“These mountain men had always been accustomed to independence of thought and freedom of action, and having elected for their company officers their neighbors and companions, they had no idea of surrendering more of their personal liberty than should be necessary to make them effective soldiers. Obedient while on duty and independent while off duty, this spirit to a marked degree they retained to the close of the war.”
The experience of Radford Gatlin concentrated in a single episode both the sharp divisions and the ironies of war in the mountains. Gatlinburg, now a commercial and flourishing tourist mecca at the edge of the park, bears the name of a man who was driven out of that town because of his unpopular stand during the war. The sturdily built, enterprising, and somewhat arrogant Gatlin was not a man to conceal his beliefs. With his wife and a slave woman he had come from North Carolina by way of Jefferson County, Tennessee, to the community known as White Oak Flats and had established a successful general store and a less successful church: the New Hampshire Baptist Gatlinites. When Dick Reagan was appointed postmaster for a new postal service to be established in White Oak Flats in 1860, the office was located amidst the axes, guns, coffee, sugar, and bells of Gatlin’s store, and Reagan renamed the post office, and therefore the town, after his good friend the storekeeper.
But when war came and Radford Gatlin not only supported the Confederacy but made heated speeches in its favor, the strongly Unionist villagers turned against him. After being beaten by a band of masked men, Gatlin abandoned his claim to thousands of hectares that now lie within the park and departed forever from the place that was to perpetuate his name if not his memory.
The war’s severest hardships followed in the wake of the outliers, or the bushwhackers. These scavengers favored no cause. As the war dragged on, they ambushed and raided, stealing meat from the smokehouse, corn from the crib, and farm animals from barn and pasture. Scarcity and want became commonplace throughout the mountains. In North Carolina’s Madison County, a group of citizens broke into a warehouse and laid claim to a valuable commodity, salt. Economic want enflamed political emotions. In Tennessee’s Sevier County, controversial “Parson” Brownlow, Methodist circuit-rider turned newspaper editor turned politician, sought refuge in the shadow of the Smokies with Unionist sympathizers when Knoxville came under Confederate control.
A well-known army unit operated in the Smokies: Col. William Thomas’ Confederate 69th-N.C., known as Thomas’ Legion of Indians and Highlanders. “Little Will,” as he was affectionately called, had become the effective spokesman in Washington and at the state level for the eastern remnant of the Cherokee. When the Civil War came and he chose to stay with the South, the Cherokees chose to stay with him. For a while, they secured mineral supplies for the Confederacy, including alum and saltpeter for gunpowder. The Legion guarded Alum Cave in the Smokies. Under Thomas’ direction, his unit also worked on the Oconaluftee Turnpike.
Page 80: Aunt Celia Ownby cards, or straightens, wool fibers that have already been washed.
Edouard E. Exline
Page 81: Hettie, Martha, and Louisa Walker run cotton through a gin built by their father, John. He made the rollers out of hickory and the rest out of oak. Three people were required to operate the gin: one to feed the cotton into it and one on each end to turn each of the rollers. The ginned cotton fell into a white oak basket, also made by John Walker.