RIP Big Forked Tree

You will be missed. By one guy with a camera anyhow.

Another fallen soldier at the Middle Creek National Battle Field.

Sunday Morning Enlightenment

There is something special about the light on Sunday mornings.  Or maybe it's just that I take the time to appreciate it.  This morning found me circling Dewey Lake.  It was a crisp 53 degrees and the crows were shouting to one another across the water.

Fog is great around here in September.

After a relaxing tour of the lake, I headed to Van Lear, where I took a pedestrian picture of the front of the Coal Miners' Museum.  I won't bore you with that one, but here is a more interesting one I took of the back side of the building.

As I was walking back to my car a guy pulled up in a vintage Buick and started talking.  Turns out he was quite the Van Lear historian.  He told me that, contrary to the sign (partly cut off on the left side of the photo), there never was a division of Consolidation Coal Co. headquartered in the building.   He also filled me on hometown star, Loretta Lynn.  He said she wasn't born in the little house passed off as her birthplace, but in an even smaller house further up Butcher Hollow and that the only thing left of that house was the floor.  He told me that Loretta Lynn is "a bitch" that refused to come play at his high school prom so they could afford a good senior trip.  Not sure how that ties together.  But, according to him, Ms. Lynn wouldn't come and said (this part delivered in a high and snooty voice), "I don't owe Van Lear anything."  He added that her sister, Crystal Gayle, also wasn't born in the old homestead, but was actually born in Indiana.  Her real name is Brenda and he said she is "very sweet."

He also told me how some of the most influential families in Johnson County got their start by operating truck mines and paying their workers $8 to $10 per day while they grew rich.  I won't mention their names.  There was also a prominent family that got its money by burning down their store after secreting all of the inventory in garages they owned, then collecting the insurance money.  He knows because he and some friends saw it  through an open garage door as they were coming out of their hollow to go to school.  The family bought their silence with new notebooks for school.  But when they got to school the principal brought them into his office and accused them of stealing such nice notebooks.  Eventually he called the family and they confirmed that they had given the notebooks.  Don't you love a happy ending?

I was about to ask if I could take this colorful guy's picture when two kids showed up and climbed in the back of his car.  There was lots of cussing and swearing all around, but they said they needed to talk to him.  I was thinking that maybe there was a drug deal going down, so instead of a picture, I took advantage of the moment to leave.  On the way back to my car I heard the guy tell them he only had one cigarette left and he was not going to share it with anybody.  So, yeah, a drug deal.

The Battle of Middle Creek is Underway!

Or, a re-enactment of it anyhow.  The original was fought on January 10, 1862.  But who wants to go out in the cold and wet to watch a re-enactment?  You can read more about the real battle here.  Meanwhile, below are a few pics I took today with the Canon EOS M.  Post-exposure work up was in Lightroom 5 and Nik plug-ins.

Damrons of the 39th - Wright Fights for Both Sides

Family history is yet another interest of mine. My family has been here, in Eastern Kentucky, since the very early 1800s. As I'm also a fan of history, I particularly like it when I can connect my family to a bigger picture. In this case, that bigger picture is the American Civil War, and in particular, that War in Eastern Kentucky.

We didn't really have much in the way of large battles here. Kentucky made the somewhat questionable decision to remain neutral during that conflict, which meant little support was received from either side. Eastern Kentucky became something of a no man's land without law enforcement or even schools. One of the larger battles in the area was fought on November 8, 1861 at Ivy Mountain near Ivel, about half way between Prestonsburg and Pikeville (or Piketon). At 5 o'clock on the morning of November 8, 1861, U.S. Navy Lieutenant William O. Nelson, who had been charged with clearing Eastern Kentucky of the Confederate Army, marched out of Prestonsburg toward Piketon (Pikeville), Kentucky. With him were about 1500 men. Fifteen miles outside of Piketon they met a Confederate picket of approximately 40 cavalry. After a brief exchange of gunfire the Confederates withdrew to Piketon. There, Colonel John S. Williams commanded Captain Andrew Jackson May to go back with two companies of soldiers and twenty mounted men.

May stationed 116 soldiers behind breastworks along a flat area on Ivy Mountain overlooking the Big Sandy River. Additional troops were stationed on the other side of the river to fire on the approaching Union soldiers from a different angle. It was a good plan, but after an hour and fifteen minutes of battle, the badly outnumbered Confederates were out of ammo and so retreated.

The Confederates retreated first to Piketon, then on to Pound Gap at the Virginia line. At some point while they were crossing Pike County, young Wright Damron, son of Virginia-bred James S. Damron, would join that army. He was sworn on November 9 and, presumably when time allowed, officially enlisted on November 11, 1861 at the camp near Pound Gap. Wright, or "Rite" as he was listed in the records, enlisted in Company G of the Kentucky Fifth Mounted Infantry, CSA for a term of one year. [1]

The service record of Wright Damron while in the Confederate Army is unremarkable. Apparently he did the time he agreed to, which would have seen him discharged from service in November of 1862.  He then enrolled at Peach Orchard (a mining town near Louisa and Ulyssus) in Lawrence County, Kentucky on November 14, 1862, only days after his one year term as a Confederate ended. [2] That was, it should be noted, five days after his older brother, Moses D. Damron (my second-great grandfather), enrolled there.

What would motivate a young man to essentially change sides in a war?  A mystery on which one can only speculate.  During the War, Eastern Kentucky was typically not the focus of great battles. Both sides wanted it, but not enough to dedicate a great deal of manpower or resources to it. But the Union had more manpower and resources to dedicate, and the Confederate soldiers there were mostly poorly clothed, poorly supplied, and poorly fed. While the Union maintained a supply line from the mouth of the Big Sandy at the Ohio River in Catlettsburg, the Confederate Army had no such handy line of supply coming in from the south. As a result, those fighting for The South had to "forage" when in Eastern Kentucky - a polite word for taking food and animals, and often more, from the residents. As a result of many depredations during that time, committed by Confederate soldiers and "irregulars" who merely claimed to be soldiers to cloak their crimes, the sentiment in most counties turned decidedly in favor of the Union cause. In a land of subsistence farmers, not much could be sacrificed. And so, in part because they hoped to protect their families and property, and no doubt in part because even the modest pay of a volunteer soldier was more than they had, more and more young men (and not so young men) joined the Union Army.  By the end of the war, nine Damrons from Pike County had joined the Kentucky Thirty-Ninth Mounted Infantry.  Wright was the only one who had fought for the Confederacy.  So the question really isn't so much why he changed sides as why he joined the Confederate Army in the first place.  One can only imagine that as a young man descended from Virginia stock, he was caught up in a rallying cry from the retreating soldiers after the defeat at Ivy Mountain and made an impulsive decision to join the cause.  After a year of hard living he decided to join his neighbors and family in their fight for the North.  As will be seen in a later installment, the Thirty-Ninth was formed primarily to protect the area from depredations than to fight for any bigger cause.

Wright, by the way, went on to live a full, long life.  He didn't marry until he was 35 years old when he wed Aurela "Realie" Hopkins, who was 17 years his junior.  They had seven children.  The last one, "Bird," was born in 1889.   Wright applied for a pension based on his military service in 1890, but lived another 20 years.  He died in 1910 of "pneumonia fever."  "Realie"  applied for a widow's pension in March of that year.

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^[1] "Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers", digital image, The National Archives (www.fold3.com), page 2 of Confederate Service Record of Rite Damron

^[2] "Compiled Service Records of Volunteer Union Soldiers Who Served in Organizations from the State of Kentucky", digital image, The National Archives (www.fold3.com), Accessed on www.Fold3.com in Nov 2012. page 2 of Service Record of Wright Damron.