Homegrown Yankees: Tennessee's Union Cavalry in the Civil War

21. The Saltworks

1. Scott and Angel, Thirteenth Regiment, 214–15; Andes and McTeer, Loyal Mountain Troopers, 338; copy of William H. Ingerton file from Pension Bureau, Robert B. Barker Papers, McClung Historical Collection, Knox County Public Library. CHAPTER 21 The Saltworks F ollowing the flight from Bulls Gap, Gillem’s cavalry encamped back at Knoxville. Both Gillem’s and Ingerton’s wives resided at the Franklin House. Twenty-four-year-old Joshua H. Walker of Maryville—a former lieutenant of Company D, 2nd Tennessee—entered the hotel on November 25. He was armed, intoxicated, and seeking revenge against Ingerton. As a member of Sooy Smith’s staff, Ingerton had brought court-martial charges against Walker at Memphis more than six months before “for drunkness and conduct unbecoming an officer.” Walker confronted Ingerton in the hotel’s lobby. In an ensuing struggle he shot the colonel in the abdomen with a pistol. Pending his arrest, soldiers held the assailant captive at the hotel.1 Seeking to avenge the murder of “a warm friend,” Capt. David M. Nelson, a Gillem staff member with a violent temper, grabbed a shotgun and rushed to the hotel. When he separated Walker from his guards and tried to shoot him, someone “knocked the muzzle of the gun up . . . discharg[ing]” its blast “into the ceiling of the hotel office.” For weeks Ingerton “lingered in great agony.” In his delirium he “would fight over [his] recent battles.” After he died on December 8, Gillem promised a speedy trial for Walker. But for most of December , Gillem and his cavalry were on an expedition to southwestern Virginia. Then early in January 1865, while they recovered, the former lieutenant from Blount County escaped from a military prison. When he returned home after the war, he was never prosecuted. Walker farmed in Sevier County until The Saltworks 335 2. Copy of Ingerton file from Pension Bureau, Robert B. Barker Papers, McClung Historical Collection, Knox County Public Library; Scott and Angel, Thirteenth Regiment, 215–17; Joshua H. Walker, 2nd Tennessee, CSR. 3. Scott and Angel, Thirteenth Regiment, 217–18; OR, 32(3):558. 4. Starr, Union Cavalry, 3:556–57, 559; OR, 45(1):808–9; ORS, 65:613; William G. Brownlow to Johnson, Nov. 30, 1864, PAJ, 7:323. his death in 1892—while drinking he was “dragged to his death” after falling from a moving mule-drawn wagon.2 The choice of Capt. Barzilliah Stacy—formerly of the 7th Ohio Cavalry— as Ingerton’s replacement created schisms within the 13th Tennessee. The decision pitted those favoring the regiment’s senior ranking officer, Major Doughty, against those supporting Gillem’s and Miller’s backing of Captain Stacy. Earlier in spring 1864 Doughty briefly commanded the regiment before acquiescing to the more experienced Ingerton. Now he felt that he had the necessary combat service as well as the men’s support. But his opposition believed Stacy better suited to the position because of his “greater experience and longer service in the army.” When Gillem promoted Stacy over the major, Doughty and his friends “openly resisted the move.” Miller arrested Doughty and briefly held him until a more understanding Gillem released him and appointed Doughty as his own chief of staff.3 In November 1864 Maj. Gen. George Stoneman, no longer a prisoner of war and always looking forward to his next raid, received a cavalry command in East Tennessee. Stoneman wired General Burbridge in Kentucky to impress all available horses, to collect all the soldiers he could mount, and then to concentrate toward Cumberland Gap before awaiting further orders. At Knoxville Stoneman concentrated Gillem’s cavalry, supplied them by river and rail, silenced animosities between Gillem and Tillson, and restored “confidence . . . to a badly stampeded community.” On November 29 he directed Burbridge to move his 4,200 men and four artillery pieces south through Cumberland Gap and east to the railroad at Bean Station, where he was to await further orders while Gillem finished reorganizing and refitting his force of 1,500 men.4 All three generals had something to prove. Stoneman looked to redeem his reputation, soiled by his capture near Macon, Georgia, in August. Gillem hoped to restore the confidence his Tennesseans possessed before Bulls Gap. Burbridge wanted to overcome his failure at Saltville, Virginia, on October 2 and to avenge the ensuing “massacre”: The morning after Burbridge’s thwarted 336 East Tennessee and...