Harris-Troup-Meriwether County GaArchives News.....Union Troops Raided Harris in Spring of 1865, April 1, 1961 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Kermit Floyd Jr kfloyd1742@bellsouth.net April 4, 2008, 9:58 pm Columbus Ledger-Enquirer April 1, 1961 Columbus Ledger-Enquirer Civil War Edition Sunday, April 1, 1961 Union Troops Raided Harris in Spring of 1865, Entering Homes and Taking Food, Livestock by Lillian D. Champion Enquirer Correspondent House Yankees Raided---The Harris County house in which Thomas Beckworth Floyd was living when it was raided by troopers from Wilson's Raiders in 1865 is shown as it appeared 70 years ago. In front of the house, which is still occupied today, are John White and his family. White was one of three surviving sons of the eight sons of the William White family who went into Confederate service. The young child in the photo was a grandchild of White, and became Mrs. Linton Carter. Pine Mountain, Ga.---A Union raiding party, believed composed of members of Wilson's Raiders from the West Point area, penetrated Harris County during the spring of 1865. The raiders' path, which has been reconstructed from stories told to present- day Harris County inhabitants, seemed to have followed the stagecoach road. They seemed to have gone as far south as the Double Churches area, north of Co- lumbus. At the Double Churches home of Mrs. John Spinks, whose husband was away at war, the raiders caught the mules on the farm, took everything out of the smoke- house and dug up the floor in an effort to find some hidden money. Searched House Mrs. Julia Spinks Stripling, present Pine Mountain resident, said Mrs. Spinks told her the soldiers went through everything in the house, turning up mattresses and rugs and scattering the contents of trunks and boxes. When they left with all the mules, one broke loose and returned. It seemed that the only person the mule would obey was a Negro boy on the Spinks plantation. When the raiders first entered the southern part of Troup and northern part of Harris County, in the area now known as Salem community, they approached the home of T. B. Floyd. An old negro maid who met the raiders told them not to go upstairs in the Floyd house, because "There's a lady in bed up there with a baby." Rushed Past The Union Soldiers pushed past the old maid as if they thought she might be hiding the family valuables in the upstairs room. T. C. Floyd, who was about 10 years old at that time, told his children, who still live in the community, about the raid and actions of the Union soldiers. The baby in the bed with his mother was the son of Capt. Shirley Sledge and Mattie Floyd Sledge, and was born in the spring of 1865 while Mrs. Sledge was staying with her parents, after Capt. Sledge had rejoined the Evans Guards, Troup County. Sledge had enlisted in July, 1861, and later had been elected captain of Co. H. Second Georgia Cavalry State Guards. He was mustered out early in 1864. Family records show he returned to his old company before the birth of his son. Sitting on Porch When the soldiers first arrived at the Floyd house, which has been recently reconditioned and is still occupied, Thomas Beckworth Floyd, The father of Mrs. Sledge, was sitting on the front porch. He watched the men hitch their horses to the fence palings and, one of them noticing his obvious displeasure, moved his horse to the hitching post, but the others ignored the old man. Floyd did not move from the chair nor did he speak to the intruders, according to the story handed down in the family. When the raiding Union soldiers rushed past the objecting old Floyd maid, they went upstairs and into the bedroom occupied by the mother and baby. Pulled Cover Back Pulling the cover back a little way, one of the men turned to the other and said, "There is a little brat in the bed." After they had searched the house, the soldiers went across the road to the plantation's blacksmith shop, and ordered the Negroes there to put shoes on several horses. As they were leaving the shop, one of the men took a pistol out of his pocket and remarked, "Ibelieve I will shoot this biggest black boy." Floyd, in telling his sons about the incident, said he begged them not to shoot Lewis "cause he's the best Nigger we've got." The soldiers threw back their heads and laughed and "when they were through laughing there was no one there but them and me," Floyd told his sons. Went Down Road They went on down the road, to the home of Penuel Floyd, Thomas Beckworth's bachelor brother. They searched his house but took nothing of value. They had passed up the log cabin home of a Hardy family nearby without knowing that Hardy probably had more gold than the residents of the larger, finer homes in the community. It is not known if this was the same group that had raided homes from Bayard (now Cataula) south of the mountain, or through Hopewell community and other areas northwest of the ridge. At Bayard (Mulberry Grove area today) Joseph E. Pate was postmaster. His daughter, Mattie, was a small child, but remembered the Yankees eating dinner in her parents' kitchen. She told her children (present Harris County residents) how the soldiers drank milk from the buckets in the kitchen and how the cream stuck to their mustaches and trickled down their beards. Mrs Olivia F. Anderson, Joseph Pate's granddaughter, recalls that her mother often mentioned that a dead Yankee was found on the road at Bayard "We just walked around him," she told Mrs. Anderson. North of the mountain, the raiders stopped at the home of the James Philemon Champion family. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/harris/newspapers/uniontro2609gnw.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/gafiles/ File size: 6.5 Kb