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North and South
Stories and Genealogy of Theodore Charles Anderson and Sara Carlene Shuttleworth
A Family Divided
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Confederate Cannonier
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Slavery
The seeds of the Civil War were sown at the time of the writing of the Constitution of the United States in 1787; not so much by what it said but by what it didn’t say. Slavery was a serious problem even then but the Founding Fathers couldn’t come to any agreement on it so they swept it under the rug and put off solving the problem to another day.
That day came on April 12, 1861 when the seceding South bombarded and captured the Union Fort Sumter, which was located in the middle of the Charleston harbor, South Carolina, thus starting the Civil War
There had been slaves in the American Colonies since the beginning. The first Negro slaves were brought to Virginia in 1619. In 1776, at the time of the Revolution, the population of the original 13 states was about 4 million, 500,000 of them black African slaves, living mostly in the south.
But by 1861, the number of states had grown to 33 with a population of 30 million; 21 million in the North and 9 million in the South, of which 3.5 million were black slaves (one-third of the southern population!).
The North had become highly industrialized and city centric whereas the South was agricultural and rural. Cotton, tobacco and slavery pulled the South further and further away from the northern part of the country.
When Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860 with no electoral votes at all from below the Mason Dixon Line, the South decided that the time had come to break the links with the rest of the nation and secede from the Union. This action was not unexpected, as secession had been threatened for years.
By February 1861, seven states had seceded, establishing the Confederated States of America. Following the firing on Ft. Sumter in South Carolina in April of that year and Lincoln's subsequent call for 75,000 volunteers to put down the rebellion, four more Southern states left the Union; resulting in the bloodiest war in American history
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The Civil War
The Civil War was fought from 1861-1865. On one side were the 11 Southern states that had withdrawn from the Union to form a new country where they could continue keeping slaves. On the other side was the Federal Union – most of the remaining 22 Northern and Western American states that wanted to keep the country intact, but not all. Some states were split and some wanted to remain neutral.
The Civil War wasn’t really a "civil war" in the true sense of the word. The South wasn’t trying to overthrow or replace the central federal government of the United States; rather, it was trying to remove itself from the Union; they thought just as the American Colonies had done during the Revolution declaring themselves independent from England. In fact, one of the Confederate's most popular marching songs, "The Bonnie
Blue Flag" contains the words: "We are a band of brothers and native to the soil, fighting for our liberty like patriots of old".
In the North, at the start of the war at least, it really wasn’t that much about slavery either; it was more about keeping the union intact.
Abolition of slavery did become the major issue for the North after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1862. The Proclamation was issued in two parts. The first, issued on September 22nd, was a preliminary announcement outlining the intent of the second part, which officially went into effect on January 1, 1863, during the second year of the Civil War. In it, Lincoln proclaimed that all slaves in all areas of the Confederacy would be permanently freed.
Many of Sara’s and Ted’s ancestors fought in the Civil War, far too many to enumerate them all here. Sara’s Northern families, the Cookes, Cases, Enos, Fullers, Tullers and Washburns, all served in the Union Army. Ted’s Southern families, the Blacks, Irbys and Tribbles were all Confederates.
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The Kentucky Volunteers
The division of the States between North and South was pretty clean cut except in the border state of Kentucky where the Sandefurs and the Shuttleworths lived.
While all the other states took sides in the Civil War, Kentucky tried to remain neutral, but the state was bitterly divided. The Governor favored the Confederacy, while the legislature supported the Union.
It turns out that Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky, near Hodgenville. Lincoln’s wife, Mary Todd, was from Lexington, KY. In a strange twist of fait, another Kentucky native, Jefferson Davis, who was born in Christian County, became President of the Confederacy, and lead the South during the entire Civil War.
Even though the government of the State of Kentucky tried to remain neutral, its citizens didn’t. There were few slaves in the Eastern Kentucky’s mountains, and the people strongly supported the Union. Many of the young men there volunteered to serve in the Union Army.
In slave-holding Central Kentucky, citizens were more likely to support the Confederacy, but they too were split. Many men volunteered to serve, but on different sides. To this date, Kentucky is known as the “Volunteer State”.
About 90,000 Kentucky volunteers served in the blue-uniformed USA, and another 35,000 to 38,000 volunteers served in the gray-uniformed CSA.
Although not as famous as those in the East, several major Civil War battles were fought in Kentucky. Among the more important were:
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The Battle of Barbourville on 9 September 1861,
The Battle of Camp Wild Cat on 21 October 1861,
The Battle of Ivy Mountain on 9 November 1861,
The Battle of Rowlett's Station on 17 December 1861,
The Battle of Middle Creek on 10 January 1862,
The Battle of Mill Springs, 19 January 1862,
The Battle of Richmond from 29 to 30 August 1862,
The Battle of Munfordville from 14 to 17 September 1862,
The Battle of Perryville on 8 October 1862,
The Battle of Paducah on 25 March 1864, and
The Battle of Cynthiana from 11 to 12 June 1864.
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The Western Theater
For military purposes, the Union Generals divided the South into two “Theaters of Operation”, the Eastern and the Western.
The Eastern Theater has always received more attention than the Western, both at the time of the Civil War and afterwards in historical accounts. This is undoubtedly due to the proximity of the opposing capitals, Washington DC and Richmond, Virginia, the concentration of newspapers in the major cities of the East, and the fame of Eastern Theater Confederate generals such as Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.
Little has been written about the enormous and almost inexorable progress that the Union forces made in defeating Confederate armies in the Western Theater and splitting the Confederacy in two.
The Western Theater originally consisted of the area east of the Mississippi River and west of the Appalachian Mountains, including Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama. As the war progressed, the theater was expanded to encompass operations in Georgia and the Carolinas.
One of the principal field commanders in the Western Theater was Ulysses S. Grant (Sara’s 6th cousin, 5 times removed), who served under the overall command of General Henry W. Halleck back in Washington, DC. His principal lieutenant was General William Tecumseh Sherman.
Generals Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman (circa 1862)
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The Battle of Shiloh, 6 – 8 April 1862
 General Ulysses S. Grant, USA (1822-1885)
Brigadier General Cadwalladen C. Washburn, USA (1818-1882)
Private Philo Hilyer Sandefur, CSA (1838-1900)
Plus a lot of other Sandefurs and relatives
Almost one year to the day from the start of the war, General Grant fought one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War near the banks of the Tennessee River at a place known as Shiloh, which is located in South-Central Tennessee near the Mississippi state line. Many of Sara’s other relatives were there too, including Philo Hilyer Sandefur, (Sara's Great Grandfather) (age 24 at the time), and many of his uncles, nephews and cousins, fighting on both sides.
In the spring of 1862, General Grant had moved his troops south from Kentucky along the Tennessee River to Pittsburg Landing for training and field exercises. Many of his men were raw volunteers from Kentucky. For some unknown reason, Grant did not fortify this position.
Following severe losses elsewhere in Kentucky and Tennessee; the Confederates under the command of General Sidney Johnston had fallen back to northern Mississippi and established a new line of defense to protect the Memphis to Charleston Railroad.
Johnston had concentrated his forces near Corinth, Mississippi in hopes of catching Grant's army before it had been reinforced. He began marching north from Corinth on April 2, 1862 towards Grant’s forces at Shiloh. By the evening of the 5th, he was ready to attack.
Grant had received some intelligence indicating an attack might be pending and wired his superior, General Halleck, asking what he should do. Halleck wired back, telling him not to worry and ordered him to stay put at Shiloh and wait for reinforcements. Halleck’s intelligence had incorrectly informed him that the Confederate forces nearest to Grant were still in Corinth, 25 miles or more down river to the south and not moving.
Much to Halleck and Grant’s complete surprise, Johnston launched his attack on Shiloh the following morning, April 6, 1862.
The Union forces were quickly driven back to the north and east. They found themselves backed up against the Tennessee River to the east and Owl Creek to the north. Locals said that the river ran red with blood.
Some of the Union troops managed to establish a defensive line at a place called "the sunken road". Confederate forces launched eleven attacks against this position, but the Union line held. The area became known as the "Hornets Nest" because of the intensity of gunfire.
Finally, the southern troops brought sixty-two artillery pieces to bear on the Hornets Nest, many at point blank range. After holding the position for six hours, the Union forces finally surrendered and many were taken prisoner.
Fierce fighting was also going on up river in a peach orchard. General Johnston personally led the Confederate assault. He emerged from the trees with his clothes torn to shreds by bullets. He was moved to a nearby shelter where it was discovered that he had been shot in the back of the leg. He refused medical attention and bled to death on the spot, even though a tourniquet may have saved his life.
Just in time, reinforcements for Grant arrived on the evening of the 6th. They came down river under the cover of fire from the Union gunboats Lexington and Tyler.
General Beauregard, who had taken command after the death of Johnston, was aware of the gunboats, but didn’t know about the reinforcements. By morning his southern army was outnumbered but Beauregard didn’t know it., the Union Army numbered 65,000, while the Confederates had only about 45,000 left.
Beauregard attempted to press on with the attack but quickly discovered he was overwhelmed, and forced to retreat back to Corinth.
The Battle of Shiloh was enormously costly for both sides. In just 3 days of fighting, a total of over 23 thousand were dead or missing; 13,047 on the Union side and 10,699 on the Confederate.
Even at this huge cost of life, the Confederates didn’t succeed in doing what they were trying to do which was to push the Union forces out of Tennessee. Instead, Grant continued to fight and move south.
He invaded Mississippi where he attacked Helena and Grenada. Brigadier General Cadwalladen Colden Washburn (Sara’s 5th cousin, 5 times removed) (visit Roger de Washbourne), commanded one of Grant’s cavalry detachments. He had orders to make "a dash upon the railroad near Grenada", creating a diversion in favor of Grant’s movements.
Overcoming Confederate pickets, Washburn’s cavalry pushed on to Charleston, crossed the Tallahatchie, and fought on to Grenada, damaging railroad branches all along the way.
The Union Army, under Generals Grant and Sherman, fought many battles during the following months, winning some, loosing others; two steps forward followed by one step back. Nevertheless, one year after the Battle of Shiloh, Grant handed the Confederacy its most crushing defeat in the Western Theater at The Battle of Vicksburg (May 18th to July 4th, 1863), putting the entire Mississippi River under Union control and splitting the Confederacy in two.
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The Sandefur’s
There are many stories of members of the same family serving on different sides during the Civil War; father fighting son, brother fighting brother, cousin fighting cousin. For example, Kentucky U.S. Sen. John Crittenden, who supported the Union, had one son who was a Union general and another who was a Confederate general. Even three half-brothers of President Lincoln’s wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, who was born in Lexington, Kentucky, died fighting for the Confederacy.
The Kentucky Sandefurs were similarly divided. Here is a partial list of the Sandefurs we have found so far who fought on different sides, all of them from the same place, Henderson,
KY. They are all Sara’s uncles or cousins. One was her Great Grandfather, Philo Hilyer Sandefur.
Look closely and you will find that the son of Bennett Sandefur, Samuel A. Sandefur, and his son Samuel Hayes Sandefur were on the Union side, while two of Samuel A.'s other sons, Alexander Hamlett Sandefur and Claiborne F. Sandefur fought for the Confederacy. Bennett Sandefur's other son, George W. Sandefur, was also on the Confederate side. That's really a divided family!
Union Army:
Alexander Burgess Sandefur, son of James Sandefur, was born April 2, 1830, Henderson Co., KY. He was enrolled in Company H, 17th Kentucky Volunteers under Colonel McHenry and Colonel Stout at Camp Calloway, Hartford, Kentucky on October 27, 1861. He was listed as a farmer, 31 years old, stout and able bodied, 5 feet, 10 inches tall, fair complexion, dark hair and blue eyes. He was seriously wounded by a gunshot in his right leg on February 15, 1862 at the battle of Fort Donaldson, TN. Promoted to Corporal, Co. H. in 1862; rejoined his company at Athens, AL in May 1862. Promoted to Sergeant, Co. H in December 7, 1862, then to Sergeant Major and finally to 1st Lieutenant Company G on September 17, 1864. He mustered out January 23, 1865 in Louisville, KY.
Francis Marion Sandefur, son of James Sandefur, was born 1842 in Henderson, KY. He was a Private in Company H, 17th Kentucky Volunteers. He was shot in the left hand and fingers at the Battle of Kennesaw, GA during the siege of Atlanta on May 27, 1864. Mustered in January 4, 1862, Calhoun KY, for three years; discharged July 25, 1865 at Louisville, KY.
Hugh R. Sandefur, son of James Sandefur of Henderson, KY, mustered in January 4, 1862, Company H, 17th Kentucky Volunteers for three years. Discharged July 25, 1862 at Louisville, KY for disability.
Charles D. Sandefur, son of John Sandefur of Henderson, KY volunteered October 25, 1861, Co. F, 17th Kentucky Regiment, at Hartford, Kentucky for a period of 3 years. He died in the hospital in Athens, AL on July 10, 1862, of typhoid fever.
James W. Sandefur, son of John Sandefur, enrolled at Calhoun, KY, Company F, 17th KY Volunteers, October 25, 1861, mustered in January 4, 1862. He was killed in action at the Battle of Chickamauga, Georgia, September 20, 1863.
John H. Sandefur, from Henderson, KY, enrolled as a Private Company B, 34th KY Volunteers Infantry August 2, 1863 for 3 years, mustered in September 10, 1863 at Louisville, KY; on detached duty at Barracks #1, Louisville, KY since May 13, 1864; no muster out date found.
John1 M. Sandefur, Private, volunteered November 10, 1862, Camp Burnside, KY for 9 months, mustered in April 15, 1863, no muster out dates for this regiment found.
John2 M. Sandefur, Private, enrolled Company F, 8th KY Volunteers August 5, 1862 for one year, mustered in September 8, 1862 Russellville, KY, mustered out October 1, 1862, Bowling Green, KY.
Joseph W. Sandefur was born 1832 in Henderson Co., KY. Company H, 17th KY Volunteers, enrolled October 27, 1861, mustered in January 4, 1862, Calhoun, KY for three years; died June 16, 1862 in hospital at Corinth, MS of typhoid fever after the Battle of Corinth.
Samuel A. Sandefur, born 1804, Henderson Co., KY, son of Bennett Sandefur, Company B, 12th KY Volunteer Cavalry, enrolled August 8, 1862; mustered in November 17, 1862 Owensboro, KY for three years; discharged January 28, 1865 at Louisville, KY for disability.
Samuel Hayes Sandefur, son of Samuel A. Sandefur, was born April 14, 1844 in Henderson Co., KY. He enrolled September 13, 1861, Company A, 17th KY Volunteer Infantry; transferred to Co. K; mustered out December 29, 1864, Louisville, KY.
Confederate Army:
Archibald D. Sandefur, Private, son of William H Sandefur, enlisted in Company E, 10th Johnson's Kentucky Cavalry, CSA for a period of three years on August 15, 1862, Davies County, KY. Muster roll of December 1862 states that he was absent.
Alexander Hamlett Sandefur, Private, son of Samuel A. Sandefur was born January 11, 1836, Henderson Co., KY. He volunteered on August 14, 1862 in Company B, 10th Johnson's Kentucky Cavalry, CSA at Clarksville, Tennessee. His brother, Samuel Hayes Sandefur fought for the Union.
Claiborne F. Sandefur, son of Samuel A. Sandefur, was born July 13, 1834, Henderson County, KY. He volunteered on October 13, 1861 at Hopkinsville, KY in Company H, 8th KY Regiment Infantry, CSA. He died 22 days later while in service on November 4, 1861, Hopkinsville, KY from a disease.
Charles H. Sandefur, son of William H. Sandefur, was 21 when he volunteered at Henderson County, KY in Company B, 4th KY Regiment on August 5, 1861 for a period of three years or the duration of the war. He was captured at the battle of Fort Donelson, Tennessee on February 16, 1862, and taken to Camp Morton Indiana. He must have escaped from Camp Morton because on January 4, 1863, he was recaptured at Stone's River at Murphreesboro, TN. He was taken to Camp Chase, Ohio on February 19, 1863. He died there as a prisoner of war on May 3, 1863, from pneumonia.
George W. Sandefur, son of Bennett Sandefur, was born 1837 in Henderson Co., KY. Company "K", 7th KY Infantry, CSA on August 10, 1861. He was shot and disabled in July 1863 during the Battle of Vicksburg.
John Tandy Sandefur, born February 18, 1843, Henderson County, KY, volunteered October 12, 1861, Bowling Green, KY in Captain Graves Company, Light Artillery, 2nd Division of Army of Central KY, CSA. He was a bugler. He was in the battle of Harsville, TN. He was captured at the battle of Fort Donelson, TN on February 18, 1862. He was made a trustee while in prison during the war. His widow, India F. Froman Sandefur, applied for an indigent widows’ pension April 24, 1912, Carroll County, KY.
Philo Hilyer Sandefur (Sara’s Great Grandfather), son of Charles Tandy Sandefur, was born February 22, 1838, Henderson Co., KY. He was in Company G, 10th Kentucky Cavalry, CSA. He volunteered September 7, 1861 in Henderson Co. for a period of 3 years. His thumb was shot off in The Battle of Shiloh in April 1862 where he was taken prisoner by the Union Forces.
Thomas H. Sandefur was born August 2, 1828 in Henderson County, KY. He volunteered for Company B, 109th Johnson's Cavalry at Clarksville on August 14, 1862. The muster roll of December 1862 states he was absent.
Painting of Philo Hilyer Sandefur and Susan Rebecca Jarrett by Jessemae Shuttleworth
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Tune "Blue/Gray Medley"
The introductory tune used on this page is a medley of songs representing the North and the South.
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References:
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- "The Civil War", by Kenneth C. Davis,
- "Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Kentucky, Legislature, of Kentucky, Frankfort, Kentucky Yeoman Office, 1866, 1867"; Vol. I, 1861-1866; Vol. II, 1861-1866
- "The Divided Union" by Peter Batty & Peter Parish,
- "Guide to the Battle of Shiloh", by Jay Luvaas, Stephen Bowman, & Leonard Fullenkamp
- "Vicksburg, The Campaign that opened the Mississippi", by Michael B. Ballard
- Click here to view a video clip dedicated to the officers and soldiers who fought in the war between the states
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This page and all genealogical data contained on it are Copyrighted © 2007
by Theodore C. Anderson
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