This, be it remembered, was within twenty-four hours after the above agreement with General Gillam, on official news of General Sherman's armistice.
General Martin being arrested, was taken to General Brown, and after less than an hour's absence, was permitted to return home in charge of a United States officer. On arriving at his house, he found the ladies of his family, with lighted candles, going over the house at the bidding of the marauders, lighting them while they broke open doors, trunks, drawers, and boxes, and helped themselves to what they chose. And this was the experience of every house in the place that night. Many were entered by three or four different gangs at once. They swarmed in at every avenue of entrance, generally by the back-door, having taken counsel with the negroes first. Mrs. Martin recovered some of her stolen goods by the assistance of a guard who was detailed after the house had been plundered. Not even the town of Fayetteville suffered more severely from pillage. Mrs. James W. Patton and her sister were both sick in bed. Their house was entered from front and back at the same time. The ladies' rooms were entered, they were dragged from their beds, their persons and the rooms searched, and their valuables taken. This was supposed to have been done upon the information of a servant, who had told that there were four watches in the house. Of these four watches, three were afterward recovered, through the agency of a Captain Patterson, Assistant Adjutant-General to General Gillam, who had been quartered at Mrs. Patton's, and who proved to be one of the few gentlemen in that division of the United States army.
Judge Bailey's family suffered as severely as any others, every thing portable of value being carried off, even to the boots from the Judge's feet. The wedding-rings of his wife and daughter were forced from their hands. Other ladies were stopped in the street and their jewelry forced from them. Those who applied to General Brown, who had the honor to command this extraordinary expedition, received no redress whatever. Dr. Chapman, a well-known and widely respected minister of the Presbyterian Church, was so entirely robbed of all his goods and valuables, that he had not a change of clothes left beside what he wore. The Tenth and Eleventh Michigan regiments certainly won for themselves in Asheville that night a reputation that should damn them to everlasting fame. No excuse was given for this violation of the armistice, except a lame story of their having been attacked by General Vaughn and returning to Asheville to revenge themselves. General Vaughn was at that time in Virginia. On Thursday, parties scoured the country in all directions, carrying on the work of plunder and destruction. On Friday, they left, having destroyed all the arms and ammunition they could find and burned the armory. On Friday afternoon, they sent off the officers they had captured under a guard. The town being left thus without arms or protectors, the citizens, remembering Kirke's threats, begged General Brown to leave a small force as guard; but he refused, saying, "They might take care of themselves."
On the twenty-eighth, the following dispatch from General Palmer—who was Brown's senior officer—to General Martin, released our officers and men from their parole, and set the disgraceful circumstance of their surprise and capture in its proper light, though not stigmatizing it as it deserved:
Headquarters of East Tenn. Cav. Div., }
Hickory-Nut Gap Road,}
April 28, 1865. }General: I could not learn any of the particulars of your capture and that of Colonel Palmer and other officers and men, at Asheville, on the twenty-sixth, and as our troops at that point were obliged to leave immediately, there was no time for me to make the necessary investigation.
I therefore ordered your release on a parole of honor, to report to General Stoneman.
On further reflection, I have come to the conclusion that our men should have given you, under all the circumstances, notice of the termination of the armistice, and that in honor we can not profit by any failure to give this notice. You will therefore please inform all the officers and soldiers paroled by General Brown under the circumstances referred to, that the parole they have given (which was by my order) is not binding, and that they may consider that it was never given.
Regretting that your brother officers and yourself should have been placed in this delicate position, I am, General, respectfully your obedient servant,
William J. Palmer,
Brevet Brigadier-General Commanding.
General J.G. Martin, Asheville.
The citizens of Asheville also owed it to General Palmer's interference that two regiments of negroes, which had been sent over into Yancey county, and which were bearing down upon Asheville, (it was said, at the suggestion and with the concurrence of Kirke and Gillam,) for the purpose of plunder and arson, were countermanded and sent over into Tennessee.
The Asheville pillage concludes such accounts of General Stoneman's remarkable raid through Western Carolina as I have been able to collect. A rich harvest of incident yet remains for the future historian. I have done little more than indicate his route. Much of the above is taken verbatim from a ms. narrative furnished me, at my request, by Dr. R.L. Beall, of Lenoir, so admirably and accurately prepared that I hope it will be given to the public entire at no distant day. It gives me pleasure to acknowledge here my indebtedness to this gentleman, and my thanks for the generous public spirit he has displayed in his invaluable contribution to these pages.
FOOTNOTES:
[18] Perhaps it is not generally known in North-Carolina that Colonel Kirke had ardent aspirations for the provisional governorship of his beloved native State. I saw a letter from him just after the break-up, in which he avowed this noble ambition, evidently anticipating no very distant day when a grateful country should reward his patriotism and gallantry. By the way, it is said that Colonel Kirke also is a native of Salisbury. Both Kirke and Gillam! I am afraid there is a disposition to slander that fine old borough.