THE COLONEL, JUDGE, AND PREACHER
William Basil Wood organized the 16th Alabama Infantry Regiment in Courtland, Alabama, August 8, 1861. A member of a prominent Florence family, his father served as the city’s first mayor. A younger brother, Sterling Alexander Martin Wood, was later promoted to the rank of brigadier general in the Confederate Army.
An alumnus of La Grange College, William Basil Wood was elected County Judge in 1844. In 1862, while on active military duty, he was elected Judge of the Circuit Court, an office he held until 1880.
Judge Wood was also an ordained local preacher in the Methodist Church. He is credited with organizing the first Sunday school class in Florence in 1843. One historian wrote that Colonel Wood “often preached in the camps, and at War Trace (Tennessee), he, Colonel Lowry, and Colonel Reid, assisted the chaplain of the regiment in a revival in which several hundred were converted.”
Wood was described as “over the medium size, broad shouldered and portly, and with frank social manners.” In his book, Early Settlers of Alabama, Colonel James Saunders noted that in the Battles of Triune and Murfreesboro, Colonel Wood “led his regiment gallantly as he had done at Fishing Creek.” Another writer observed that Colonel Wood “was very cool in the battlefield, and was kind to the sick and wounded.” On the retreat from the Battle of Fishing Creek, Wood insisted that his horse be used for the sick and wounded, while “he walked until he wore his feet into solid blisters.” Lieutenant John M. McGee, in remembering the activities of the 16th Alabama, made this statement about its commanding officer: “I know that there was not a colonel in the army, who was more beloved by his men, and that he could lead them anywhere.”
In November, 1862, following a long and almost fatal sickness from typhoid fever, Colonel Wood was assigned to General Longstreet’s Corps where he was appointed Presiding Judge of the Military Court. In May, 1863, he was transferred to the Army of Northern Virginia as the Presiding Judge of the First Army Corps.
Following the war, Judge Wood devoted much of his time and energy to the promotion and expansion of the economy of Florence. He, more than any other person, is credited with the industrial revolution that came to East Florence during the late 1880’s.
Prior to the Civil War, Judge Wood played a major role in the relocation of La Grange College to Florence. In 1872, he led a victorious campaign to persuade the state to accept the abandoned Florence Wesleyan University facilities so as to establish what eventually became the modern University of North Alabama.
Judge Wood, who was often referred to “Mr. Florence,” died April 3, 1891. A grateful city renamed Market Street, a major thoroughfare, as Wood Avenue in his honor.
His gravestone in the Florence Cemetery has this inscription: “Citizen, Soldier, Christian. A leader in family, state, and church. After the storm and toil of life, he, beloved, rests in peace.” These simple words are as a commentary of the eventful life of William Basil Wood, Confederate Colonel, Lauderdale County Judge, and Methodist Preacher.
WILLIAM BASIL WOOD
Judge, Attorney, Confederate Colonel, and founder of Sunday School in Florence 1843.
GENERAL STERLING ALEXANDER MARTIN WOOD
Brigadier General Sterling Alexander Martin Wood was the only Florence, Alabama-born general to serve in the Civil War. A son of Florence’s first mayor, two of his brothers, Colonel William Basil Wood and Major Henry Clay Wood, were also in the Confederate Army.
Sterling A. M. Wood began his military career as captain of the Florence Guards, the first volunteers to leave Florence for military duty. The Official Records show that as early as April 3, 1861, Captain Wood was guarding the entrance to Fort Morgan near Mobile. Forty-five days later, he was promoted to full colonel and placed in command of the newly organized 7th Alabama Infantry. Within eight months he was promoted to brigadier general and assigned to the army being concentrated under General Albert Sidney Johnston.
General Wood led his men in four of the most fiercely-fought battles in the western theatre: Shiloh, Perryville, Murfreesboro, and Chickamauga. Shiloh, among other things, was a battle of inexperienced warriors. Wood’s brigade of about 2,000 men came under heavy fire from the enemy as well as from two nearby Confederate regiments. In a desperate attempt to stop the firing from the friendly regiments, Wood was accidentally caught under his own horse and dragged among the tents which disabled him “for some three hours.”
General Wood was wounded in the Battle of Perryville. This was noted in the Official Report submitted by General William Joseph Hardee: “The loss sustained in the battle was severe - 242 killed and 1,500 wounded… Brig. Gen. Wood was severally wounded in the head by the fragment of a shell; his quartermaster, commissary, and assistant adjutant-general were killed, and the three colonels next in rank were wounded…”
Wood had recovered enough by December 31, 1862, to lead his seriously decimated brigade at Murfreesboro. An additional 504 of his men were “killed, wounded, or captured,” during this battle.
Following Murfreesboro, Wood was placed in command of the District of North Alabama with headquarters in Florence where he remained until June 1863. During this time, between May 26 - 31, 1863, General Wood, with about 500 men and two artillery pieces, was placed in an awkward position of defending Florence against a superior force of cavalrymen led by Colonel Florence M. Cornyn from Corinth. Although Cornyn prevailed, he reported that General Wood “seemed disposed to dispute every mile of the road.”
The Battle of Chickamauga was an important Confederate victory; however, the tremendous losses encountered proved crippling for the Southern cause. Wood’s casualties were unusually heavy, according to the report submitted by General Patrick Ronayne Clebune: “…Polk’s brigade and the right of Wood’s encountered the heaviestartillery fire I have ever experienced…” General Wood reported the loss of 776, including the deaths of four field officers.
General Wood resigned his commission following the Battle of Chickamauga and joined his family in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Because of Wood’s high rank, his family had undergone considerable harassment during the federal occupations of Florence. Sterling Alexander Martin Wood died January 26, 1891, and was buried in Tuscaloosa.
BRIGADIER GENERAL
STERLING ALEXANDER MARTIN WOOD, C.S.A.
THE GENERAL’S CAMP MAN
Harrison Wood was in the bloody battles of Shiloh, Perryville, and Stone River. As one of the local African-Americans to wear the Confederate gray, he served as camp man for Brigadier General Sterling Alexander Martin Wood, commander of the 7th Infantry Brigade. His primary duties could be compared, in some ways, to that of “general’s orderly” in the modern army.
Harrison, born in Virginia, was only twelve years old when he was acquired by Florence’s first mayor, Alexander Hamilton Wood. Harrison was trained as an apprentice in Mayor Wood’s furniture shop and soon became one of the town’s most respected house painters. Mayor Wood established a partnership with Harrison, allowing the young painter to negotiate his own contracts, with provisions that they jointly share in the profits.
Harrison grew up with the Wood boys, William Basil, Sterling A. M., and Henry Clay. All three brothers became officers in the Confederate Army, and at times all three served under the same brigade banner. Sterling was the first of the three to enter the army; he was soon elevated to the rank of Brigadier General, 7th Infantry Brigade.
Harrison Wood was one of ten African-Americans in the estate of Alexander H. Wood, following the former mayor’s death in November, 1860. In less than six months, Harrison was selected by Captain Sterling A. M. Wood as his camp man which took him to distant places where he participated in a number of fiercely-fought battles.
It was after the night of January 3, 1863, as General Braxton Bragg began his withdrawal from Tullahoma, that Harrison Wood suddenly found himself within federal lines. This was following the Battle of Stone River, or Murfreesboro, where General Wood’s brigade had formed a part of General Patrick Cleburne’s Division in General William Joseph Hardee’s Corps.
For all practical purposes, the war was over for Harrison Wood. Nine months later, following the Battle of Chickamauga, Brigadier General Sterling Alexander Martin Wood resigned his commission and joined his family in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
When Harrison Wood, returned to Florence, he was given a piece of land by Judge William Basil Wood. The Judge, it was said, did the same for all of his and his father’s former servants. According to a paper entitled “Servants of the Confederacy: Lauderdale County’s Black Confederates,” by Lee Freeman of the Florence/Lauderdale Public Library, this land may have been located near the present Eliza Coffee Memorial Hospital, or perhaps in North Florence.
Harrison Wood’s obituary appeared in the January 9, 1895, edition of the FLORENCE TIMES, under the caption: “An Old Landmark Gone.” The 81-year-old African-American’s death notice was beautifully editorialized and ended with these words: “Such a man is worthy of a kind remembrance in the hearts of our people. One of the oldest, and in his humble way, the best landmarks of the city has gone. May he rest in peace.”
Dr. William L. McDonald
The Civil War Tales of the Tennessee Valley
Copyright 2003 by
Bluewater Publications
The Civil War stories found in Dr. McDonald’s Civil War Tales of the Tennessee Valley, can be found at Amazon.com or http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0971994676/ref=dp_olp_0/103-3940205-0330202?ie=UTF8&qid=1187314598&sr=8-1&condition=all
Silverfoot - Maud Lindsay
Our beloved Maud Lindsay’s Silverfoot will once again be available for children
and adults to enjoy.
Every child would benefit from reading this classic southern story.
Silverfoot, originally published in 1924, is the story of a child’s life during the tumultuous Civil War time period. This beautifully written story offers a glimpse into the delicate relationship of respect and love that existed between the master’s children and the slaves that were intricately involved in their upbringing.
Just who is this fascinating author named Maud Lindsay?
The following are just a few historical facts about this amazing lady who left a wonderful legacy:
* Maud Lindsay was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama in
1874 to Sarah Miller Winston and Robert Burns Lindsay,
the only foreign-born governor of Alabama.
http://www.archives.state.al.us/govs_list/g_lindsa.html
* Maud Lindsay’s Uncle John J. Winston (her mother’s brother), served as governor of Alabama.
* Maud’s Uncle Pettus was governor of Mississippi.
* Maud Lindsay founded the First Free Kindergarten in Alabama, serving over forty
years as teacher and/or principal. http://www.awhf.org/lindsay.html
* Maud was a personal playmate of Helen Keller. The Keller family lived only a few blocks
from the Lindsay family in Tuscumbia, Alabama.
You don’t want to miss Silverfoot. A tender story of life and love in the Old South–with roots deep in the Alabama soil.
Bluewater Publications will be releasing one of Maud Lindsay’s books per month, until all of her books are once again available.
To start your collection of Maud Lindsay’s wonderful book.
Click on the link below:
http://astore.amazon.com/finhelanavmir-20?%5Fencoding=UTF8&node=4
Chief Tuscumbia
Chief Tuscumbia became a legend at the Muscle Shoals. He was one of the few inhabitants of the area
when the first white settlers arrived. His name in the Chickasaw language was “Tashka Ambi”, or “Tashkambi”,meaning “the warrior who kills.” It was the English, Scots and
Irish who later changed the spelling to “Tuscumbia.”
Although he wore the title of Chief, he has never been listed among the principal chiefs of his
people. One source in Mississippi referredto him as one of the priesthood, being labeled as “Chief
Rainmaker of the Chickasaw Tribe”.
Chief Tashka Ambi was a contemporary of other notable Indians who lived at the Muscle Shoals. Chickasaw Chief George Colbert operated a ferry and an inn a few miles west of Tuscumbia on the Tennessee River at the crossing of the Natchez Trace. Cherokee Chief Doublehead lived across the
river in what later was to become Lauderdale County, and Chiefs Bigfoot and Glass were at one time or another in the Colbert County area.
The Chickasaw Nation, with a population that ranged between an estimated 3,500 to 4,500, was small in comparison to its neighbors, the Cherokees, Choctaws and Creeks. The early domain of the Chickasaws included Northern Mississippi, Eastern Tennessee, Southwestern Kentucky and a small
section of Northwest Alabama.
The Chickasaws’ closest cultural affinity was with the Choctaws, and it is believed that in more ancient times they were an integral part of the Choctaw tribe. The Chickasaw and
Choctaw language, except for dialect differences, were the same.
Their language, known as the Muskhogean, was described by early settlers as very agreeable to the ear, courteous, gentle and musical.
At the time Chief Tashka Ambi lived at the Big Spring in what would become Tuscumbia. The cap-ital of the Chickasaws was in Mississippi at Old Pontotoc, or Long Town, near what was to become Tupelo.
How the Chickasaws came to this part of the Southeast is a basic part of their early religious belief. According to the tradition of their elders, their original home at some remote historic time was in the land of the setting sun; which was probably in Mexico or Central America. Each generation, it was said, was instructed in the long and difficult search for the homeland ordained by their deities. Their guide was an oracular pole, carried on each day’s march by the tribe’s holy men.
Each night the priests placed the pole upright in the ground. During the night, the pole would, shift about and the direction to which it had shifted served as a compass to guide the new day’s march. Almost without fail they moved toward the rising sun and eventually crossed the Mississippi and continued eastward until they reached the Tennessee River.
They journeyed as far as what is now Madison County, Alabama, and at that point the pole remained erect. With great rejoicing the tribe believed they had found the “Promised Land.”
They cleared their fields, planted corn and built settlements. After a time, however, the pole leaned westward and the Chickasaws abandoned their settlements and marched in the direction from whence they had come. In the Tombigbee high-lands of Northeast Mississippi the pole once again remained erect, and this, their new promised land, was where they were when the white settlers came into the territory.
When the white people made their first contact, Chief Tuscumbia was living with a small group of his people at the Muscle Shoals. His brother Jack lived near what was to become Corinth, Mississippi.
Colonel James Robertson of Nashville led a raid in June 1787 to the mouth of Spring Creek. At that time he burned the Indian village known as Oka Kapassa and the French Trading Post that had thrived there for some time. Twenty-six Indians, three French traders, and a white woman were killed.
Robertson had learned from the Chickasaws that the warriors from this village at the Muscle Shoals, mainly Creeks and Cherokees, were the ones responsible for the raids against the white settlers in Middle Tennessee.
Chief Tashka Ambi was a young warrior at that time, it is doubtful he had any connections with the people at Oka Kapassa. However, one historian, in writing about this era at the Muscle Shoals, had this to say about Chief Tuscumbia:
“The settlements were continually being harassed by Indians from all quarters, but the Indians’ particular stronghold was the territory along the Tennessee River and to the South of Tennessee. One of the particularly spiteful chiefs was named Tuscumbia who lived at the great spring where the city of Tuscumbia is now located.”
It was about this time in the late 1780’s that Chief Tuscumbia married Im Mi, whose full name was Im Mi Ah Key. There was a strict rule among the Chickasaws that a brave had to go outside his home clan to find a wife. It is believed Tuscumbia found his bride in the eastern part of the nation. It was also not
uncommon among the Chickasaws for a brave to have more than one wife at the same time, especially if there were a number of sisters in the bride’s family. Im Mi apparently had no sisters therefore, from all accounts; she remained Chief Tuscumbia’s only wife as long as he lived.
The Chickasaw marriage came about after the brave declared his matrimonial intentions by sending the young lady a small present. “If she accepted the gift,” they were considered engaged.
The marriage ceremony was a gala event in the village and quite different from the traditions brought into the land by the white settlers. James Adair, who lived among the Chickasaws, described the proceedings as follows:
When Michael Dickson and his family landed at Muscle Shoals in 1815, they found Chief Tuscumbia and Im Mi to be an amiable couple. Dickson was able to persuade the chief to sell him the site of the City of Tuscumbia, plus all the land between the Big Spring and Tuscumbia Mountain to the South, and all the land to the Tennessee River on the North, for the amazing price of five dollars and two pole axes. This became known as “the Tomahawk Claim.” After the Federal Government acquired “the groom divides an ear of corn in two pieces before witnesses.
He keeps one of the pieces and presents his bride with the other half. After accepting the corn, or sometimes a deer’s foot, the bride then proceeds to present her new husband with some cakes
of bread that she has prepared for the marriage occasion”. the Indian lands following the Treaty of 1816, they allowed Dickson two lots in the town of Tuscumbia for his claim.
The city that later was to be named for Chief Tuscumbia was incorporated December 20, 1820 as Cold Water. Six months later the name was changed to Big Spring, and on December 31, 1822, it was changed a third time to Tuscumbia. There is a legend that the citizens were asked to select either the name “Annie”, in honor of the infant daughter of Michael Dickson, who was the first white child born at that place, or the name “Tuscumbia” in honor of the old chief who was still living in the community. The name Tuscumbia won by a majority of one vote, and the Chickasaw chieftain was so pleased that he
presented little Annie with a tiny pair of moccasins.
Sometime after 1822, Chief Tuscumbia and his wife, Im Mi, moved back to his old home some nine miles South of the present city of Corinth, near the Danville community. Here Chief Tuscumbia built a small cabin on land that adjoined his brother Jack’s property. The Chief spent the remaining years of his life
as a farmer; it was said, using a primitive plow drawn behind a pinto pony.
Chief Tuscumbia died about the year 1834. A grave was dug under the couch, inside the house, where he had died. They washed his body, anointed his head with oil, painted his face red, and dressed him in his best clothes. The body was placed in a sitting position facing west, and his personal effects, including his gun, ammunition, pipe, tobacco and a supply of corn, were placed alongside the body in the grave. The mourning for the chief involved extinguishing the fire in his house, removing all ashes, and starting a new fire. His widow, Im Mi, according to Chickasaw tradition, wept over his grave just before
sunup and sundown for a month.
In December 1836, a neighbor, Ruffin Coleman, bought Im Mi’s land for $820; she had been granted this farm by the Treaty of 1834. In 1838 Im Mi and her children were forced to follow the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma with the other Chickasaws.
Chief Tuscumbia’s grave near Danville, Mississippi, was only a short distance from the Tuscumbia River that bears his name.
In 1838, Im Mi’s old homeplace was sold again, this time to Hesekiah Balch Mitchell, for the price of $2,000. Mitchell built his home, which became known as “The White House” on the high ground where he and his son, Lyman, had earlier attended the funeral of Chief Tuscumbia. Not wishing to build over the
old chief, he removed Tuscumbia’s body to another location, and in the passing of time, the exact site of the second grave has been lost.
But the name of Tuscumbia will not soon be forgotten, for there is a river in Mississippi, and a city and a mountain in Alabama named for him. They speak softly of the noble warrior who lived among these lands before the white man came to take it from a proud people known as the Chickasaws.
AN HISTORIC ABORIGINAL VILLIAGE AT COLDWATER
The early Indian history of Tuscumbia is intriguing. Not much is known, but what little is discernible leaves the historian with even more unanswerable questions. The late 18th century village of Oka Kapassa, or “Coldwater,” was located about one mile west of the Big Spring at the mouth of Spring Creek. It was established by the Chickamaugas, a rebel branch of the Cherokee Nation. Yet its name came not from the Cherokees, but from the language of the Chickasaws.
The war-like Chickamaugas had pulled away from the main body of the Cherokees about 1777 under their fierce and unrelenting leader, Dragging Canoe. Two years later, their towns were destroyed by Col. Isaac Shelby. Dragging Canoe, not to be undone, merely moved his people to five new
locations: Lookout Mountain, Crow Town, Running Water Town, Nickajack and Long Island Town. Oka Kapassa is believed to have come into being during the American Revolution as the most westward outpost of the Cherokees. Its purpose was to protect the supply base in the Muscle Shoals.
These goods were being supplied by the French at Detroit. Boats came by way of the Wabash and up the Tennessee as far as the Shoals where, due to the shallows and rapids, they could go no farther. The cargo was unloaded at Oka Kapassa and transported by horses and wagons to five Chickamauga
towns along the upper Tennessee.
Initially, about 100 French traders made their way to Oka Kapassa. Thirty of these white people remained as part of the Indian community. They brought their own bodyguards, made up of Shawnees and Delawares. One document in the Spanish Archives, dated Jan. 23, 1787, complains that the French had at that time more supplies in Muscle Shoals than all the Southern Indians could buy in three years.
According to a number of accounts, the houses in these villages were dirty flea ridden, unsightly and uncomfortable. At this period of history, these were log dwellings with makeshift roofs and dirt floors. The furnishings consisted of bunks that were used as beds and a place to sit. A fireplace was in the
center of the room from which smoke made its escape through a hole in the roof. Except during the worst of weather, all cooking was done on the outside and not inside the cabin.
Characteristically, the Indian was an outdoor person. His home served merely as a shelter from the weather, a place to sleep at night, and a place to depart from as early as possible the next morning.
Another element to the enigma of Oka Kapassa concerns its likely antiquity; it is believed by some historians that the Chickamaugas were not its original inhabitants. Based upon its name and the Hutchins map of 1760, it is thought that it may have been settled first by the Chickasaws.
Judging from its location among bountiful waters from Tuscumbia’s Big Spring, it may even have been the home of the Shawnees or Creeks who preceded the Chickasaws into Northwest Alabama; or maybe the Yuchi who were on the Tennessee River before 1700 could have lived there. One could speculate even further back among the historic Indians.
Indeed, it would be too farfetched to conjecture that the Siovans, who left the Great Lakes in some remote pre-Columbian time to become probably the oldest inhabitants of the South, could have been the first to establish their home at Tuscumbia.
Lore of the River by: Dr. William L. McDoanld
Copyright 2007 by
Bluewater Publications – Heart of Dixie Publishing
More history stories by Dr. Mcdonald can be found in “Lore of the River”. To locate “Lore of the River”, search Amazon.com with ISBN # 0971994625
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