Today I spoke to the Genealogical Group connected to the St. Clair Historical Society. Since it's hard for many people to make the meetings, I thought I'd share a brief summary of the story that I presented:
The story really begins with Rev. John Jackson Brasher, a strictly abolitionist Methodist minister who served as a state representative from Blount County. He voted against secession in the Secession Convention of 1861 and threatened that Blount County might attempt to secede from Alabama as Winston County tried to do. Rev. Brasher would have been one of the few ministers in the area and almost certainly would have preached at any Methodist churches around, probably including Deerman's Chapel.
Local lore says that Rev. Brasher took men to Horse Pens 40 and helped them hide from the Home Guard. The men could have been attempting to avoid Confederate service, but some had already joined the Confederate forces, deserted, and found their way home, presenting the need to hide.
I've been collecting information about many families from the area for years and I was vaguely aware that there were some men in the area who had fought for the Union during the civil war, but an email question caused me to look at their records from a different approach.
On October 5, 1863, 3 men from this area enlisted in Company K 3rd Tennessee Cavalry (Union) in Nashville. Family stories state that they travelled by night, sometimes walking backward so that their footprints would lead in the opposite direction from their actual destination. A week later, another man from this area enlisted, followed by about 21 men from the Steele area in two groups over the next 3 months. In total, there were at least 25 men from the Deerman's Chapel / Crawford's Cove area who travelled north to Nashville and enlisted in the Union army in the same company. I've been able to identify 25 of them by name and I know their family connections.
Company K 3rd Tennessee Cavalry was charged with disrupting the railroad lines used by the Confederate army for moving supplies through North Alabama and Tennessee. In September 1864, ,they fought General Forrest's men at Sulphur Trestle (near Athens, Alabama). Most of the company was then captured and taken to prisons run by the Confederates at Cahaba Prison (near Selma) and Andersonville in Georgia.
Cahaba Prison consisted of an old cotton warehouse on the banks of the Alabama River. When the river flooded, there was about 2 feet of water in their living space, so they had no dry place to stand or sleep. They didn't have enough of anything there: food, room to sleep, warmth, clothing, etc. Although pneumonia and dysentery killed many prisoners, Cahaba seems to have had a lower prison death rate than other Civil War prisons. The men from Company K were there for 5-6 months before the war began to draw to a close.
On March 6, 1865, these men from our area were brought out of the area and travelled to Vicksburg, Mississippi to prepare to be paroled. They waited there for more than a month and were then moved to Memphis, Tennessee where on April 26, 1865 they were among the 1700-2000 men who boarded the ill-fated steamboat named the Sultana. That night, about 2:00 a.m., the boiler exploded and those who weren't killed were thrown into the icy floodwaters of the Mississippi River. Many of the men were so weakened by the war, imprisonment, hard travel to Memphis, and illness that they were not able to swim or float until they could be rescued.. Others clung to boards or limbs, finally hanging onto trees along the shoreline until rescuers came.
Here's a list of the soldiers that I have confirmed as being from the Steele area and who enlisted in Company K 3rd Tennessee Cavalry. You might be related!
James D. Baggett Solomon Deerman Chris A. Reynolds
William H. Baggett William W. Deerman James P. Smith
James M. Battles Carroll Johns Malone Smith
Russell L. Battles Jesse C.M. Johns King S. Steele
William F. Battles Wiley Johns Russell W. Thompson
Richard F. Bellew Benjamin F. Mauldin Harris T. Tramel
William Bellew George W. Mauldin James F. Tramel
Robert D. Cox James H. Mauldin
Lewis A. Deerman John W. Ramsey
Each of them has their own story, which we discussed at the meeting, but there's not room here to relate them all. If you have questions let me know, as I have quite a bit more information about these men.
