Why Was Elijah Coffey not at the Battle of Chicamauga?

The past few days I have been creating a spreadsheet combining all of the dates from the various regimental histories and Elijah's daybook. Today I finished putting all of the daybook in, as well as dates from North Carolina Troops. Comparing the two, there are certain inconsistencies that are incredibly odd, the first being that Elijah was in Kingston Georgia while the 58th fought at Chicamauga. Elijah's daybook and the account in NC Troops are last in sync at Big Creek Gap, TN, however Elijah leaves Big Creek a full two months before the 58th is recorded to have abandoned their positions there. Elijah reaches Loudon Tennessee on June 28, 1863 and seems to stay there except for a brief trip to Bell's Bridge from July 12-21.

The 58th abandons Big Creek Gap on August 22, 1863 and begins travelling towards Chicamauga, passing through Loudon on the 29th. Elijah is still in Loudon when the 58th pass through, but instead of rejoining his regiment, he leaves town on September 2nd and travels south to Atlanta, passing through Cleveland Tennessee, Dalton Georgia, and Ringgold Georgia. By the time of the 58th's first encounter with Union troops on September 11, Elijah is 12 miles South of their position in Dalton. On the first day of the Battle of Chicamauga, he is just leaving Atlanta, reaching and remaining in Kingston until September 21.

The big question now is why was Elijah not at Chicamauga?

Week 1 Summary

This week has been fairly productive. I've spent most of my time compiling a list of sources to track down. My biggest problem right now is there does not appear to be a place with a substantial amount of information on the 58th NCT, so now I am going to have to spend a substantial amount of time in UNC's Southern Archives, as well as a day or so at the Caldwell County Heritage Museum and Archives in Lenoir, NC, a 3+ hour drive. I've spent a good amount of time reading through Lt. George Harper's dairies from 1907-1912. He mentions the anniversary of the Battle of Chicamauga on September 20th two years in a row. Further research indicated the 58th suffered cataclysmic casualties at Chicamauga.

The state archives contains most of the pension applications for the veterans of the confederate army. Many of these applications are dated around 1908. This is because the state government increased the pension from $25 a month to $75, making it worthwhile for even those veterans or widows in such an isolated locale as Caldwell County to make the trek to file such an application.

From George Harper's diary:

12/16/1907

"Bank- Confederate pensions getting their State Pension checks $25- up to $75- according to disability- none granted except to those indigent"

The Toe River Valley was still a backwater by 1907. Many residents were subsistence farmers with little or no disposable income, so it comes as no surprise that the number of applications for pensions granted would increase greatly in the area.

By 1899, the attitude in the former CSA had changed from defeated to nostalgic. This doesn't seem to be the case for the members of the 58th NCT. No representatives from the 58th attended the Reunion of Veterans of Western North Carolina in Asheville in 1899. Asheville was only a mere 50 miles away, and by 1899 the railroad finally had reached Caldwell County. The Veterans of the 58th appear to have met amongst themselves, but seldom if ever attended a large celebration of the Civil War. A possible explanation comes from W.H. Younce's memoir, Adventures of a Conscript, in which he states that "at least half of the 58th were loyal to the union." Reinforcing Younce is the staggering number of soldiers who deserted the 58th and joined the Union (at least 125).

The National Weather Service is expecting 6 inches of snow and 1/2-1 inch of ice tomorrow. If I am unable to make it downtown to the archives and I haven't lost power I plan on finishing up Hardy's book on the 58th and doing preliminary reading into the mammoth North Carolina Troops. I need to find a library that has the War of Secession: Official Records of the Confederacy and Union as many of Hardy's sources appear to come from it.

Zebulon Vance

So today marked the first day in the North Carolina State Archives. After beginning Michael C. Hardy's book on the 58th North Carolina Infantry (Elijah Coffey's regiment) I began to grow fascinated with the excerpts Hardy included from the letters of Zebulon Vance, a former Representative and Governor and arguably one of the most influential figures in the post-war South. So today I went into the archives and tracked down the two-volume compilation of Vance's correspondance and began reading selections from the last few months of 1860. I had known that North Carolina was very much on the fence as far as secession went, only succumbing to the fervor of the Gulf states and South Carolina and Georgia after Lincoln ordered the state to send however many thousand troops to fight for the Union. What I didn't know was that there was a movement, however small, that proposed creating a confederacy of the border free and slave states. Vance writes:

"Must N.C. and the border states go with them is our question? We are not compelled to do so. Many think we could do better, and the method is to form a great middle confederacy composed of the border slave and the border free states. In this way we preserve this Capitol, the public lands, the form and prestige of the old government, secure greater homogeniousnes, and finally re-organize and reconstruct the whole Union round this grand and overshadowing nucleus! It is the policy of the cotton states as disclosed here by their commissioners and leading men, to keep out the border states from joining them until they can confederate and form a constitution embodying their own peculiar dogmas and Rhett-Yancey policy. The leading ideas of this policy is that reopening the African slave traffic and free trade and direct taxation. The voice of the great border states is against this of course; hence their hasy action. Their confederacy once formed, we go into it acceding to their policy of we stay out and be their border guard against abolitionism- They don’t care which! That’s the present state of the case. I confess I am not willing to do either. And I think the only way that the Union can be reconstructed and these cotton states be brought to treat us with proper respect, is this idea of a great Central Confederation. It could dictate terms of compromise which Georgia would be compelled to accept, and the withdrawal of Georgia would break the back bone of the whole seceding Kingdom. As for New England, we would kick it out if it refused to secede, and would never let it back unless as the single state of New England with only two Sumners in the senate to play the blackguard."

What is obvious is that Vance wants to stay out of any conflict between Lincoln and the newly christened Confederate States of America, going as far as to believe that the border states should teach the two extremes how to get along.

Vance also was a fervent believer in the people's right to govern. Instead letting the few hot-heads in the state government (including the pro-secessionist Governor Ellis) vote and create a Secessionist Convention, he proposed holding a state-wide vote where the people could elect their representatives to said convention.

The whole southern mind is inflamed to the highest pitch and the leaders in the disunion move are scorning every suggestion of compromise and rushing everything with ruinous and indecent haste that would seem to imply that they were absolute fools- yet they are acting wisely for their ends- they are “precipitating” the people into a revolution without giving them time to think- They fear lest the people shall think; hence the hasty actions of S. Carolina, Georgia & the other States in calling conventions & giving so short a time for the election of delegates – but the people must think, and when they do begin to think and hear the matter properly discussed they will consider long and soberly before they tear down this noble fabric and invite anarchy and confusion, carnage, civil war, and financial ruin with the breathless hurry of men flying from a pestilence

He shows a certain amount of animosity towards more militant future and former countrymen in South Carolina and Georgia, writing off their vote for secession as "hasty". As moderate and cool-headed as Vance appears in writing, it is worth saying that when North Carolina did end up seceding in 1861, Vance enlisted in Raleigh and served until elected governor in 1862. As governor Vance was often at odds with Jefferson Davis' central government by giving North Carolinians first pick of imports smuggled through the blockade into Wilmington or any of the other North Carolina ports.

Tomorrow I will conduct a bit more research on Vance, I'd like to write a few pages about the idea of creating a central confederacy.