AVERY CAMP 1811 - 1865
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Chattanooga Daily Gazette, x 26 Jan 1865: "Died - Avery Camp, who was held in the District Prison as a hostage for the action of Gatewood's gang of outlaws, died in the Prison Hospital in this City, Monday last."
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Avery Camp was born 1811 in Jackson County, Georgia, the son of Robert Berry Camp and Mary "Polly" Pierce. The father was a native of North Carolina. The mother hailed from Greene and Jackson Co., Ga.
Avery moved to Walker County, along with his father-in-law, Bolden Whitlow, and five brothers-in-law, about 1838. He settled, along with others of his family, on a fertile tract of land in McLemore's Cove that he won in the Georgia Land Lottery, Lot 51, 9th District, 4th Section, in what was then Cherokee County, later Walker County.
Avery served as a Private in Captain Hall's Company (Pond Springs Cavalry) of Culberson's Battalion, Georgia Cavalry. This was Co. E of the 6th Battalion Georgia Cavalry, State Guards.
According to "Chickamauga Yesteryear", Avery was forcibly taken from his home sometime around Christmas of 1864, and marched to the Union Prison Camp in Chattanooga to be sent to Camp Douglas, Illinois. He died in the Prison Hospital before making the trip North.
Avery Camp was married three times. His first wife was Nancy Mae Whitlow, who he married on 6 Mar 1830 in Walton County, Georgia. She was the daughter of Bolden Whitlow and Mary Stewart of Halifax Co., VA and Walker Co., Ga. They had four children together. Nancy Mae died about 1849 and Avery Camp remarried to Sarah Childress in 1851. She was the sister of Susan Childress who married Avery's brother-in-law, Henry Boss. Sarah and Avery had four children before she died in Jan, 1859. Avery remarried a third time to Martha Jenkins on 19 Oct 1859 in Chattanooga, Hamilton Co., TN and they had three children together.
1840 census, Walker county, Georgia, page 86: Avery Camp
1850 census, Walker County, Georgia:
Avery Camp 39 M Ga.
Sarah Camp 23 F SC
Robert Camp 12 M Ga.
Eliza Camp 10 F Ga.
Susan Camp 8 F Ga.
1860 census, Pond Spring, Walker County:
A Camp, 48, farmer, GA, $4000/$20,000 * spelled Kamp
Susan, 19 *married within the year
James 10
Merritt 8
Avery B 5
Caswell 3
Merritt Camp was living with John Gholston Whitlow in Parker Co., TX in 1880. J.G. Whitlow was the son of Miles Washington Whitlow, the brother of Nancy Mae Whitlow Camp.
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Walker County Messenger, x 10 Feb 1881:
Captain Joel [Withers] passed through here Saturday. We don't like to see Sheriffs so far from home. They might be on business. When I heard someone wondering who he was after, I thought of an incident that occurred many years ago. I was in the woods with a negro, named Ed, when he saw three men coming toward us. I told him it was the Sheriff and his posse and that they must be after one of us, and as I had never done anything, it must be you they are after. He turned as white as possible for him to, and looked up and said: "I have done paid Mr. Bailey two dollars for his old sow, and Mr. Whitlow was to pay him the other two." When the Sheriff's posse rode past us, old Ed mumbled something about letting by-gones be, and went back to work with renewed vigor, having gotten a new lease on life." - The Editor.
Mr. Whitlow is Miles W. Whitlow and Mr. Bailey, his nephew, son of William "Buck" Bailey, who died in 1839. Miles Whitlow and Buck Bailey were brothers-in-law of Avery Camp.
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Walker County Messenger, x 27 Jan 1881:
"Uncle and Cousin: Squire Mr. James Bonds and Mr. W.B. Cumpton were all in town on Monday. The Squire is one of those lovable, genial, kind-hearted old men that it is a pleasure to meet. We believe if the right sort of widow would come along and ask him to go back to Eureka Springs, he would go. May Time lay its hand lightly on him."
Judge James Madison Bonds was the brother-in-law of Avery Camp. W.B. Cumpton was a relation to both, having married "the Widow Glenn", Eliza Camp Glenn, the daughter of Avery Camp and Nancy Mae Whitlow.
Avery Camp was taken by the Yankees with force from his home in Walker Co. to the Chattanooga depot where he was interrogated. His answers and attitude being quite unsatisfactory to his interlocutors, he was to be put on a train bound for Camp Douglas, IL, but died at the prison camp before embarking. One family story has Mr. Camp burying a sack full of gold coins on the back of his property, while family members delayed entry of the Yankees into his house.
Avery's dau., Eliza, married Robert Glenn, who was killed early in the War. Eliza earned her place in history as "The Widow Glenn" in the Official Report of the Rebellion series and an article in The New York Herald. The Widow Glenn had the misfortune to find her log cabin in the middle of the Battle of Chickamauga in 1863. Her home was occupied as the headquarters of Gen. Rosecrans, the Union commander. His interrogation of her was written about in New York newspapers. She refused to cooperate. On one occasion, a captured Confederate officer was brought to the cabin to be questioned. He also refused to cooperate, telling the General that "it has cost me a considerable amount of trouble to find your lines, General. If you put yourself to the same trouble, you will find ours."
The Widow Glenn stayed at her cabin during the battle, stubbornly refusing to leave, until a Confederate artillery shell struck it, at which point, she grabbed a duffle she had hastily packed, and escorted by her father's loyal slave, John Camp, left with her children, seeking safety with her Whitlow relatives near Cedar Grove in McLemore's Cove.
The Widow Glenn's cabin (reconstructed) is a point of interest at Chickamauga Battlefield National Park.
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Mention of the Yankee's "rendition" of men sympathetic to the Southern Cause was written about in a letter by Mary and Julia Ann Davis of Walker County, Ga. to Susan Davis of Dahlonega, Ga:
"July 13th, 1864
Dear Aunt,
We are getting along as well as we could under existing circumstances. Have plenty of Yankees in this Cove yet and we have got rid of some of our Tory neighbors. The Yankees took some of them to Chattanooga to give an account of their behavior and it is said they are after the others but it is most too good to be true. They paid us a visit last week and took a few bushels of corn and we had a good quarrel and I told them good about their behavior. They were riding Mr. Patton's horses, two of them. Oh! How I wanted to kill some of them. Times are pretty hot in this quarter. It is reported that they had a little fight about ten miles below here yesterday and we whipped them pretty badly and captured a good many prisoners and I wish it had been the last of them. Mary commenced writing but I will finish. I received two letters from you a few days ago. One was wrote last Fall. You said something about the money you owed me. I have no use for money so don't trouble yourself about it. I can't use what I have. We have troublesome times here. The Yankees is still gathering men and carrying them to Chattanooga. Some come back while others go North. Mr. Beard just got back. They kept him two weeks. They carried Lem McWhorter by here with five mules and one horse and several other men I did not know. What few men there is in here live in perfect dread. Mr. Whitlow slips in every once in a while. Sophronia thinks John had better not come in here until after this fight is over. They commenced fighting at Shudsie's Shop and run them some way to Crawfish Spring, others to Worthen's Gap. I look for hot times in here again. I am much obliged to you for your invitation but I think we had better stay in here as long as we can. We have some Yankee friends we can buy parched coffee at 40 cents a pound, bacon at 12 1/2 cents a pound but we can't keep a horse that is able to work. If Johnson don't whip this fight, we are ruined in this country. Miz Howell is keeping school for us. Miz Johnson has a good school in Lafayette and Sophronia wants John to bring Georgia Anne home to go to school when he comes. They have taken some of the men that has taken a non-combatment oath and made them take the oath of allegiance. We are all getting along very well and I think John had better not come in here until after he sees a little further for he can't do us any good. You must excuse this writing but I have not time to finish as Mr. Whitlow is agoing out. Write often. Give my love to all and accept a large portion for yourself.
Julia"
Mr. Whitlow was Miles Washington Whitlow, brother-in-law of Avery Camp. One of the men who was taken to Chattanooga and never heard from was Avery Camp.
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Avery Camp was taken as a hostage for the criminal actions of Captain John P. Gatewood, who answered to neither Confederate nor Union authority, on the orders of Maj. Gen. Thomas, Commander of the Department of the Cumberland. The Provost Marshal's ledger from the Chattanooga Prison indicated that Avery Camp was to be sent north to Camp Douglas, Ohio but was seized with an illness before the journey. As the news article indicates, he died in the Prison Hospital.
Gatewood was an outlaw who took advantage of the chaos in north Georgia. He operated out of McLemore's Cove for a period of time. On occasion, he would side with Confederate forces as he did in the following account of the skirmish in Lafayette by the 6th Georgia Cavalry and Yankee scouts. Note that this was the unit in which Avery Camp served at the time. The account mentions Mr. Patton, who is also referenced in the Davis letter above. "Wilce" Boss was Wilson Boss, son of Henry Boss, Sr., who was Avery Camp's brother-in-law, both having married daughters of Bolden Whitlow:
SKIRMISH AT LAFAYETTE AS REMEMBERED BY ONE WHO PARTICIPATED
(pp. 232-34, History of Walker County, Georgia, Sartain)
By Judge John W. Maddox
Having been requested by the historical committee of the U. D. C. to relate some of my personal experiences during our late War Between the States, I have selected one that happened at LaFayette.
I was a member of the Sixth Georgia Cavalry. In the fall of 1863 it was attached to the command of General Wheeler. As my recollection serves me, it was about the middle of August, 1864, while we were at Atlanta, General Wheeler was ordered to make that long raid in the rear of General Sherman's way up in Tennessee near Nashville, for the purpose of cutting his communications etc. On our return, we came out through middle Tennessee, crossed the Tennessee river at Muscle Shoals in Alabama and started on our way back to Georgia to join General Hood. Then, we arrived in the neighborhood of Cave Spring, Georgia, we were ordered to strike the W. & A. R. R. between Resaca and Dalton, and destroy the track, trains, and bridges.
Our regiment was ordered to LaFayette to guard the left flank of general Wheeler while he was moving on Dalton. We had been marching ll days when this order was received. We at once started for LaFayette, crossed the Coosa river at Veal's Ferry, twelve miles south of Rome, and reached the Bouchillon place (now known as Sprite) on the Central Railroad, where we stopped for some hours and fed our horses. We then counted and resumed our march for LaFayette, going directly to Summerville, and then to LaFayette, arriving there, as I now remember, about 10 o'clock in the morning. In LaFayette we stopped behind the old court house and dismounted. Pickets were thrown out on the roads leading east, west and north.
Very soon after our arrival the noted guerrilla, Gatewood, with five or six of his men, came into LaFayette from the east, where it was reported that they had hung a man that day or the day before by the name of Burton. Lieut. Joel Weathers [Withers], with two or three men, was sent out on the road north on a scout. The balance of us were soon asleep on the ground. Major John T. Burns was in command and was lying on the porch of the old Caldwell Hotel that stood on the west corner of the square. Col. Hart had stopped back at Mr. Patton's on the south side of the creek to prepare some dispatches. While we were asleep, being completely worn out, the bugle sounded, "mount up." We sprang to our horses immediately. Major Burns rushed from the portico, where he had been asleep, sprang on his horse, and ordered the first and second squadron to form on the north side of the court house and the third and fourth to form where they stood. This order was instantly obeyed, and before we had gotten into line on the north side we heard a number of shots fired in the direction of Chattanooga, at the same time we saw Lieut. Weathers [Withers] and the pickets coming down the road, about where Mrs. Warthen lives, about as fast as they could.
Immediately behind them was a company of Yankee cavalry charging upon us with drawn sabres, and yelling like mad men. Major Burns ordered us to follow him, and he made a dash for them right up the road toward Chattanooga. This was wholly unexpected by the Yankees, as they thought no one was in LaFayette except a few scouts as we after-wards learned. They soon discovered they had a fight on their hands. They turned to run, and it was then a race till they were all killed or captured. It is my recollection now that only one of their men escaped. He was mounted on a white horse and he got away by simply out-running us. We could not catch him on account of the exhausted condition of our horses, although some of our men followed him almost to Rock Springs. Our horses were already exhausted before this chase began. About a mile north of LaFayette, as I now remember, we gathered all of our prisoners together in a field.
About that time Col. Hart caught up with us, and Gatewood, who had joined with us in the chase, came up and demanded that the prisoners be turned over to him. Col. Hart had evidently never seen Gatewood before for he at once demanded to know who he was, and when informed, he immediately, in that sharp and decisive manner for which he was noted, informed Gatewood that the prisoners had been captured by his men and that they would be turned over to the regularly constituted authorities authorized to receive them by the Confederacy. Up to this time the prisoners thought they had been captured by the guerrillas and expected to be shot, but when they were informed that they were in the hands of the regular soldiers and would be treated as prisoners of war, this information made them the happiest men I ever saw. We did not need any guard to keep them, for they stuck to us like brothers. We picked up the wounded and carried them back to the old Goree house and left them with Dr. Gordon, who lived there then. Col. Hart detailed one or two of the prisoners to stay and wait on them. These plead with Col. Hart not to leave them, as they were confident the guerrillas would kill them. Col. Hart sent for Gatewood and told him of the fears of these men, said he was going to leave them in Gatewood's charge, telling Gatewood that if a hair of their head was hurt he would hold him personally responsible. What became of them I do not know.
That night we camped in a pine thicket just east of Mr. Clemmon's house, three miles south of LaFayette. The next morning we joined our brigade at Villanow and moved on to Dalton. This incident about which I have written was in October, 1864. Anyone interested in this incident and desiring to get fuller particulars as to it can call on my friend and comrade, whom I am glad to say is still alive and lives near LaFayette, Wiltz Boss, who was in this "scrap" and knows all about it.
Note: Lt. Joel Withers is the same one mentioned earlier who was Sheriff of Walker Co., GA. He was promoted to Captain before war's end. His death is mentioned in the Mary Camp Shaw letter to Allie Whitlow Powell in March, 1881: "There has been so much sickness within the last few days. Captain Withers of Lafayette died of pneumonia, sick 8 days. One of Dirt Town's most prominent men died in two days of typhoid and pneumonia."
Wiltz Boss, mentioned above, was the son of Henry W. Boss, Sr., who was Avery Camp's brother-in-law.
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The Widow Glenn's House
(History of Walker County, Georgia, Sartain, pp. 109-110)
At the beginning of the war, this place was the home of John Glenn, his wife Eliza (Camp) Glenn, and their one child, Avery C. Glenn, about two years old. John Glenn promptly entered the Confederate Army in the spring or summer of 1861, and his family never saw him again. He died in a Confederate hospital at Mobile, Alabama, some time before the battle of Chickamauga, and Mrs. Glenn was, therefore, appropriately referrred to as "the Widow Glenn." The second child of Mr. and Mrs. Glenn, Ella Nora Glenn, was born Dec. 4, 1861, after her father had enlisted, and he never saw his little daughter.
When John Glenn went to the Army, Mrs. Glenn's father, Avery Camp, who lived near Pond Spring, some six miles to the south, sent her one of his slaves, John Camp, to protect the family and take care of the farm. This humble black man had been true to his trust and in her hour of need Mrs. Glenn turned to him. He put Mrs. Glenn and the two little children, and such articles as they could hurriedly snatch up, into a wagon and went toward the northwest, where they spent the rest of the day and night at the [Whitlows.] The next day the tide of battle swept round this house also, and they were again compelled to retreat, this time by a circuitous route, to the home of Mrs. Glenn's father, Avery Camp, near Pond Spring.
After the close of the war, Mrs. Glenn remarried, her second husband being W.B. Compton of Chickamauga, Georgia. She died twenty-five years ago.
Avery C. Glenn, her eldest child, grew to manhood and for many years was an honored citizen of Chattanooga. He was a merchant, carrying on a retail clothing business in partnership with James M. Shaw [his cousin], under the firm name of Glenn and Shaw. He died some ten years ago. The daughter, Ella Nora Glenn, grew to womanhood and married Dr. D.G. Elder of Chickamauga, Georgia. She died Aug. 28, 1895.
The shades of sixty years have fallen between the present and those tragic days of 1863. The great commanders are all dead and all but a few aged and broken heroes of the rank and file have answered the last call. Gone are the charging legions, the fierce war cries, the thunder crash of battle. The little children who shivered about that desolate campfire, cold, hungry and frightened, have grown to maturity and thence into old age; they have scattered to distant parts, and with a lingering exception here and there, have passed altogether from the earth. The simple record of these humble kindly people shows that they acquitted themselves with honor in the work that fell to their hands. By the fortunes of war, they stood in the path of the tempest and received its hardest blows; but by a divine compensation their names have been woven in indelible colors into the fabric of history, and so long as men shall journey here to take inspiration from the courage and devotion of those who made this ground immortal, those names will mark the high spots of gallant and deathless endeavor.
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Chattanooga Daily Gazette, x 26 Jan 1865: "Died - Avery Camp, who was held in the District Prison as a hostage for the action of Gatewood's gang of outlaws, died in the Prison Hospital in this City, Monday last."
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Avery Camp was born 1811 in Jackson County, Georgia, the son of Robert Berry Camp and Mary "Polly" Pierce. The father was a native of North Carolina. The mother hailed from Greene and Jackson Co., Ga.
Avery moved to Walker County, along with his father-in-law, Bolden Whitlow, and five brothers-in-law, about 1838. He settled, along with others of his family, on a fertile tract of land in McLemore's Cove that he won in the Georgia Land Lottery, Lot 51, 9th District, 4th Section, in what was then Cherokee County, later Walker County.
Avery served as a Private in Captain Hall's Company (Pond Springs Cavalry) of Culberson's Battalion, Georgia Cavalry. This was Co. E of the 6th Battalion Georgia Cavalry, State Guards.
According to "Chickamauga Yesteryear", Avery was forcibly taken from his home sometime around Christmas of 1864, and marched to the Union Prison Camp in Chattanooga to be sent to Camp Douglas, Illinois. He died in the Prison Hospital before making the trip North.
Avery Camp was married three times. His first wife was Nancy Mae Whitlow, who he married on 6 Mar 1830 in Walton County, Georgia. She was the daughter of Bolden Whitlow and Mary Stewart of Halifax Co., VA and Walker Co., Ga. They had four children together. Nancy Mae died about 1849 and Avery Camp remarried to Sarah Childress in 1851. She was the sister of Susan Childress who married Avery's brother-in-law, Henry Boss. Sarah and Avery had four children before she died in Jan, 1859. Avery remarried a third time to Martha Jenkins on 19 Oct 1859 in Chattanooga, Hamilton Co., TN and they had three children together.
1840 census, Walker county, Georgia, page 86: Avery Camp
1850 census, Walker County, Georgia:
Avery Camp 39 M Ga.
Sarah Camp 23 F SC
Robert Camp 12 M Ga.
Eliza Camp 10 F Ga.
Susan Camp 8 F Ga.
1860 census, Pond Spring, Walker County:
A Camp, 48, farmer, GA, $4000/$20,000 * spelled Kamp
Susan, 19 *married within the year
James 10
Merritt 8
Avery B 5
Caswell 3
Merritt Camp was living with John Gholston Whitlow in Parker Co., TX in 1880. J.G. Whitlow was the son of Miles Washington Whitlow, the brother of Nancy Mae Whitlow Camp.
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Walker County Messenger, x 10 Feb 1881:
Captain Joel [Withers] passed through here Saturday. We don't like to see Sheriffs so far from home. They might be on business. When I heard someone wondering who he was after, I thought of an incident that occurred many years ago. I was in the woods with a negro, named Ed, when he saw three men coming toward us. I told him it was the Sheriff and his posse and that they must be after one of us, and as I had never done anything, it must be you they are after. He turned as white as possible for him to, and looked up and said: "I have done paid Mr. Bailey two dollars for his old sow, and Mr. Whitlow was to pay him the other two." When the Sheriff's posse rode past us, old Ed mumbled something about letting by-gones be, and went back to work with renewed vigor, having gotten a new lease on life." - The Editor.
Mr. Whitlow is Miles W. Whitlow and Mr. Bailey, his nephew, son of William "Buck" Bailey, who died in 1839. Miles Whitlow and Buck Bailey were brothers-in-law of Avery Camp.
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Walker County Messenger, x 27 Jan 1881:
"Uncle and Cousin: Squire Mr. James Bonds and Mr. W.B. Cumpton were all in town on Monday. The Squire is one of those lovable, genial, kind-hearted old men that it is a pleasure to meet. We believe if the right sort of widow would come along and ask him to go back to Eureka Springs, he would go. May Time lay its hand lightly on him."
Judge James Madison Bonds was the brother-in-law of Avery Camp. W.B. Cumpton was a relation to both, having married "the Widow Glenn", Eliza Camp Glenn, the daughter of Avery Camp and Nancy Mae Whitlow.
Avery Camp was taken by the Yankees with force from his home in Walker Co. to the Chattanooga depot where he was interrogated. His answers and attitude being quite unsatisfactory to his interlocutors, he was to be put on a train bound for Camp Douglas, IL, but died at the prison camp before embarking. One family story has Mr. Camp burying a sack full of gold coins on the back of his property, while family members delayed entry of the Yankees into his house.
Avery's dau., Eliza, married Robert Glenn, who was killed early in the War. Eliza earned her place in history as "The Widow Glenn" in the Official Report of the Rebellion series and an article in The New York Herald. The Widow Glenn had the misfortune to find her log cabin in the middle of the Battle of Chickamauga in 1863. Her home was occupied as the headquarters of Gen. Rosecrans, the Union commander. His interrogation of her was written about in New York newspapers. She refused to cooperate. On one occasion, a captured Confederate officer was brought to the cabin to be questioned. He also refused to cooperate, telling the General that "it has cost me a considerable amount of trouble to find your lines, General. If you put yourself to the same trouble, you will find ours."
The Widow Glenn stayed at her cabin during the battle, stubbornly refusing to leave, until a Confederate artillery shell struck it, at which point, she grabbed a duffle she had hastily packed, and escorted by her father's loyal slave, John Camp, left with her children, seeking safety with her Whitlow relatives near Cedar Grove in McLemore's Cove.
The Widow Glenn's cabin (reconstructed) is a point of interest at Chickamauga Battlefield National Park.
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Mention of the Yankee's "rendition" of men sympathetic to the Southern Cause was written about in a letter by Mary and Julia Ann Davis of Walker County, Ga. to Susan Davis of Dahlonega, Ga:
"July 13th, 1864
Dear Aunt,
We are getting along as well as we could under existing circumstances. Have plenty of Yankees in this Cove yet and we have got rid of some of our Tory neighbors. The Yankees took some of them to Chattanooga to give an account of their behavior and it is said they are after the others but it is most too good to be true. They paid us a visit last week and took a few bushels of corn and we had a good quarrel and I told them good about their behavior. They were riding Mr. Patton's horses, two of them. Oh! How I wanted to kill some of them. Times are pretty hot in this quarter. It is reported that they had a little fight about ten miles below here yesterday and we whipped them pretty badly and captured a good many prisoners and I wish it had been the last of them. Mary commenced writing but I will finish. I received two letters from you a few days ago. One was wrote last Fall. You said something about the money you owed me. I have no use for money so don't trouble yourself about it. I can't use what I have. We have troublesome times here. The Yankees is still gathering men and carrying them to Chattanooga. Some come back while others go North. Mr. Beard just got back. They kept him two weeks. They carried Lem McWhorter by here with five mules and one horse and several other men I did not know. What few men there is in here live in perfect dread. Mr. Whitlow slips in every once in a while. Sophronia thinks John had better not come in here until after this fight is over. They commenced fighting at Shudsie's Shop and run them some way to Crawfish Spring, others to Worthen's Gap. I look for hot times in here again. I am much obliged to you for your invitation but I think we had better stay in here as long as we can. We have some Yankee friends we can buy parched coffee at 40 cents a pound, bacon at 12 1/2 cents a pound but we can't keep a horse that is able to work. If Johnson don't whip this fight, we are ruined in this country. Miz Howell is keeping school for us. Miz Johnson has a good school in Lafayette and Sophronia wants John to bring Georgia Anne home to go to school when he comes. They have taken some of the men that has taken a non-combatment oath and made them take the oath of allegiance. We are all getting along very well and I think John had better not come in here until after he sees a little further for he can't do us any good. You must excuse this writing but I have not time to finish as Mr. Whitlow is agoing out. Write often. Give my love to all and accept a large portion for yourself.
Julia"
Mr. Whitlow was Miles Washington Whitlow, brother-in-law of Avery Camp. One of the men who was taken to Chattanooga and never heard from was Avery Camp.
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Avery Camp was taken as a hostage for the criminal actions of Captain John P. Gatewood, who answered to neither Confederate nor Union authority, on the orders of Maj. Gen. Thomas, Commander of the Department of the Cumberland. The Provost Marshal's ledger from the Chattanooga Prison indicated that Avery Camp was to be sent north to Camp Douglas, Ohio but was seized with an illness before the journey. As the news article indicates, he died in the Prison Hospital.
Gatewood was an outlaw who took advantage of the chaos in north Georgia. He operated out of McLemore's Cove for a period of time. On occasion, he would side with Confederate forces as he did in the following account of the skirmish in Lafayette by the 6th Georgia Cavalry and Yankee scouts. Note that this was the unit in which Avery Camp served at the time. The account mentions Mr. Patton, who is also referenced in the Davis letter above. "Wilce" Boss was Wilson Boss, son of Henry Boss, Sr., who was Avery Camp's brother-in-law, both having married daughters of Bolden Whitlow:
SKIRMISH AT LAFAYETTE AS REMEMBERED BY ONE WHO PARTICIPATED
(pp. 232-34, History of Walker County, Georgia, Sartain)
By Judge John W. Maddox
Having been requested by the historical committee of the U. D. C. to relate some of my personal experiences during our late War Between the States, I have selected one that happened at LaFayette.
I was a member of the Sixth Georgia Cavalry. In the fall of 1863 it was attached to the command of General Wheeler. As my recollection serves me, it was about the middle of August, 1864, while we were at Atlanta, General Wheeler was ordered to make that long raid in the rear of General Sherman's way up in Tennessee near Nashville, for the purpose of cutting his communications etc. On our return, we came out through middle Tennessee, crossed the Tennessee river at Muscle Shoals in Alabama and started on our way back to Georgia to join General Hood. Then, we arrived in the neighborhood of Cave Spring, Georgia, we were ordered to strike the W. & A. R. R. between Resaca and Dalton, and destroy the track, trains, and bridges.
Our regiment was ordered to LaFayette to guard the left flank of general Wheeler while he was moving on Dalton. We had been marching ll days when this order was received. We at once started for LaFayette, crossed the Coosa river at Veal's Ferry, twelve miles south of Rome, and reached the Bouchillon place (now known as Sprite) on the Central Railroad, where we stopped for some hours and fed our horses. We then counted and resumed our march for LaFayette, going directly to Summerville, and then to LaFayette, arriving there, as I now remember, about 10 o'clock in the morning. In LaFayette we stopped behind the old court house and dismounted. Pickets were thrown out on the roads leading east, west and north.
Very soon after our arrival the noted guerrilla, Gatewood, with five or six of his men, came into LaFayette from the east, where it was reported that they had hung a man that day or the day before by the name of Burton. Lieut. Joel Weathers [Withers], with two or three men, was sent out on the road north on a scout. The balance of us were soon asleep on the ground. Major John T. Burns was in command and was lying on the porch of the old Caldwell Hotel that stood on the west corner of the square. Col. Hart had stopped back at Mr. Patton's on the south side of the creek to prepare some dispatches. While we were asleep, being completely worn out, the bugle sounded, "mount up." We sprang to our horses immediately. Major Burns rushed from the portico, where he had been asleep, sprang on his horse, and ordered the first and second squadron to form on the north side of the court house and the third and fourth to form where they stood. This order was instantly obeyed, and before we had gotten into line on the north side we heard a number of shots fired in the direction of Chattanooga, at the same time we saw Lieut. Weathers [Withers] and the pickets coming down the road, about where Mrs. Warthen lives, about as fast as they could.
Immediately behind them was a company of Yankee cavalry charging upon us with drawn sabres, and yelling like mad men. Major Burns ordered us to follow him, and he made a dash for them right up the road toward Chattanooga. This was wholly unexpected by the Yankees, as they thought no one was in LaFayette except a few scouts as we after-wards learned. They soon discovered they had a fight on their hands. They turned to run, and it was then a race till they were all killed or captured. It is my recollection now that only one of their men escaped. He was mounted on a white horse and he got away by simply out-running us. We could not catch him on account of the exhausted condition of our horses, although some of our men followed him almost to Rock Springs. Our horses were already exhausted before this chase began. About a mile north of LaFayette, as I now remember, we gathered all of our prisoners together in a field.
About that time Col. Hart caught up with us, and Gatewood, who had joined with us in the chase, came up and demanded that the prisoners be turned over to him. Col. Hart had evidently never seen Gatewood before for he at once demanded to know who he was, and when informed, he immediately, in that sharp and decisive manner for which he was noted, informed Gatewood that the prisoners had been captured by his men and that they would be turned over to the regularly constituted authorities authorized to receive them by the Confederacy. Up to this time the prisoners thought they had been captured by the guerrillas and expected to be shot, but when they were informed that they were in the hands of the regular soldiers and would be treated as prisoners of war, this information made them the happiest men I ever saw. We did not need any guard to keep them, for they stuck to us like brothers. We picked up the wounded and carried them back to the old Goree house and left them with Dr. Gordon, who lived there then. Col. Hart detailed one or two of the prisoners to stay and wait on them. These plead with Col. Hart not to leave them, as they were confident the guerrillas would kill them. Col. Hart sent for Gatewood and told him of the fears of these men, said he was going to leave them in Gatewood's charge, telling Gatewood that if a hair of their head was hurt he would hold him personally responsible. What became of them I do not know.
That night we camped in a pine thicket just east of Mr. Clemmon's house, three miles south of LaFayette. The next morning we joined our brigade at Villanow and moved on to Dalton. This incident about which I have written was in October, 1864. Anyone interested in this incident and desiring to get fuller particulars as to it can call on my friend and comrade, whom I am glad to say is still alive and lives near LaFayette, Wiltz Boss, who was in this "scrap" and knows all about it.
Note: Lt. Joel Withers is the same one mentioned earlier who was Sheriff of Walker Co., GA. He was promoted to Captain before war's end. His death is mentioned in the Mary Camp Shaw letter to Allie Whitlow Powell in March, 1881: "There has been so much sickness within the last few days. Captain Withers of Lafayette died of pneumonia, sick 8 days. One of Dirt Town's most prominent men died in two days of typhoid and pneumonia."
Wiltz Boss, mentioned above, was the son of Henry W. Boss, Sr., who was Avery Camp's brother-in-law.
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The Widow Glenn's House
(History of Walker County, Georgia, Sartain, pp. 109-110)
At the beginning of the war, this place was the home of John Glenn, his wife Eliza (Camp) Glenn, and their one child, Avery C. Glenn, about two years old. John Glenn promptly entered the Confederate Army in the spring or summer of 1861, and his family never saw him again. He died in a Confederate hospital at Mobile, Alabama, some time before the battle of Chickamauga, and Mrs. Glenn was, therefore, appropriately referrred to as "the Widow Glenn." The second child of Mr. and Mrs. Glenn, Ella Nora Glenn, was born Dec. 4, 1861, after her father had enlisted, and he never saw his little daughter.
When John Glenn went to the Army, Mrs. Glenn's father, Avery Camp, who lived near Pond Spring, some six miles to the south, sent her one of his slaves, John Camp, to protect the family and take care of the farm. This humble black man had been true to his trust and in her hour of need Mrs. Glenn turned to him. He put Mrs. Glenn and the two little children, and such articles as they could hurriedly snatch up, into a wagon and went toward the northwest, where they spent the rest of the day and night at the [Whitlows.] The next day the tide of battle swept round this house also, and they were again compelled to retreat, this time by a circuitous route, to the home of Mrs. Glenn's father, Avery Camp, near Pond Spring.
After the close of the war, Mrs. Glenn remarried, her second husband being W.B. Compton of Chickamauga, Georgia. She died twenty-five years ago.
Avery C. Glenn, her eldest child, grew to manhood and for many years was an honored citizen of Chattanooga. He was a merchant, carrying on a retail clothing business in partnership with James M. Shaw [his cousin], under the firm name of Glenn and Shaw. He died some ten years ago. The daughter, Ella Nora Glenn, grew to womanhood and married Dr. D.G. Elder of Chickamauga, Georgia. She died Aug. 28, 1895.
The shades of sixty years have fallen between the present and those tragic days of 1863. The great commanders are all dead and all but a few aged and broken heroes of the rank and file have answered the last call. Gone are the charging legions, the fierce war cries, the thunder crash of battle. The little children who shivered about that desolate campfire, cold, hungry and frightened, have grown to maturity and thence into old age; they have scattered to distant parts, and with a lingering exception here and there, have passed altogether from the earth. The simple record of these humble kindly people shows that they acquitted themselves with honor in the work that fell to their hands. By the fortunes of war, they stood in the path of the tempest and received its hardest blows; but by a divine compensation their names have been woven in indelible colors into the fabric of history, and so long as men shall journey here to take inspiration from the courage and devotion of those who made this ground immortal, those names will mark the high spots of gallant and deathless endeavor.
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AVERY CAMP 1811 - 1865
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Chattanooga Daily Gazette, x 26 Jan 1865: "Died - Avery Camp, who was held in the District Prison as a hostage for the action of Gatewood's gang of outlaws, died in the Prison Hospital in this City, Monday last."
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Avery Camp was born 1811 in Jackson County, Georgia, the son of Robert Berry Camp and Mary "Polly" Pierce. The father was a native of North Carolina. The mother hailed from Greene and Jackson Co., Ga.
Avery moved to Walker County, along with his father-in-law, Bolden Whitlow, and five brothers-in-law, about 1838. He settled, along with others of his family, on a fertile tract of land in McLemore's Cove that he won in the Georgia Land Lottery, Lot 51, 9th District, 4th Section, in what was then Cherokee County, later Walker County.
Avery served as a Private in Captain Hall's Company (Pond Springs Cavalry) of Culberson's Battalion, Georgia Cavalry. This was Co. E of the 6th Battalion Georgia Cavalry, State Guards.
According to "Chickamauga Yesteryear", Avery was forcibly taken from his home sometime around Christmas of 1864, and marched to the Union Prison Camp in Chattanooga to be sent to Camp Douglas, Illinois. He died in the Prison Hospital before making the trip North.
Avery Camp was married three times. His first wife was Nancy Mae Whitlow, who he married on 6 Mar 1830 in Walton County, Georgia. She was the daughter of Bolden Whitlow and Mary Stewart of Halifax Co., VA and Walker Co., Ga. They had four children together. Nancy Mae died about 1849 and Avery Camp remarried to Sarah Childress in 1851. She was the sister of Susan Childress who married Avery's brother-in-law, Henry Boss. Sarah and Avery had four children before she died in Jan, 1859. Avery remarried a third time to Martha Jenkins on 19 Oct 1859 in Chattanooga, Hamilton Co., TN and they had three children together.
1840 census, Walker county, Georgia, page 86: Avery Camp
1850 census, Walker County, Georgia:
Avery Camp 39 M Ga.
Sarah Camp 23 F SC
Robert Camp 12 M Ga.
Eliza Camp 10 F Ga.
Susan Camp 8 F Ga.
1860 census, Pond Spring, Walker County:
A Camp, 48, farmer, GA, $4000/$20,000 * spelled Kamp
Susan, 19 *married within the year
James 10
Merritt 8
Avery B 5
Caswell 3
Merritt Camp was living with John Gholston Whitlow in Parker Co., TX in 1880. J.G. Whitlow was the son of Miles Washington Whitlow, the brother of Nancy Mae Whitlow Camp.
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Walker County Messenger, x 10 Feb 1881:
Captain Joel [Withers] passed through here Saturday. We don't like to see Sheriffs so far from home. They might be on business. When I heard someone wondering who he was after, I thought of an incident that occurred many years ago. I was in the woods with a negro, named Ed, when he saw three men coming toward us. I told him it was the Sheriff and his posse and that they must be after one of us, and as I had never done anything, it must be you they are after. He turned as white as possible for him to, and looked up and said: "I have done paid Mr. Bailey two dollars for his old sow, and Mr. Whitlow was to pay him the other two." When the Sheriff's posse rode past us, old Ed mumbled something about letting by-gones be, and went back to work with renewed vigor, having gotten a new lease on life." - The Editor.
Mr. Whitlow is Miles W. Whitlow and Mr. Bailey, his nephew, son of William "Buck" Bailey, who died in 1839. Miles Whitlow and Buck Bailey were brothers-in-law of Avery Camp.
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Walker County Messenger, x 27 Jan 1881:
"Uncle and Cousin: Squire Mr. James Bonds and Mr. W.B. Cumpton were all in town on Monday. The Squire is one of those lovable, genial, kind-hearted old men that it is a pleasure to meet. We believe if the right sort of widow would come along and ask him to go back to Eureka Springs, he would go. May Time lay its hand lightly on him."
Judge James Madison Bonds was the brother-in-law of Avery Camp. W.B. Cumpton was a relation to both, having married "the Widow Glenn", Eliza Camp Glenn, the daughter of Avery Camp and Nancy Mae Whitlow.
Avery Camp was taken by the Yankees with force from his home in Walker Co. to the Chattanooga depot where he was interrogated. His answers and attitude being quite unsatisfactory to his interlocutors, he was to be put on a train bound for Camp Douglas, IL, but died at the prison camp before embarking. One family story has Mr. Camp burying a sack full of gold coins on the back of his property, while family members delayed entry of the Yankees into his house.
Avery's dau., Eliza, married Robert Glenn, who was killed early in the War. Eliza earned her place in history as "The Widow Glenn" in the Official Report of the Rebellion series and an article in The New York Herald. The Widow Glenn had the misfortune to find her log cabin in the middle of the Battle of Chickamauga in 1863. Her home was occupied as the headquarters of Gen. Rosecrans, the Union commander. His interrogation of her was written about in New York newspapers. She refused to cooperate. On one occasion, a captured Confederate officer was brought to the cabin to be questioned. He also refused to cooperate, telling the General that "it has cost me a considerable amount of trouble to find your lines, General. If you put yourself to the same trouble, you will find ours."
The Widow Glenn stayed at her cabin during the battle, stubbornly refusing to leave, until a Confederate artillery shell struck it, at which point, she grabbed a duffle she had hastily packed, and escorted by her father's loyal slave, John Camp, left with her children, seeking safety with her Whitlow relatives near Cedar Grove in McLemore's Cove.
The Widow Glenn's cabin (reconstructed) is a point of interest at Chickamauga Battlefield National Park.
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Mention of the Yankee's "rendition" of men sympathetic to the Southern Cause was written about in a letter by Mary and Julia Ann Davis of Walker County, Ga. to Susan Davis of Dahlonega, Ga:
"July 13th, 1864
Dear Aunt,
We are getting along as well as we could under existing circumstances. Have plenty of Yankees in this Cove yet and we have got rid of some of our Tory neighbors. The Yankees took some of them to Chattanooga to give an account of their behavior and it is said they are after the others but it is most too good to be true. They paid us a visit last week and took a few bushels of corn and we had a good quarrel and I told them good about their behavior. They were riding Mr. Patton's horses, two of them. Oh! How I wanted to kill some of them. Times are pretty hot in this quarter. It is reported that they had a little fight about ten miles below here yesterday and we whipped them pretty badly and captured a good many prisoners and I wish it had been the last of them. Mary commenced writing but I will finish. I received two letters from you a few days ago. One was wrote last Fall. You said something about the money you owed me. I have no use for money so don't trouble yourself about it. I can't use what I have. We have troublesome times here. The Yankees is still gathering men and carrying them to Chattanooga. Some come back while others go North. Mr. Beard just got back. They kept him two weeks. They carried Lem McWhorter by here with five mules and one horse and several other men I did not know. What few men there is in here live in perfect dread. Mr. Whitlow slips in every once in a while. Sophronia thinks John had better not come in here until after this fight is over. They commenced fighting at Shudsie's Shop and run them some way to Crawfish Spring, others to Worthen's Gap. I look for hot times in here again. I am much obliged to you for your invitation but I think we had better stay in here as long as we can. We have some Yankee friends we can buy parched coffee at 40 cents a pound, bacon at 12 1/2 cents a pound but we can't keep a horse that is able to work. If Johnson don't whip this fight, we are ruined in this country. Miz Howell is keeping school for us. Miz Johnson has a good school in Lafayette and Sophronia wants John to bring Georgia Anne home to go to school when he comes. They have taken some of the men that has taken a non-combatment oath and made them take the oath of allegiance. We are all getting along very well and I think John had better not come in here until after he sees a little further for he can't do us any good. You must excuse this writing but I have not time to finish as Mr. Whitlow is agoing out. Write often. Give my love to all and accept a large portion for yourself.
Julia"
Mr. Whitlow was Miles Washington Whitlow, brother-in-law of Avery Camp. One of the men who was taken to Chattanooga and never heard from was Avery Camp.
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Avery Camp was taken as a hostage for the criminal actions of Captain John P. Gatewood, who answered to neither Confederate nor Union authority, on the orders of Maj. Gen. Thomas, Commander of the Department of the Cumberland. The Provost Marshal's ledger from the Chattanooga Prison indicated that Avery Camp was to be sent north to Camp Douglas, Ohio but was seized with an illness before the journey. As the news article indicates, he died in the Prison Hospital.
Gatewood was an outlaw who took advantage of the chaos in north Georgia. He operated out of McLemore's Cove for a period of time. On occasion, he would side with Confederate forces as he did in the following account of the skirmish in Lafayette by the 6th Georgia Cavalry and Yankee scouts. Note that this was the unit in which Avery Camp served at the time. The account mentions Mr. Patton, who is also referenced in the Davis letter above. "Wilce" Boss was Wilson Boss, son of Henry Boss, Sr., who was Avery Camp's brother-in-law, both having married daughters of Bolden Whitlow:
SKIRMISH AT LAFAYETTE AS REMEMBERED BY ONE WHO PARTICIPATED
(pp. 232-34, History of Walker County, Georgia, Sartain)
By Judge John W. Maddox
Having been requested by the historical committee of the U. D. C. to relate some of my personal experiences during our late War Between the States, I have selected one that happened at LaFayette.
I was a member of the Sixth Georgia Cavalry. In the fall of 1863 it was attached to the command of General Wheeler. As my recollection serves me, it was about the middle of August, 1864, while we were at Atlanta, General Wheeler was ordered to make that long raid in the rear of General Sherman's way up in Tennessee near Nashville, for the purpose of cutting his communications etc. On our return, we came out through middle Tennessee, crossed the Tennessee river at Muscle Shoals in Alabama and started on our way back to Georgia to join General Hood. Then, we arrived in the neighborhood of Cave Spring, Georgia, we were ordered to strike the W. & A. R. R. between Resaca and Dalton, and destroy the track, trains, and bridges.
Our regiment was ordered to LaFayette to guard the left flank of general Wheeler while he was moving on Dalton. We had been marching ll days when this order was received. We at once started for LaFayette, crossed the Coosa river at Veal's Ferry, twelve miles south of Rome, and reached the Bouchillon place (now known as Sprite) on the Central Railroad, where we stopped for some hours and fed our horses. We then counted and resumed our march for LaFayette, going directly to Summerville, and then to LaFayette, arriving there, as I now remember, about 10 o'clock in the morning. In LaFayette we stopped behind the old court house and dismounted. Pickets were thrown out on the roads leading east, west and north.
Very soon after our arrival the noted guerrilla, Gatewood, with five or six of his men, came into LaFayette from the east, where it was reported that they had hung a man that day or the day before by the name of Burton. Lieut. Joel Weathers [Withers], with two or three men, was sent out on the road north on a scout. The balance of us were soon asleep on the ground. Major John T. Burns was in command and was lying on the porch of the old Caldwell Hotel that stood on the west corner of the square. Col. Hart had stopped back at Mr. Patton's on the south side of the creek to prepare some dispatches. While we were asleep, being completely worn out, the bugle sounded, "mount up." We sprang to our horses immediately. Major Burns rushed from the portico, where he had been asleep, sprang on his horse, and ordered the first and second squadron to form on the north side of the court house and the third and fourth to form where they stood. This order was instantly obeyed, and before we had gotten into line on the north side we heard a number of shots fired in the direction of Chattanooga, at the same time we saw Lieut. Weathers [Withers] and the pickets coming down the road, about where Mrs. Warthen lives, about as fast as they could.
Immediately behind them was a company of Yankee cavalry charging upon us with drawn sabres, and yelling like mad men. Major Burns ordered us to follow him, and he made a dash for them right up the road toward Chattanooga. This was wholly unexpected by the Yankees, as they thought no one was in LaFayette except a few scouts as we after-wards learned. They soon discovered they had a fight on their hands. They turned to run, and it was then a race till they were all killed or captured. It is my recollection now that only one of their men escaped. He was mounted on a white horse and he got away by simply out-running us. We could not catch him on account of the exhausted condition of our horses, although some of our men followed him almost to Rock Springs. Our horses were already exhausted before this chase began. About a mile north of LaFayette, as I now remember, we gathered all of our prisoners together in a field.
About that time Col. Hart caught up with us, and Gatewood, who had joined with us in the chase, came up and demanded that the prisoners be turned over to him. Col. Hart had evidently never seen Gatewood before for he at once demanded to know who he was, and when informed, he immediately, in that sharp and decisive manner for which he was noted, informed Gatewood that the prisoners had been captured by his men and that they would be turned over to the regularly constituted authorities authorized to receive them by the Confederacy. Up to this time the prisoners thought they had been captured by the guerrillas and expected to be shot, but when they were informed that they were in the hands of the regular soldiers and would be treated as prisoners of war, this information made them the happiest men I ever saw. We did not need any guard to keep them, for they stuck to us like brothers. We picked up the wounded and carried them back to the old Goree house and left them with Dr. Gordon, who lived there then. Col. Hart detailed one or two of the prisoners to stay and wait on them. These plead with Col. Hart not to leave them, as they were confident the guerrillas would kill them. Col. Hart sent for Gatewood and told him of the fears of these men, said he was going to leave them in Gatewood's charge, telling Gatewood that if a hair of their head was hurt he would hold him personally responsible. What became of them I do not know.
That night we camped in a pine thicket just east of Mr. Clemmon's house, three miles south of LaFayette. The next morning we joined our brigade at Villanow and moved on to Dalton. This incident about which I have written was in October, 1864. Anyone interested in this incident and desiring to get fuller particulars as to it can call on my friend and comrade, whom I am glad to say is still alive and lives near LaFayette, Wiltz Boss, who was in this "scrap" and knows all about it.
Note: Lt. Joel Withers is the same one mentioned earlier who was Sheriff of Walker Co., GA. He was promoted to Captain before war's end. His death is mentioned in the Mary Camp Shaw letter to Allie Whitlow Powell in March, 1881: "There has been so much sickness within the last few days. Captain Withers of Lafayette died of pneumonia, sick 8 days. One of Dirt Town's most prominent men died in two days of typhoid and pneumonia."
Wiltz Boss, mentioned above, was the son of Henry W. Boss, Sr., who was Avery Camp's brother-in-law.
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The Widow Glenn's House
(History of Walker County, Georgia, Sartain, pp. 109-110)
At the beginning of the war, this place was the home of John Glenn, his wife Eliza (Camp) Glenn, and their one child, Avery C. Glenn, about two years old. John Glenn promptly entered the Confederate Army in the spring or summer of 1861, and his family never saw him again. He died in a Confederate hospital at Mobile, Alabama, some time before the battle of Chickamauga, and Mrs. Glenn was, therefore, appropriately referrred to as "the Widow Glenn." The second child of Mr. and Mrs. Glenn, Ella Nora Glenn, was born Dec. 4, 1861, after her father had enlisted, and he never saw his little daughter.
When John Glenn went to the Army, Mrs. Glenn's father, Avery Camp, who lived near Pond Spring, some six miles to the south, sent her one of his slaves, John Camp, to protect the family and take care of the farm. This humble black man had been true to his trust and in her hour of need Mrs. Glenn turned to him. He put Mrs. Glenn and the two little children, and such articles as they could hurriedly snatch up, into a wagon and went toward the northwest, where they spent the rest of the day and night at the [Whitlows.] The next day the tide of battle swept round this house also, and they were again compelled to retreat, this time by a circuitous route, to the home of Mrs. Glenn's father, Avery Camp, near Pond Spring.
After the close of the war, Mrs. Glenn remarried, her second husband being W.B. Compton of Chickamauga, Georgia. She died twenty-five years ago.
Avery C. Glenn, her eldest child, grew to manhood and for many years was an honored citizen of Chattanooga. He was a merchant, carrying on a retail clothing business in partnership with James M. Shaw [his cousin], under the firm name of Glenn and Shaw. He died some ten years ago. The daughter, Ella Nora Glenn, grew to womanhood and married Dr. D.G. Elder of Chickamauga, Georgia. She died Aug. 28, 1895.
The shades of sixty years have fallen between the present and those tragic days of 1863. The great commanders are all dead and all but a few aged and broken heroes of the rank and file have answered the last call. Gone are the charging legions, the fierce war cries, the thunder crash of battle. The little children who shivered about that desolate campfire, cold, hungry and frightened, have grown to maturity and thence into old age; they have scattered to distant parts, and with a lingering exception here and there, have passed altogether from the earth. The simple record of these humble kindly people shows that they acquitted themselves with honor in the work that fell to their hands. By the fortunes of war, they stood in the path of the tempest and received its hardest blows; but by a divine compensation their names have been woven in indelible colors into the fabric of history, and so long as men shall journey here to take inspiration from the courage and devotion of those who made this ground immortal, those names will mark the high spots of gallant and deathless endeavor.
____________________________________________________________
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Chattanooga Daily Gazette, x 26 Jan 1865: "Died - Avery Camp, who was held in the District Prison as a hostage for the action of Gatewood's gang of outlaws, died in the Prison Hospital in this City, Monday last."
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Avery Camp was born 1811 in Jackson County, Georgia, the son of Robert Berry Camp and Mary "Polly" Pierce. The father was a native of North Carolina. The mother hailed from Greene and Jackson Co., Ga.
Avery moved to Walker County, along with his father-in-law, Bolden Whitlow, and five brothers-in-law, about 1838. He settled, along with others of his family, on a fertile tract of land in McLemore's Cove that he won in the Georgia Land Lottery, Lot 51, 9th District, 4th Section, in what was then Cherokee County, later Walker County.
Avery served as a Private in Captain Hall's Company (Pond Springs Cavalry) of Culberson's Battalion, Georgia Cavalry. This was Co. E of the 6th Battalion Georgia Cavalry, State Guards.
According to "Chickamauga Yesteryear", Avery was forcibly taken from his home sometime around Christmas of 1864, and marched to the Union Prison Camp in Chattanooga to be sent to Camp Douglas, Illinois. He died in the Prison Hospital before making the trip North.
Avery Camp was married three times. His first wife was Nancy Mae Whitlow, who he married on 6 Mar 1830 in Walton County, Georgia. She was the daughter of Bolden Whitlow and Mary Stewart of Halifax Co., VA and Walker Co., Ga. They had four children together. Nancy Mae died about 1849 and Avery Camp remarried to Sarah Childress in 1851. She was the sister of Susan Childress who married Avery's brother-in-law, Henry Boss. Sarah and Avery had four children before she died in Jan, 1859. Avery remarried a third time to Martha Jenkins on 19 Oct 1859 in Chattanooga, Hamilton Co., TN and they had three children together.
1840 census, Walker county, Georgia, page 86: Avery Camp
1850 census, Walker County, Georgia:
Avery Camp 39 M Ga.
Sarah Camp 23 F SC
Robert Camp 12 M Ga.
Eliza Camp 10 F Ga.
Susan Camp 8 F Ga.
1860 census, Pond Spring, Walker County:
A Camp, 48, farmer, GA, $4000/$20,000 * spelled Kamp
Susan, 19 *married within the year
James 10
Merritt 8
Avery B 5
Caswell 3
Merritt Camp was living with John Gholston Whitlow in Parker Co., TX in 1880. J.G. Whitlow was the son of Miles Washington Whitlow, the brother of Nancy Mae Whitlow Camp.
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Walker County Messenger, x 10 Feb 1881:
Captain Joel [Withers] passed through here Saturday. We don't like to see Sheriffs so far from home. They might be on business. When I heard someone wondering who he was after, I thought of an incident that occurred many years ago. I was in the woods with a negro, named Ed, when he saw three men coming toward us. I told him it was the Sheriff and his posse and that they must be after one of us, and as I had never done anything, it must be you they are after. He turned as white as possible for him to, and looked up and said: "I have done paid Mr. Bailey two dollars for his old sow, and Mr. Whitlow was to pay him the other two." When the Sheriff's posse rode past us, old Ed mumbled something about letting by-gones be, and went back to work with renewed vigor, having gotten a new lease on life." - The Editor.
Mr. Whitlow is Miles W. Whitlow and Mr. Bailey, his nephew, son of William "Buck" Bailey, who died in 1839. Miles Whitlow and Buck Bailey were brothers-in-law of Avery Camp.
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Walker County Messenger, x 27 Jan 1881:
"Uncle and Cousin: Squire Mr. James Bonds and Mr. W.B. Cumpton were all in town on Monday. The Squire is one of those lovable, genial, kind-hearted old men that it is a pleasure to meet. We believe if the right sort of widow would come along and ask him to go back to Eureka Springs, he would go. May Time lay its hand lightly on him."
Judge James Madison Bonds was the brother-in-law of Avery Camp. W.B. Cumpton was a relation to both, having married "the Widow Glenn", Eliza Camp Glenn, the daughter of Avery Camp and Nancy Mae Whitlow.
Avery Camp was taken by the Yankees with force from his home in Walker Co. to the Chattanooga depot where he was interrogated. His answers and attitude being quite unsatisfactory to his interlocutors, he was to be put on a train bound for Camp Douglas, IL, but died at the prison camp before embarking. One family story has Mr. Camp burying a sack full of gold coins on the back of his property, while family members delayed entry of the Yankees into his house.
Avery's dau., Eliza, married Robert Glenn, who was killed early in the War. Eliza earned her place in history as "The Widow Glenn" in the Official Report of the Rebellion series and an article in The New York Herald. The Widow Glenn had the misfortune to find her log cabin in the middle of the Battle of Chickamauga in 1863. Her home was occupied as the headquarters of Gen. Rosecrans, the Union commander. His interrogation of her was written about in New York newspapers. She refused to cooperate. On one occasion, a captured Confederate officer was brought to the cabin to be questioned. He also refused to cooperate, telling the General that "it has cost me a considerable amount of trouble to find your lines, General. If you put yourself to the same trouble, you will find ours."
The Widow Glenn stayed at her cabin during the battle, stubbornly refusing to leave, until a Confederate artillery shell struck it, at which point, she grabbed a duffle she had hastily packed, and escorted by her father's loyal slave, John Camp, left with her children, seeking safety with her Whitlow relatives near Cedar Grove in McLemore's Cove.
The Widow Glenn's cabin (reconstructed) is a point of interest at Chickamauga Battlefield National Park.
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Mention of the Yankee's "rendition" of men sympathetic to the Southern Cause was written about in a letter by Mary and Julia Ann Davis of Walker County, Ga. to Susan Davis of Dahlonega, Ga:
"July 13th, 1864
Dear Aunt,
We are getting along as well as we could under existing circumstances. Have plenty of Yankees in this Cove yet and we have got rid of some of our Tory neighbors. The Yankees took some of them to Chattanooga to give an account of their behavior and it is said they are after the others but it is most too good to be true. They paid us a visit last week and took a few bushels of corn and we had a good quarrel and I told them good about their behavior. They were riding Mr. Patton's horses, two of them. Oh! How I wanted to kill some of them. Times are pretty hot in this quarter. It is reported that they had a little fight about ten miles below here yesterday and we whipped them pretty badly and captured a good many prisoners and I wish it had been the last of them. Mary commenced writing but I will finish. I received two letters from you a few days ago. One was wrote last Fall. You said something about the money you owed me. I have no use for money so don't trouble yourself about it. I can't use what I have. We have troublesome times here. The Yankees is still gathering men and carrying them to Chattanooga. Some come back while others go North. Mr. Beard just got back. They kept him two weeks. They carried Lem McWhorter by here with five mules and one horse and several other men I did not know. What few men there is in here live in perfect dread. Mr. Whitlow slips in every once in a while. Sophronia thinks John had better not come in here until after this fight is over. They commenced fighting at Shudsie's Shop and run them some way to Crawfish Spring, others to Worthen's Gap. I look for hot times in here again. I am much obliged to you for your invitation but I think we had better stay in here as long as we can. We have some Yankee friends we can buy parched coffee at 40 cents a pound, bacon at 12 1/2 cents a pound but we can't keep a horse that is able to work. If Johnson don't whip this fight, we are ruined in this country. Miz Howell is keeping school for us. Miz Johnson has a good school in Lafayette and Sophronia wants John to bring Georgia Anne home to go to school when he comes. They have taken some of the men that has taken a non-combatment oath and made them take the oath of allegiance. We are all getting along very well and I think John had better not come in here until after he sees a little further for he can't do us any good. You must excuse this writing but I have not time to finish as Mr. Whitlow is agoing out. Write often. Give my love to all and accept a large portion for yourself.
Julia"
Mr. Whitlow was Miles Washington Whitlow, brother-in-law of Avery Camp. One of the men who was taken to Chattanooga and never heard from was Avery Camp.
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Avery Camp was taken as a hostage for the criminal actions of Captain John P. Gatewood, who answered to neither Confederate nor Union authority, on the orders of Maj. Gen. Thomas, Commander of the Department of the Cumberland. The Provost Marshal's ledger from the Chattanooga Prison indicated that Avery Camp was to be sent north to Camp Douglas, Ohio but was seized with an illness before the journey. As the news article indicates, he died in the Prison Hospital.
Gatewood was an outlaw who took advantage of the chaos in north Georgia. He operated out of McLemore's Cove for a period of time. On occasion, he would side with Confederate forces as he did in the following account of the skirmish in Lafayette by the 6th Georgia Cavalry and Yankee scouts. Note that this was the unit in which Avery Camp served at the time. The account mentions Mr. Patton, who is also referenced in the Davis letter above. "Wilce" Boss was Wilson Boss, son of Henry Boss, Sr., who was Avery Camp's brother-in-law, both having married daughters of Bolden Whitlow:
SKIRMISH AT LAFAYETTE AS REMEMBERED BY ONE WHO PARTICIPATED
(pp. 232-34, History of Walker County, Georgia, Sartain)
By Judge John W. Maddox
Having been requested by the historical committee of the U. D. C. to relate some of my personal experiences during our late War Between the States, I have selected one that happened at LaFayette.
I was a member of the Sixth Georgia Cavalry. In the fall of 1863 it was attached to the command of General Wheeler. As my recollection serves me, it was about the middle of August, 1864, while we were at Atlanta, General Wheeler was ordered to make that long raid in the rear of General Sherman's way up in Tennessee near Nashville, for the purpose of cutting his communications etc. On our return, we came out through middle Tennessee, crossed the Tennessee river at Muscle Shoals in Alabama and started on our way back to Georgia to join General Hood. Then, we arrived in the neighborhood of Cave Spring, Georgia, we were ordered to strike the W. & A. R. R. between Resaca and Dalton, and destroy the track, trains, and bridges.
Our regiment was ordered to LaFayette to guard the left flank of general Wheeler while he was moving on Dalton. We had been marching ll days when this order was received. We at once started for LaFayette, crossed the Coosa river at Veal's Ferry, twelve miles south of Rome, and reached the Bouchillon place (now known as Sprite) on the Central Railroad, where we stopped for some hours and fed our horses. We then counted and resumed our march for LaFayette, going directly to Summerville, and then to LaFayette, arriving there, as I now remember, about 10 o'clock in the morning. In LaFayette we stopped behind the old court house and dismounted. Pickets were thrown out on the roads leading east, west and north.
Very soon after our arrival the noted guerrilla, Gatewood, with five or six of his men, came into LaFayette from the east, where it was reported that they had hung a man that day or the day before by the name of Burton. Lieut. Joel Weathers [Withers], with two or three men, was sent out on the road north on a scout. The balance of us were soon asleep on the ground. Major John T. Burns was in command and was lying on the porch of the old Caldwell Hotel that stood on the west corner of the square. Col. Hart had stopped back at Mr. Patton's on the south side of the creek to prepare some dispatches. While we were asleep, being completely worn out, the bugle sounded, "mount up." We sprang to our horses immediately. Major Burns rushed from the portico, where he had been asleep, sprang on his horse, and ordered the first and second squadron to form on the north side of the court house and the third and fourth to form where they stood. This order was instantly obeyed, and before we had gotten into line on the north side we heard a number of shots fired in the direction of Chattanooga, at the same time we saw Lieut. Weathers [Withers] and the pickets coming down the road, about where Mrs. Warthen lives, about as fast as they could.
Immediately behind them was a company of Yankee cavalry charging upon us with drawn sabres, and yelling like mad men. Major Burns ordered us to follow him, and he made a dash for them right up the road toward Chattanooga. This was wholly unexpected by the Yankees, as they thought no one was in LaFayette except a few scouts as we after-wards learned. They soon discovered they had a fight on their hands. They turned to run, and it was then a race till they were all killed or captured. It is my recollection now that only one of their men escaped. He was mounted on a white horse and he got away by simply out-running us. We could not catch him on account of the exhausted condition of our horses, although some of our men followed him almost to Rock Springs. Our horses were already exhausted before this chase began. About a mile north of LaFayette, as I now remember, we gathered all of our prisoners together in a field.
About that time Col. Hart caught up with us, and Gatewood, who had joined with us in the chase, came up and demanded that the prisoners be turned over to him. Col. Hart had evidently never seen Gatewood before for he at once demanded to know who he was, and when informed, he immediately, in that sharp and decisive manner for which he was noted, informed Gatewood that the prisoners had been captured by his men and that they would be turned over to the regularly constituted authorities authorized to receive them by the Confederacy. Up to this time the prisoners thought they had been captured by the guerrillas and expected to be shot, but when they were informed that they were in the hands of the regular soldiers and would be treated as prisoners of war, this information made them the happiest men I ever saw. We did not need any guard to keep them, for they stuck to us like brothers. We picked up the wounded and carried them back to the old Goree house and left them with Dr. Gordon, who lived there then. Col. Hart detailed one or two of the prisoners to stay and wait on them. These plead with Col. Hart not to leave them, as they were confident the guerrillas would kill them. Col. Hart sent for Gatewood and told him of the fears of these men, said he was going to leave them in Gatewood's charge, telling Gatewood that if a hair of their head was hurt he would hold him personally responsible. What became of them I do not know.
That night we camped in a pine thicket just east of Mr. Clemmon's house, three miles south of LaFayette. The next morning we joined our brigade at Villanow and moved on to Dalton. This incident about which I have written was in October, 1864. Anyone interested in this incident and desiring to get fuller particulars as to it can call on my friend and comrade, whom I am glad to say is still alive and lives near LaFayette, Wiltz Boss, who was in this "scrap" and knows all about it.
Note: Lt. Joel Withers is the same one mentioned earlier who was Sheriff of Walker Co., GA. He was promoted to Captain before war's end. His death is mentioned in the Mary Camp Shaw letter to Allie Whitlow Powell in March, 1881: "There has been so much sickness within the last few days. Captain Withers of Lafayette died of pneumonia, sick 8 days. One of Dirt Town's most prominent men died in two days of typhoid and pneumonia."
Wiltz Boss, mentioned above, was the son of Henry W. Boss, Sr., who was Avery Camp's brother-in-law.
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The Widow Glenn's House
(History of Walker County, Georgia, Sartain, pp. 109-110)
At the beginning of the war, this place was the home of John Glenn, his wife Eliza (Camp) Glenn, and their one child, Avery C. Glenn, about two years old. John Glenn promptly entered the Confederate Army in the spring or summer of 1861, and his family never saw him again. He died in a Confederate hospital at Mobile, Alabama, some time before the battle of Chickamauga, and Mrs. Glenn was, therefore, appropriately referrred to as "the Widow Glenn." The second child of Mr. and Mrs. Glenn, Ella Nora Glenn, was born Dec. 4, 1861, after her father had enlisted, and he never saw his little daughter.
When John Glenn went to the Army, Mrs. Glenn's father, Avery Camp, who lived near Pond Spring, some six miles to the south, sent her one of his slaves, John Camp, to protect the family and take care of the farm. This humble black man had been true to his trust and in her hour of need Mrs. Glenn turned to him. He put Mrs. Glenn and the two little children, and such articles as they could hurriedly snatch up, into a wagon and went toward the northwest, where they spent the rest of the day and night at the [Whitlows.] The next day the tide of battle swept round this house also, and they were again compelled to retreat, this time by a circuitous route, to the home of Mrs. Glenn's father, Avery Camp, near Pond Spring.
After the close of the war, Mrs. Glenn remarried, her second husband being W.B. Compton of Chickamauga, Georgia. She died twenty-five years ago.
Avery C. Glenn, her eldest child, grew to manhood and for many years was an honored citizen of Chattanooga. He was a merchant, carrying on a retail clothing business in partnership with James M. Shaw [his cousin], under the firm name of Glenn and Shaw. He died some ten years ago. The daughter, Ella Nora Glenn, grew to womanhood and married Dr. D.G. Elder of Chickamauga, Georgia. She died Aug. 28, 1895.
The shades of sixty years have fallen between the present and those tragic days of 1863. The great commanders are all dead and all but a few aged and broken heroes of the rank and file have answered the last call. Gone are the charging legions, the fierce war cries, the thunder crash of battle. The little children who shivered about that desolate campfire, cold, hungry and frightened, have grown to maturity and thence into old age; they have scattered to distant parts, and with a lingering exception here and there, have passed altogether from the earth. The simple record of these humble kindly people shows that they acquitted themselves with honor in the work that fell to their hands. By the fortunes of war, they stood in the path of the tempest and received its hardest blows; but by a divine compensation their names have been woven in indelible colors into the fabric of history, and so long as men shall journey here to take inspiration from the courage and devotion of those who made this ground immortal, those names will mark the high spots of gallant and deathless endeavor.
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Family Members
Siblings
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