Civil War Stories - Uncle Sam By Dr. McDonald
THE STORY OF SAM AT SWEETWATER
Sam was one of the 120 African-American slaves who resided on the 3,800-acre plantation east of Florence known as Sweetwater. More importantly, Sam was a Civil War hero whose name was enshrined by the gratitude of a family who never forgot his noble deed following the terrible Battle of Shiloh.
Sam went away with the Confederate Army to be with his young master, Billy Patton, the very next week following the secession of Alabama from the Union. Sam and William Anderson “Billy” Patton grew up together. Sam was born in 1837 and Billy a year later. Before the war when Billy became a Florence merchant with his older brother, Brahan, Sam went along to drive the buggy.
Billy’s father, Robert Miller Patton, who after the war became Governor of Alabama, owned the plantation. Sam’s mother, Mary, was the family cook and lived with her children in the kitchen behind the big house.
The story of Sam at Shiloh actually had its beginning in the early Cumberland Gap Campaign in Kentucky. It was here the body of their fallen leader, General Felix Zollercoffer, was disfigured and dishonored by the Yankee soldiers. Sam resolved he would never permit this to happen to his friend, Billy.
Lieutenant William Anderson Patton, Company C, 16th Alabama Infantry, fell mortally wounded during the charge made just south of Shiloh Church on Sunday morning, April 6, 1862. This and the recovery of the body was described by his commanding officer, Captain Alexander Donelson Coffee - for whom Coffee High School was later named - in his letter dated April 10th , 1862:
“. . . we here lost most of our men and here it was poor Billy fell, he was about five feet from my right . . . when a ball struck him in the forehead, killing him instantly. . . . I left the regiment at dusk: and went to look for poor Billy . . . I then put him in a small log hut they used for a sutler’s store . . . and I walked by moonlight back to the road and camps through the ground we had fought over.”
However, the tide of the battle changed the following day. The 16th Alabama was in the brigade commanded by Brigadier General Stirling Alexander Martin Wood, a son of Florence’s first mayor. Wood wrote that the regiment next to his brigade on the left broke and fell back; all except two of his field officers were wounded. The entire Confederate command under General Beauregard had no alternative but to retire to Corinth from whence they had come.
And thus begins the narrative that has been told and re-told by generations of the Patton family. Sam refused to leave the field with the retreating Confederate Army. It was during the night when he found the sutler’s hut to recover his master’s body. Years later an old veteran of Green Hill remembered seeing Sam with Billy’s corpse and wondered how he had made the agonizing trip from Shiloh to Corinth. But this was only the first part of the long and tedious journey that led down the Memphis Pike, across the Tennessee River, and through the front gate and the portals of the Sweetwater Plantation. Sam’s homecoming was somberly described by Howard Weeden, who was connected to Sweetwater by marriage, in her poem, The Worst of War:
“I led his horse back home where they sat expecting him - and I saw Mistis’ and Master’s hearts when they broke - and that was the worst of war!”
Some heroes are unknown, unmourned, and consigned to oblivion because they had no bard to sing their praises. Determined that this would never happen to Sam, the hero of Sweetwater, the Pattons placed a marker in the family cemetery which read:
“SAM -Faithful to the end to those who trusted him.”
The old burying ground lies hidden and forgotten along side the busy boulevard that leads into Florence from the east. Ruthless vandals have pulled over the large markers with heavy cables and removed forever the stone dedicated to Sam. Perhaps in the telling of this story to another generation it may come about that the deeds of the old slave at Sweetwater will yet be remembered.
The Civil War Tales of the Tennessee Valley
Copyright 2003 by
Bluewater Publications – Heart of Dixie Publishing
http://www.heartofdixiepublishing.com/williamlindseymcdonald.htm
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
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One Comment on Civil War Stories - Uncle Sam By Dr. McDonald
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Kylie Batt on
Wed, 12th May 2010 8:11 pm
???????????!!! ??? ???????????!!!!…
???? ?? ????????????,?????? ? ?????????? Sam was one of the 120 African-American slaves who resided on the 3,800-acre plantation east of Florence known as S…
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