at Holly Springs must remain for the next stage of our project. The viewpoint of the towns’ liberators can be provided by several first hand accounts by troopers who published their recollections; the most valuable being those of Victor Rose, and S. B. Barron from Texas and J. G. Deupree from Mississippi.
3. The 1500 Union Soldiers. Most were captured, but a few who, like Major John J. Mudd, valiantly fought their way to freedom, eventually making their way to Memphis. His official report asserted that one of the principal reasons for the humiliating loss of Holly Springs was excessive drinking by Union officers. Mudd blamed the women of Holly Springs for promoting the excessive intoxication at the grand Christmas ball the night before the raid. He noted that they were "unusually agreeable and polite and lavish with their wines and brandies." The commanding office of the Union troops in Holly Springs, Colonel Robert C. Murphy of the Eighth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry deserves thorough inquiry, if only as case study of incompetence. By contrast, the most successful Union stand at Holly Springs was made by second in command, Lieutenant Colonel Quincy McNeil; who, quickly deployed his six companies of the Second Illinois Cavalry into a defensive square at the fairgrounds. There then ensued one of the only reported hand to hand sword fights in the entire war. For the Southerners, pistols were the preferred weapons for close quarter fighting and most cavalry officers carried swords largely for symbolic reasons. The primary exception to this was Nathan Bedford Forest who, exceeding regulations, was true to his character by sharpening his sword on both edges. After sustaining casualties of 8 killed and 39 wounded, McNeil and most of the regiment were taken prisoner by the First Mississippi Cavalry under Colonel Pinson. If found, their presently unavailable recollections of this event would make up an important part of the story of Holly Springs. 4. Mrs. Grant and her son Jesse. Mrs. Grant’s Memoirs were not published until 1975. It is clear from her Memoirs that for her, like for other visitors to Holly Springs, time was compressed and loaded with extraordinary meanings. For Mrs. Grant, her days in Holly Springs would be associated with intense emotions, powerful experiences and unforgettable relationships that stayed with her forever. Julia Dent Grant was now 35 years old. She stayed at the house of Colonel H. W. Walter that remains today almost exactly as she saw it; even many of the same furnishings enjoyed by Mrs. Grant are still in use today. She begins her description of her stay Walter Place in Holly Springs with a telling and poignant account:
Mrs. Grant was later responsible for the parole of Mrs. Govan’s son, Captain Jack Govan, who was near death. In her memoirs she recounts her highly emotional appeal to a determined and obstinate General Grant on his behalf. Mrs. Grant prevailed, and her warm feelings toward the Govan family, undoubtedly, saved the young man’s life. Mrs. Grant’s belatedly published stories of her brief stay in Holly Springs play a central role in the memoirs that cover her entire life. Like so many others who passed through this singular and enigmatic town, she would never forget her days at Holly Springs. Likewise, in Texas, a mythologized version of Colonel Griffith’s confrontation with Mrs. Grant at Walter Place, continues to be repeated through the generations. The complete Holly Springs story still remains to be told.
The Govan Family
Andrew R. Govan (Died-1841) and Mary P. Jones had eight children:
Eaton Pugh Govan died in 1880 -- Mrs. Pugh Govan was in charge of Walter Place while Colonel Walter’s family was away from the battle zone during the war. In her Memoirs Mrs. Grant indicates that Mrs. Govan’s husband, son and Brother- in-law were in the army and that the Govan’s had a little boy with whom her four year old son Jesse played. Mrs. Grant’s three older children were away in school. The Govan’s home had previously been burned, and Mrs. Pugh Govan resided at the Walter House with her two grown daughters and the young Govan children. Brigadier General Daniel Chevellette Govan --Born July 4, 1829- Died March 12,1911 Participated in 1849 California gold rush with kinsman Ben McCulloch. Moved to Arkansas in 1861, and with the onset of war raised a company and rose through the ranks. Served with General Joseph E. Johnston. Govan’s Brigade consisted of the 1st Arkansas and 1st Texas. In 1864 General Govan, along with several other Confederate officers, recommended the emancipation of slaves and their enlistment into the Confederate army. Late in the war he was captured, incarcerated and exchanged for twenty Union privates. Buried in Holly Springs. Major George Morgan Govan --- Born 1840, married 1865, Served Confederacy as quartermaster and paymaster. Elected Secretary of State, 1885 and 1889, following term of: --- H.C. Myers, (husband of Minnie Walter) who was Secretary of State 1878- 1886. ---followed Kinloch Falconer, Secretary of State Jan-Sept. 1878 who lost his life after giving up his possition in order to assist with the Yellow Fever epidemic in Holly Springs. During the war, he enlisted as a private, but later served as Assistant Adjutant General on General Bragg’s staff with Colonel Walter. ---followed James Hill Secretary of State 1874-1878 (see above). John J. Govan---(Captain Jack? who Mrs. Grant knew in Holly Springs?) Major William H. Govan ---Editor of the Democratic Banner in the 1850’s. Andrew R. Govan Jr. Sally G. Govan- --(Married General Christopher Mott) One of the three Govan women at Walter house at the time of the raid. Bettie C. Govan---(Was she the "Miss G___" in Mrs. Grant’s Memoirs who pleaded for the parole of Captain Jack Govan?)
The Walter Family During the war Union soldiers who saw them as symbols of an evil aristocracy arbitrarily destroyed many of the fine houses of the South. Colonel Walter quickly recognized the value of having Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant as a guest in his home while Holly Springs was in occupied territory. Like most of the men of Holly Springs, Colonel Walter was usually away from home during the Civil War. He served at the headquarters of General Bragg; first as Judge Advocate, and later as Assistant Adjutant and Inspector General. As the war drew to a close in 1865, as part of his duties, he issued reports on the "deplorable" condition of northwestern Mississippi. He reported that, "The condition of its citizens is pitiable in the extreme." He also was asked to investigate an underground peace movement in Northern Alabama. He concluded that the well-meaning seekers of peace could potentially become the unknowing pawns of a few traitorous infiltrators. Both before and after the war, Colonel Walter was involved with a large variety of public service and civic activities. He was known and recognized throughout the South, and he was always held in highest regard by the citizens of Holly Springs. He died on September 19, 1878 of Yellow Fever.
Harvey Washington Walter (1819-1878) and Fredonia Brown Walter had ten children: Nine living in 1878. Only eight listed.
Jimmie Walter---Died-1878 Volunteer postmaster during epidemic. Frank Walter --- -1878 Died in epidemic. Avant Walter--- -1878 Died in epidemic. Minnie Walter Myers--- Author of Romance and Realism of the Southern Gulf Coast. (Married H.C. Myers, early Klan Organizer and later Sec. of State) Annie Walter Fearn---First woman doctor in Mississippi. When unable to practice at home, she spent her life as a medical missionary in China (Married ___ Fearn) Irene Walter Johnson (Mrs. Oscar Johnson) family owned Walter place until 198?- Lillian Walter Pearl Walter Dye (Mrs. John Dye)
Colonel Walter and his three young sons survived the Civil War; and after the difficult period of Reconstruction, things finally began to return to normal. Then, unbelievably, in 1878 the citizens of the town encountered even darker days. Holly Springs was decimated by Yellow Fever. The first victim of the epidemic at Holly Springs was Mayor Goodrich, who died on August 31st. Ninety of the first one hundred to contract the Fever in Holly Springs would shortly die. Every business in town would be left bankrupt with a single exception---the pharmacy. Demonstrating a sense of a civic duty that surpassed self interest, Colonel Walter insisted that the gates of the town be opened for the desperate refugees from the epidemic who were arriving from the south. The trains would no longer stop in town. Most citizens of Holly Springs had left town for safety, but not Colonel Walter. "As for me and my sons, we will stay and fight the foe." At the Walter house, the tables had been turned. In a house that only the Govan women had once occupied; now only men remained behind. The women and children had all been sent away to safety, this time to the north, to Chattanooga. Colonel Walter and his sons stepped in to maintain the post office and serve their fellow citizens in any way they could. Then three weeks later, an unimaginable tragedy struck. After opening their celebrated home to care for the victims of the Yellow Fever epidemic, Colonel Walter and his three grown sons all died within a single week. Fredonia Walter returned home to her beautiful but empty house. Mrs. Walter was inconsolable, and she would never again find peace of mind. The specter of her great tragedy endures to the present day. William Baskerville Hamilton, in 1931, summed up the history of Holly Springs in this way.
The heroic citizens and soldiers of Holly Springs were on the losing side of our great national tragedy; and it is easy to understand how, today, some would write them off as merely an archaic band of sentimental, and misguided zealots. It is especially easy to condemn them in light of our universal an unequivocal abhorrence of slavery. But if we put this facile criticism aside, we can let their actions of long ago speak for themselves. It then becomes clear that by the standards of any day, the people of Holly Springs; citizens, slaves and soldiers alike, were extraordinary. The people of Holly Springs demonstrated a degree of courage, honor, loyalty and chivalrousness that was boundless; their sacrifice, endless; their suffering, unimaginable. In their day, "virtuousness" was still the highest value to which one could aspire. In our times even the word itself has disappeared from common usage. Our task is to set our preconceptions aside; and by so doing, learn more about the people of Holly Springs and the engaging characters who long ago passed through their remarkable town. If we tell their story well, we will not only learn more about them; but, just possibly, after all these years, we may still be able to learn from them.
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