Saturday, January 21, 2012

Wolfe County Confederates

Wolfe County, KY
Lloyd's official map of the State of Kentucky, 1862
Image from Library of Congress

On November 3, 1868, elections were held in the Eighth Congressional District* for the office of Representative in the 40th Congress. The candidates were Sydney M. Barnes, a Republican and George M. Adams, a Democrat. Adams won the election by a majority of 462 votes.

* The Eighth Congressional District consisted of the following counties: Breathitt, Clay, Estill, Garrard, Harlan, Jackson, Josh.Bell, Knox, Laurel, Letcher, Madison, Owsley, Perry, Pulaski, Rockcastle, Whitley, Wayne and Wolfe.

Barnes subsequently contested Adams' election, stating that it was obtained by gross irregularity, unfairness, and fraud. He also challenged the legality of certain votes, claiming they were cast by former Confederates who were ineligible to vote in elections, "under the Constitution and laws of the United States and of the constitution and laws of the State of Kentucky."

During the investigation that followed, a number of people were questioned and gave affidavits in regard to voters in their respective counties who had served in the Confederate Army or had supported the Southern cause.

Posted are the names of the election officers for each precinct, followed by the names of Confederates as they were given, for Wolfe County, KY.


Cliffty Precinct No. 1
Wm. P. Lawson – election judge
J. B. Haulsey – election judge
Stephen Swango – clerk of elections
Isaac Nickell

(rumored to be in arms with the rebels and most of them in the rebel army)
James Osborn
John Lackey
Jefferson Brewer
T. P. Collinsworth
Taylor Trimble (reputed guerrilla)


Hazel Green Precinct No. 2
James C. Stamper - election judge
J. J. Swetnam - election judge
Jahiel Fallen - clerk of elections

James C. Stamper
… acted with the rebel party during the whole time of the war, and up to the present, and said Fallon, at the beginning of the war, set out to act with the Union party, and advocated Union principles until about the time of the flight of Breckenridge, though Eastern Kentucky. saw him in a day or two after that, and he told me he could no longer act with the Union party, for Lincoln had violated the Constitution seventeen times, and our interest were with the South, and he was in favor of Kentucky going with the South. I heard him advocate the doctrine of starving out the army by furnishing them no more men nor money, so that the southern confederacy might succeed and be settled by compromise, for he said it would have to be done that way.
(Joseph D. Graham, p. 286)

Jahiel Fallen/Fallon
For a short time he (Fallen; MP) advocated the cause of the Union party. He then changed and advocated the cause of the rebel party bitterly. He changed, I think, a shot time after the victory of the rebels at Bull Run. He has, from that time to the present, advocated the rebel cause, so far as I know.
I never heard it denied or questioned that he was a rebel after the battle of Bull Run.
(J. J. Swetnam, p. 286)

(Known to be rebel soldiers)
George W. Cox
William F. Elkins
C. C. Hanks
A. H. Quillen
John E. Drake
J. M. Oliver
William Chambers
Preston Holland
Elisha Holland
Martin Hallam
William H. Tutt
Brocker Brewer
John Dobson
John F. Pocton
William Christian
Henry G/C Spencer
Granville Allen

(in the rebel army or in arms with the rebels)
G. B. Swango
James Cox
Edmund Little
Fielder (Fielding) Cox
James M. Kash

(rumored to be in arms with the rebels and most of them in the rebel army)
Calvin Swango
John Cox
Frank Coldiron
A. B. Landrum
William A. Beaver
William Brewer
Thomas Asberry

(not in the army but in arms with the rebels)
William Buchannon
L/J. B. Combs
George Asberry

Reputation says that when General Nelson came into Wolfe County with his army, in 1863, that Combs, Asberry and Buchanan, as soon as they heard it, gathered their guns, went up into Perry County, and formed or attached themselves to an armed company of about two hundred men; then said company and said men marched back to the town of Jackson, in Breathitt County, and a large number of the company broke open the store of Thomas Sewell, a Union man, and robbed it, robbed Sewell's bee gums and killed some of his hogs, and waylaid the road to kill Union soldiers, if any should come along. Reputation says they so staid in arms a week or two, and reputation further says, that afterwards J. B. Combs waylaid the road with a band of armed rebels to kill the Union home guards.
(W. L. Hurst, pp. 216/217)



Campton Precinct No. 3
Harvey D. Spradling – election judge
G. W. Long – election judge
C. W. Stamper - clerk in election
George Cook – sheriff

To my knowledge, I never knew any of them to have been in the army; my cause for calling them rebels was that they were all accused of feeding and harboring rebel guerillas during the war, except C. W. Stamper.
(Stephen Tolson, p. 210)

C. W. Stamper
Stamper acted with the rebels from the beginning of the war up to January, 1864, and was a rebel during the war; he then quit them and joined the Union army; and since he quit the Union since he has acted with the rebel party, since the war... There was a guerilla in that neighborhood called Stricklin; he, Stricklin, stole so much from the rebel citizens in the neighborhood that he, Stamper, with others, arrested Stricklin and delivered him to the Union forces, and Stricklin was shot by the Union forces and Stamper had to leave on account of it, and when he left he joined the Union army; I cannot answer why he returned to the rebel party again after the war.
(Stephen Tolson, pp. 209/210)

G. W. Long
I know G. W. Long. The general rumor of the country was that he was a rebel. I know not what party he belonged to during the war of my own knowledge. He was deputy sheriff of said county (Wolfe, MP) since the war. I heard a few Yankees say that they did not like to be dunned by a rebel that was opposed to law and order during..... The intimation was that if he came into our neighborhood collecting taxes, they would bushwack him. It was general rumor that he had harbored Henry Wells and red James Spencer, that murdered Miles Kincaid, at his rock house in his bed. This was in the same neighborhood where the threats were made. The general rumor was that they murdered Kincaid; and I know that wells and Spencer were rebel guerillas.
[Thomas J. Treadway, p. 189)

Jerry King
I have just examined the poll-books, and I find the name of Jerry King set down as voting for Barnes, on the Campton precinct poll-book. King is generally reputed to have been in the rebel army during the early part of the war, and he is generally reputed to have been in the Union army during the latter part of the war, under the command of Captain F. M. Vaughn, and he is reputed to have received an honorable discharge from the Union army, and to have served out his time in said Union army, and he has claimed to be a Union man and acted and voted with the Union or republican party ever since the war, so far as my knowledge extends.
Reputation says he was a very desperate fellow, and very wild and outbreaking, while in arms with the rebels; and general reputation says he was equally fierce and ferocious against the rebels after he joined the Union army, and by reputation; I don't now remember how he came to leave the rebels or join the Union forces.
(W. L. Hurst, p. 216)

Edmon Collins
I know only that Edmon Collins, one of the persons I have named as rebel soldiers, told me that he had joined and was in the rebel army, and got his thumb or finger shot off in battle while in said army, but my recollection is that he told me that while he was in the rebel army the Union soldiers took him prisoner, and to get released from them he joined the Union army and served with them some time. (voted for Adams. MP)
(W. L. Hurst, p. 216)

Elisha Chambers
I remember that reputation says that Elisha Chambers was not in the rebel army, but was frequently in arms with the rebels and frequently piloted rebels when passing through his neighborhood.
(W. L. Hurst, p. 217)

(in the rebel army)
W. F. Elkins
C. C. Hanks
A. H. Qillin
William Christian
Edmon Collins *
C. L. Byrd
William Chambers
J. H. Patton

(rumored to be in arms with the rebels and most of them in the rebel army)
Robert Taylor
E. Chambers
J. M. Oliver
Preston Hollon
W. H. Tutt
John Cox
Brack Brewer
J. T. Tutt
A. Congleton
Joht. Dobson
Granville Allen



Precinct No. 4
Ira G. Profitt – election judge
David S. Spencer – election judge
James A. Spencer – clerk of election
Lycurgus Kincaid - sheriff

James A. and David S. Spencer
The two Spencers were rebels. The other two officers were radicals, and served with Colonel Barnes in his regiment (8th KY Inf. MP). Profitt and Kincaid were Union men during and since the war. The other two were rebels during and since the war. David Spencer was in the rebel army and James Spencer was a rebel sympathizer. I saw him (David Spencer) while he was a prisoner, wearing the rebel uniform, and he told me he had been in the rebel army. He went back to the rebel army after he was captured... I have heard David Spencer talk a good deal about the war. He told me he had been in several battles and skirmishes. I do not recollect the names of them. James Spencer had but little to say about it any way, but lived out in the cliff and run with the rebels and guerrillas a good deal.
(Thomas J. Treadway, p. 188)

(claimed to be in the rebel army)
John Bush
J. G. Spencer
G. W. Spencer
Elijah Wells
Z. N. Wells
S D. Cox
Cornelius Moore
Isiah Spencer
Allen Spencer
John W. Spencer
Levi Gilley

(rumored to be in arms with the rebels and most of them in the rebel army)
J. G. Spencer
John Gilly
Livi Gilly



General Wolfe County

(known rebel soldiers)
John Bush
J. G. Spencer
E. Wells
G. N. Wells
Levi Gilly
Jefferson Brewer
G. B. Swango
Calvin Swango
James Cox
John Cox
Frank Coldion
A. B. Landrum
Thomas Asburry
Fielding Cox


Levi Cash
(Justice of the Peace in Morgan Co. KY before the Civil War. County judge of Wolfe Co. KY during the 1868 elections)

Rebel sympathizer, in sentiment a rebel, and wished the rebellion to succeed.
(Hurst, p. 214)

I have heard it rumored and reported that he lived in a rebel neighborhood, where bands of guerillas used, roamed, and harbored, and staid, and I have heard it rumored that he did not give the Union men or Union forces any information of the whereabouts and conduct of said rebel guerillas or rebel soldiers. (W. L. Hurst, p. 215)

The rumor is that he was a rebel. This is the general rumor.
(Thomas J. Treadway, p. 189)





Information transcribed from the original documents by Marlitta H. Perkins. Article researched and written by Marlitta H. Perkins, January 2012. Copyright © 2012. All Rights Reserved.

No comments:

Post a Comment