ILLUSTRATIONS

Page
Kelion Franklin Peddicord, 1863,[Frontispiece]
Columbus A. Peddicord,[12]
Carolus J. Peddicord,[18]
Kelion Franklin Peddicord, 1888,[50]

PART I
General Biographical Outline of the Peddicord Family

Our great-grandfather was Adam Peddicord. He married Elizabeth Barnes, a daughter of James Barnes, the elder. Their son, Jasper Peddicord, our paternal grandfather, was born in 1762 in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, from whence he moved to Ohio in 1829. He died in Barnesville, Belmont County, Ohio, on September 23, 1844, aged 82. Barnesville was named after James Barnes, grandfather’s cousin. Caleb Peddicord, another cousin of Grandfather Peddicord, emigrated from Maryland to Kentucky in 1830. Two other cousins of our grandfather, William and John Peddicord, served in the war of 1812.

Amelia Hobbs-Peddicord, our paternal grandmother, was the daughter of Thomas Hobbs. She was born in Maryland in 1767 and died March 23, 1841, in Barnesville, Ohio.

Jared Hobbs, our maternal grandfather, was born in Howard County, Maryland, March 22, 1772, and died on his farm in 1866 at the advanced age of 94.

Our maternal grandmother was Elenor Shipley-Hobbs, daughter of Edward Shipley. She was born in Howard County, Maryland, March 16, 1777, and died August 21, 1828.

Wilson Lee Peddicord, our father, was born in Howard County, Maryland, May 13, 1803, and died in Palmyra, Missouri, May 20, 1875, from injuries caused by his team running away and throwing him under a large iron field roller. He was a Royal Arch Mason, and Palmyra Lodge officiated at his funeral.

Our mother, Keturah Barnes-Peddicord, the fifth child of Grandfather Hobbs, was born in Howard County, Maryland, September 25, 1807, and died January 9, 1876. She is buried near father in Palmyra, Missouri, where she died.

Jared Hobbs and Elenor Shipley-Hobbs had six children:

1. Louisa, born October 16, 1801.

2. Robert T., born December 2, 1802.

3. Julia Ann, born April 3, 1804.

4. Corilla E., born March 2, 1806.

5. Keturah B., born September 25, 1807.

6. Teresa, born June 19, 1809.

Jasper Peddicord and Amelia Hobbs-Peddicord had twelve children; two of whom died quite young:

Sons.Daughters.
1. Thomas.1. Pleasants.
2. Asbury.2. Rebecca.
3. Benjamin.3. Anna.
4. Joseph.4. Cordelia.
5. Wilson Lee.5. Hannah (Dorsey).

Anna married John Holton.

Cordelia married Thomas Holton.

Pleasants married Jerry Bartholow.

Rebecca married Robert Musgrove.

Hannah (daughter by a second marriage to Miss Dorsey) never married.

Wilson Lee Peddicord and Keturah Barnes-Peddicord were married on November 17, 1829, in Howard County, Maryland, by the Rev. T. Linthicum. They had seven children:

1. Columbus Adolphus, born July 18, 1831.

2. Kelion Franklin, born October 1, 1833.

3. Indiana Washington, born December 15, 1835.

4. Ruth Elenor, born November 7, 1837.

5. Carolus Judkins, born November 27, 1840.

6. Laura Clay, born November 22, 1844.

7. Lily Louisa Pleasants, born August 28, 1849.

Columbus A. Peddicord and Mrs. Issa Meador-Peddicord were married March 31, 1859, in Sumner County, Tennessee, by Rev. John Winn. They had three children:

1. Charles Lewis, born February, 1860.

2. Frank Morgan, born November, 1861.

3. Columbus, born 1863.

The following biographical sketch of Columbus A. Peddicord is by his sister, Mrs. India P. Logan:

Columbus A. Peddicord was the oldest child in our family. Six feet tall at eighteen years of age, the idol of our family, he was a model of manly beauty, an image of our stately, beautiful mother. His chestnut, curling hair, and his hazel eyes, clear pale complexion, perfect form, and friendship with all classes made him a universal favorite. Impetuous tempered, he forgave any who affronted him at the first overture. He was a splendid shot at an early age, afraid of nothing in the world.

Columbus A. Peddicord
Capt. Independent Scouts, Morgan’s Cavalry
FACING [12]

After the first year of service in the “Silver Grays,” a company of Gallatin, Tennessee, in Colonel Bates’s regiment, Second Infantry, Company K., he was with J. H. Morgan, and was often sent on detached service. He was taken prisoner in 1863, and spent nineteen months starving and freezing at Johnson’s Island. Exchanged in November, 1864, he returned to find his wife in a Federal prison at Gallatin, Tennessee—a ruse to catch him. His father succeeded in getting her freed by going to Nashville to General Rosecrans, who banished her from Tennessee, where she owned one hundred and sixty acres of land, which was sold for taxes during reconstruction days. My brother Columbus was furious at his wife’s treatment, and he and his men were conspicuous for their daring until the close of the war.

He was farming near Glasgow Junction in Kentucky until August, 1867, when he attended a Democratic barbecue at Glasgow City. While riding in his carriage driven by the old faithful slave driver, he was approached by four men, and asked if he would take them to the grounds. He acquiesced. Three rode with him, and one with the driver. “You are Captain Peddicord,” said one. He smiled, saying, “The Captain is played out.” The man, using vile epithets, said, “A fine carriage for a d—d rebel to ride in.” Brother, thinking they were joking, replied, “Yes, but the rebel is played out, too.” After he found out they were antagonistic, he stepped out and said, “Get out of my vehicle.” The one who got out first went behind the carriage and shot at my brother, hitting him in the left arm, shattering the bone. My brother then pulled out his pistol, but, as he said afterward, it failed to go off for the first time. The man shot again and struck his spine. He fell, and the men ran, and as there were many old Confederates on the grounds the crew disappeared quickly. My brother lived thirteen days. He is buried in the old “Bell” family cemetery at Glasgow Junction, Kentucky. His wife and two sons—one seven, one five and a half years old—were left to mourn his loss.

Kelion Franklin Peddicord never married.

The following appreciation of his character is by his sister, Mrs. India W. P. Logan:

In person my brother Kelion was about five feet eight inches in height, pale olive in complexion, with dark gray eyes and fine, very dark brown hair, and erect form, even when his hair had become white with age. Though always cheerful, his countenance was grave and he seldom laughed. He looked the soldier to the last time he walked the street, and died like the “bravest of the brave.” With his soft hat under his arm, his Kentucky Confederate badge on his breast (from the reunion in Louisville in 1905), he was laid beside his father and mother for whom he had given up his ambition of rising in his profession of civil engineer, becoming the cheerful farmer until the death of his parents, when he came to Palmyra, where he filled many positions of trust. He was a member of Robert Buffner C. V. Camp at Hannibal. Kelion was one of the most truthful persons I was ever acquainted with. This was a trait he inherited. “If you cannot speak the truth,” he said, “say nothing.” He was always chivalrous toward women and loved children to a great degree, and was an uncommon judge of men.

Always uncomplaining, he said only once when ill, looking at the clock, “It is so long.” He was ill eighteen days.

Kelion, as he was always called until his army life, was only two years older than myself, and I corresponded with him when possible until the last sixteen years of his life, during which he lived in my home. I wish to say here that I can never forget the kindness of those who ministered to him in his last illness. He was the last link that bound me to the past.

Indiana W. Peddicord-Logan and Samuel Logan were married in St. Marys, Pleasant County, Virginia, May 15, 1855. They had three children:

1. Eugene W., born June 27, 1856; died August 18, 1857.

2. Minnehaha, born May 21, 1858.

3. Ernest Lee, born April 26, 1862; died August 8, 1893.

Samuel Logan died of apoplexy in Parkersburg, West Virginia, April 14, 1896. He was buried in Palmyra, Missouri, April 17, 1896.

Ruth Elenor Peddicord-Byrd and William Hamilton Byrd were married April 27, 1881, by Rev. Dr. I. A. Wainwright at the National Hotel, in Palmyra, Missouri.

William Hamilton Byrd died January 12, 1905. He was a descendant of Sir William Byrd of “Westover,” Virginia.

Of Carolus J. Peddicord, his sister, Mrs. India P. Logan, writes:

Our youngest brother, Carolus J. Peddicord, was only twenty-two years old when taken prisoner by General Paine’s soldiers at Gallatin, Tennessee. He was during the first year of the war a member of Col. Ben Hardin Helm’s First Kentucky Cavalry, Company A, and afterward belonged to the same scouts with my brother, C. A. Peddicord. With five of his men Carolus was put in a dungeon at Gallatin, on a stone floor, without a blanket, until a comrade left his on being paroled by General Paine. He was told if he would inform on his friends and the Southern sympathizers that his life would be spared. He obstinately refused from October until December, when he was informed that he would be taken out on horseback to the country and be shot if he refused to guide them to the homes of his friends. One friend who spent the last night in the cell with him said to my brother, K. F. Peddicord, at a reunion in Dallas, Texas, “Your brother was the bravest man I ever saw. He said, ‘I can die, but never can I betray a trust.’” He was taken many miles out into the country and shot in the forehead.

Carolus had auburn hair, extremely fair complexion, was pale, slender, about five feet eight inches tall, with a graceful figure, and dark blue laughing eyes like our father’s. He is buried at the old Bell family cemetery in Kentucky.

Laura Clay Peddicord was born in Barnesville, Belmont County, Ohio, and died at Fountain Head, Sumner County, Tennessee, May 18, 1867, having been an invalid her whole life. She is buried at Fountain Head Church, Sumner County, Tennessee.

Lily L. Peddicord-Webster and Thomas T. Webster were married December 21, 1887, in Kansas City, Missouri. They have one child, Frank Thursby, born December 1, 1888.

Carolus J. Peddicord
Member 1st Kentucky Cavalry
FACING [18]

PART II
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF KELION FRANKLIN PEDDICORD AS WRITTEN IN HIS “JOURNAL” AND IN LETTERS FROM MILITARY PRISONS, AND AS JOTTED DOWN BY HIM DURING A BUSY LIFE AFTER THE WAR

CHAPTER I
YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD

Kelion Franklin Peddicord was the second son of Wilson Lee Peddicord and Keturah Barnes-Peddicord. He was born October 1, 1833, on a farm near Barnesville, Belmont County, Ohio, the home of his Grandfather Peddicord, where his parents lived when they moved from Maryland in 1830. The family moved to Barnesville, while he was yet unable to walk, to the hotel called the Mansion House, later styled the Mills House.

His father was in charge of the Mansion House, and owned at the time four or five large six-horse teams and wagons, which he kept for hauling to and from the Baltimore, Maryland, market, over the National Turnpike. He was an experienced tobacconist, buying, packing, and sending hundreds of hogsheads of tobacco to the Baltimore market. They hauled tobacco east, and brought dry goods and merchandise of every description west in return.

Young Peddicord’s education was begun at the old brick “free” schoolhouse, then the high school of the town. The first schoolmaster was an old-timer by the name of Ashford. Another was Joseph Harris. When the large academy was built he attended it, while under the charge of that excellent professor, Nathaniel R. Smith, of Smith’s Grammar fame. From Professor Smith Kelion received his first lessons in surveying, having field practice, geology, and geometry. He was often a companion of the Professor in his researches, and thus acquired a great fondness for all that was curious in nature. This knowledge in after years aided him much in his profession of civil engineering in the classification of materials.

He was a good assistant in the tobacco house under his father, and had become an expert assorter and packer when but twelve years old.

In 1846 his father moved with his family from the town of Barnesville to a farm on the Ohio River, in Washington County, Ohio, at the foot of what old river men called Long Reach, from its straight course of eighteen miles. While living here the boy saw pass many Mexican war soldiers en route to their homes from Mexico.

In the spring of 1850 the family moved to the Virginia side of the river on a farm five miles above St. Marys, the county-seat of Pleasants County, Virginia. With his eldest sister he attended the seminary school conducted by Mrs. T. E. Curry, at the town of Grandview, Ohio, during the winter of 1850 and 1851.

In December, 1850, the family moved again, this time to St. Marys, Virginia. They resided there until December 15, 1856, during which time his father was a railroad contractor on the Northwestern Virginia Railroad, then under construction, grading several miles of heavy work.

The young man attended school a short term in St. Marys, then went to his father’s works to act as timekeeper and bookkeeper for the force at work.

Before he was twenty-one he received the appointment of second assistant in a corps of civil engineers, from Chief Engineer Benjamin H. Latrobe, of Baltimore, Maryland, with directions to report for duty to Cornelius Mercer, resident engineer in charge of the First Residency, Second Division of the N. W. V. R. R. He remained on the First Residency until near the completion, acting as first assistant from the first day of joining the corps. This was owing to the fact that the first assistant was unable to take charge of the instruments and keep notes. Thus the second assistant fell heir to the care of the transit and level and other field instruments, and the note-book.

It was a great day to him, when on the second day in the service he was sent to give the contractors, McCune & Gillespie, grade in the heavy summit cut, keeping notes and running the level for nearly a mile from the bench mark. This summit was the highest on the road, and the divide between Middle Island and the Monongahela River. Water which fell on the east side would have to travel nearly seven hundred miles before joining in the Ohio that which fell, a few feet away, on the west side.

At one time the resident engineer, Mr. Mercer, was permitted a short leave of absence, and the junior was left in charge of a tunnel, near completion, where the skill of the engineer is tested—that of bringing opposite lines together with slight variation. This he did satisfactorily. He was promoted and transferred to the Second Residency, Second Division, as first assistant to John Maxwell, resident engineer, and J. C. C. Hoskins, division engineer, assisting in field work in order to make complete his final estimates. Most of the time during his stay at the Second Residency he was on office work.

Young Peddicord was next ordered to report at the office of the Fifth Residency, Second Division, in company with A. C. Hoskins, and remained at the fifth completing the unfinished office work.

Having finished the final estimates and reports he left Schumla, Virginia, on February 7, 1856, for St. Marys, Virginia, where some time was spent in assisting the firm of Logan, Kellar & Co., one of whom was his brother-in-law, in their store, and in making collections of parties in the interior counties.

On December 15, 1856, the family moved to Tennessee, where his father had a number of miles of heavy work on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, under Mr. George McLeod, chief engineer, near Fountain Head, in Sumner County. His sister, Mrs. Logan, accompanied the family.

On March 12, 1857, with Samuel Logan, who was going after his wife and child, young Peddicord left St. Marys for Tennessee. They took the steamer Stephen Bayard for Parkersburg, Virginia, thence by steamer Silver Star to Galliopolis, Ohio, then by steamer J. B. Ford to Cincinnati, Ohio, then on steamer Gazelle to Louisville, Kentucky, and the South America to Smithland at the mouth of the Cumberland River. From there they traveled on the V. K. Stephenson to Nashville, the capital of Tennessee. Here they visited Mrs. James K. Polk’s residence, the Capitol Building, then not completed, and other places of interest. From Nashville they proceeded by stage coach to Gallatin, Sumner County, Tennessee, north of which the family resided on the works.

Soon after reaching home he was taken sick with measles, caught from a passenger in the stage coach.

Having letters from Chief Engineer Latrobe to Chief Engineer McLeod, he received an appointment from the latter and was ordered to Nashville, Tennessee, on June 11, 1857, where he was stationed up to April 23, 1858, as inspector of cross-ties, superintendent of bridge masonry and superstructure, and receiving chairs and spikes and railroad iron. While in Nashville, as a boyish exploit, he climbed the spire of the State Capitol and hung his hat on the point.

Returning to Fountain Head in April, 1858, he spent a short time attending to his father’s business, then joined him near Glasgow Junction, Barren County, Kentucky, and aided in the completion of his father’s last contract on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad in the spring of 1859.

While residing near Glasgow Junction in 1859 and 1860 he discovered and explored a number of caverns, the largest of which was the Hundred Dome Cave, two and a half miles from the station. In connection with and aided by John D. Courts, he fitted up and opened it to the sightseeing public, having carriages to meet the trains for the accommodation of visitors.

Although born and educated in Ohio, a Northern State, young Peddicord believed truly and sincerely in the rights of States, and when war became imminent his sympathy was all with the South, and he enlisted in the Confederate States Army in September, 1861. Before enlisting he was engaged in the service as special agent in re-shipping supplies and all kinds of munitions, etc., from Glasgow Junction, L. & N. R. R., to the State line of Tennessee. Permits would not be granted at Louisville, Kentucky, to ship through, but by re-shipping freight and paying charges with gold its southern destination was reached.

While thus engaged the young man met General, then Colonel, N. B. Forrest, who tendered him a fine position, urging Kelion to go with him in the service. The Colonel was on his way through Kentucky, taking out his first company at the time. With some reluctance he was forced to decline the Colonel’s kind offer, because of his engagement with the shipping and commission merchants of Nashville, whose gold was entrusted to him for a specific purpose.

For a record of young Peddicord’s service after enlistment in the Confederate States Army we can do no better than use his Journal, as completed by him in December, 1865.

CHAPTER II
THE JOURNAL

To

My beloved sister, Mrs. India W. P. Logan,

This little History

Is Dedicated and Inscribed by Her

Very grateful and affectionate brother,

Frank.