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 “Marking the Trail of Our Civil War History, Davidson County”
This research was developed by an author of several local and regional Civil War books, Christopher M. Watford, who maintains the copyright. Covering Davidson County’s role during the latter parts of the Civil War, Watford’s research was used in 2007 in developing the six historical markers in Davidson County that are part of the North Carolina Civil War Trails. http://www.civilwartrails.org/
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UNION OCCUPATION
THE HOMESTEAD & THE DAVIDSON COUNTY COURTHOUSE
By May of 1865, two of the most prominent landmarks in Lexington, the county courthouse and "The Homestead" the private residence of Dr. William R. Holt, had avoided destruction by the enemy. A raiding party from Union General George Stoneman's 2nd Brigade had approached the city, but when learning of the presence of General Samuel W. Ferguson's Confederate Cavalry Brigade, retreated back to Salem. General Ferguson described the action in his diary:
April 11th Picket at Abbotts Ck attacked by enemy about six 0' clock in the morning, enemy driven back after slight skirmish with the 56th Ala proved to be part of the l0th Michigan cavalry of Stoneman's raiding party. During the skirmish a small party set fire to the RlRd bridge, but the fire was extinguished.1
After the surrender of the remaining troops of General Joseph E. Johnston's Confederate Army of Tennessee and the Department of North Carolina, the plans for Presidential reconstruction could begin in North Carolina. With the Yankees arriving soon, local residents in Lexington were concerned that their town could end up bearing the same fate as other places in South Carolina, Georgia, and the Shenandoah Valley.
Louisa Hogan Holt and her three daughters Claudia, Frances and Amelia were about to face the dreaded Yankees for the first time alone. Dr. William Rainey Holt had left weeks earlier to secure his plantation "Linwood" against raiders who might destroy all his cotton, stock, and steal his fine mules. 2 Of the male children in the Holt family, the Civil War had taken each either by disease or in combat in the service of the Confederacy. 3 While accustomed to Dr. Holt's absence due to his frequent duties on the plantation, Louisa was completely “without male protection save for their faithful slaves.” 4 Signs of panic appeared in the town's population the day before the expected arrival, as many of the townswomen launched their own "raids" into all places where whiskey was kept and smashed or poured the bottles out, and hid all types of valuables. Louisa's daughter would later tell her children, "the days ... when this section lived in constant fear of the coming Yankees and the depredations they might commit, were anxious ones for all Southern women, especially in 1865 when things were more lawless than ever.” 5
 The Homestead was the finest private residence in the town. Dr. Holt was from a prominent family, a graduate of the University of North Carolina, and Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. Upon his marriage to Louisa Hogan in 1834, Holt demolished a previous home, and built the new Homestead. The house was over thirty years old in 1865, but still the finest residence in the town. Holt himself had become one of the most recognized pioneers in "scientific agriculture," along with serving as a State Senator, County Commissioner and Salt Agent. During the war he kept his presidency of the North Carolina Agricultural Society, of which he was a founding member.6 Louisa knew that "as was the custom of these men [Union soldiers] on their march they demanded the best houses for their use." Instead of having her home ransacked and possibly putting her family in jeopardy, Louisa decided to offer her home to the highest Union authority. As told by one of her grand daughters:
She dispatched her faithful butler, "Jerry," with a note to General Kilpatrick when he reached the suburbs of town, extending to him and his staff an invitation to be the guests of Mrs. W. R. Holt, at her residence, the "Homestead" while in town. This surprised the General but he came to the front door where my grandmother met him with a courtesy. The General, recognizing that he was in the presence of a lady to the manner born, accepted the hospitality offered with deference and respect and assured her that she and her family would be treated with consideration. Other homes were much abused and the owners suffered indignities.7
 Immediately the staff of New Jersey native General Judson Kilpatrick took possession of the house for their headquarters. Kilpatrick commanded the cavalry in the army of Union General William T. Sherman, now one of the chief architects to the end of the war. Kilpatrick was one of Sherman's most successful officers despite his earlier embarrassment by an episode known as the "Skirt-tale Skedaddle," in which his horsemen were caught off guard, and the general himself made a narrow escape in little more than his bed clothes. He had begun the war as a Captain in the Fifth New York Zouaves, and was wounded in the fighting at Big Bethel, Virginia, in June of 1861, just weeks after graduating from West Point. He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and later Colonel of the Second New York Cavalry, and was conspicuous in the battles of Second Manassas and Gettysburg, being brevetted to Brigadier prior to his famous raid on Richmond in March 1864. He functioned as Sherman's chief of cavalry, after the re-assignment of George Stoneman, and was given the permanent rank of Brigadier after the capture of Fayetteville, NC. By the time Judson Kilpatrick arrived in Lexington, he was a full major-general. One of his staff's first actions was to place a United States flag at the gate, and detail sentries to guard the house. 8
Sometime following Kilpatrick's arrival the troopers of the Ninth Pennsylvania Cavalry arrived. Cavalry was chosen as the unit of occupation for most counties, and the field officers established their headquarters in the Davidson County Courthouse. Completed in 1858, the Greek Revival style building presented an imposing presence as the center of government and law in the predominately rural county, leading Salisbury newspaper Carolina Watchman to remark, "It will be a lasting monument of praise to the liberality of the county, of which they may well feel proud.”9 Field officers, Lieutenant Colonel David H. Kimmel and Major J. Frank Miller10 took up their new roles as administrators, with the balance of the regiment encamping outside the city, and several companies dispersing throughout the county to occupy the various townships.
The Ninth was a regiment of volunteers raised in and around the Philadelphia area who enlisted at Camp Cameron in Harrisburg on October 1, 1861. By end May of 1862, the regiment had been assigned to the Department of the Cumberland and had already fought against celebrated Confederate commander John Hunt Morgan. The Ninth had fought in small engagements throughout the Appalachians, and in the large campaigns of Perryville, Chickamauga, and Atlanta. The unit was assigned to the division of cavalry commanded by Gen. Judson Kilpatrick for Sherman's "March to the Sea" and Carolinas Campaign, which gave rise to inquiry about how Sherman's horsemen would treat the occupied areas.11 Back at the Homestead, an uneasy peace was kept between the Holts and Kilpatrick and his staff. At first the girls refused to talk or even take meals with the Yankees, confining themselves to their rooms upstairs. Not even when Kilpatrick offered the services of his French chef did the girls give in. Louisa, however, was not driven from her own table, and demanded respect from the officers and men quartered there. Two of the house slaves, Maria and Betsy were responsible for doing most of the cooking. At first the two servants disliked the tasks; however, liberal tips helped them overcome this difficulty. One of Louisa's daughters spoke later of the Federals lifestyle:
They had the best of everything, of course sugar and coffee were scarce in those days but they had plenty of both, loaf sugar in 25 lb. Blocks. One of the staff had a large trunk in his room filled with beautiful ladies wearing apparel and silver which belonged to a lady in South Carolina, which he had confiscated. They had many fine horses, which delighted Kas, the coachman and he wanted his mistress to accept a pair of these for the carriage, but she would not ... They had fine Game chickens, and would go to the far end of the place and indulge in cock fighting….12
 From the courthouse, the Ninth Pennsylvania cavalry policed the local area, holding an uneasy peace between themselves and the local population. Regimental surgeon Dr. William Rice traveled throughout the county to try to help civilians. On the 25th of June, Rice traveled to the Silver Hill area to see a sick woman. Two days later, he returned to see the same patient, but was accosted by "bushwhackers." He was thrown by his startled horse and injured. 13 Yet, for every courtesy paid by the soldiers, it was a general understanding among the population that while the troopers were not the cold-blooded killers they had been portrayed as, they nevertheless took whatever they needed -salt, horses, fence rails, food - with impunity. A hospital was established in the Lexington Female Academy to treat sick and wounded Union soldiers in the early days of the Reconstruction period.
In July of 1865, the Yankees left Lexington as their final post. 14 At the Homestead, General Judson Kilpatrick was extremely appreciative for Mrs. Holt's hospitality. He left the family with some gold, which was "about all they had except land," and allowed them to keep some of the 251b blocks of sugar. 15 Louisa saved one of these until her oldest daughter was married to make a wedding cake for her. Kilpatrick himself presented one of the daughters, Amelia with a beautiful black pony, which she accepted and called "Kilpatrick." 16 On Sunday, July 9, the Ninth Pennsylvania was paid off in town, and ordered to muster out "immediately." Nine days later, Surgeon Rice would describe his departure from Lexington:
Tuesday, July 18: Regiment mustered out of the U.S. service at Lexington, N.C. Officers been busy turning over Government property to Hospital. Visited Hospital. Set fractured thigh. Wednesday, July 19: Broke our camp. Started for home. Before starting had a general row in camp. One man came very near being killed. Carried our sick on stretchers.17
A fire broke out in the fall of 1865 in the Old Courthouse. The cause and extent of the damage remained unknown; however, most assumed that Yankees remaining in the area set the fire intentionally. Lexington resident and cabinetmaker John W. McCrary wrote to a local historian in later years, that "some tried to leave the impression that the Yankees burned it. Several of the Yankees stayed in the Courthouse and had offices there.”18 McCrary continued to state that at the time many of the Federals assisted in extinguishing the fire and rescuing important county documents from the interior.
Six months later, with the Union presence gone in Davidson County, the county leaders met to decide what action to take regarding the damaged courthouse. In the opinion of the group assembled, the soldiers of Ninth Pennsylvania were the cause of the fire, whether malicious or accidental, making the government of the United States liable for the repairs:
On the motion of George Riley, it is ordered that a petition and memorial be prepared or drawn up by J. M. Leach to be signed by the Chairman and others and also depositions taken by the said J. M. Leach as to the burning of the courthouse-all to be presented to the Congress of the United States asking to pay for the said [damages]…..19
No formal evidence exists to the success of the motion. It was never officially read into the Congressional Record, and had it been allowed would have doubtlessly caused a flood of similar claims to be filed against the United States. By the early 1870s Lexington continued the task of returning to normal. Over the next two and a half years the Courthouse was repaired and refurbished, exceeding the original $10,000 appropriated in 1866. General Kilpatrick resigned his commission in the United States Army and secured a position as a foreign diplomat in Chile. The Homestead was saved through the hospitality of Mrs. Louisa H. Holt, and would later be entrusted to her son-in-law, Charles A. Hunt, a former Confederate officer and founder of one of the county's first cotton mills, ushering in a new era in the city's history.
Copyright Christopher M. Watford, 2007
1. 11 April 1865, Diary of Samuel Wragg Ferguson, Manuscripts Collection, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson, Mississippi.
2. Anderson, Lucy L., North Carolina Women of the Confederacy, Fayetteville, NC: United Daughters of the Confederacy, 1926, 99-101; Hereafter cited as "Anderson, Women of the Confederacy."
3. Anderson, Women of the Confederacy, 99; Watford, Christopher M. The Civil War Roster of Davidson County, Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2001, 115.
4. Anderson, Women of the Confederacy, 99.
5. Anderson, Women of the Confederacy, 99.
6. Touart, Paul, Building the Backcountry: An Architectural History of Davidson County, Lexington: Davidson County Historical Association, 1987, 58-60. Hereafter cited as "Touart, Building the Backcountry."
7. Anderson, Women of the Confederacy, 99.
8. Rodenbaugh, Theo F., ed., The Photographic History of the Civil War: The Cavalry, Review of Reviews: New York, 1911, Reprint 1987 Blue-Grey Press, 284. Warner, Ezra, Generals in Blue, Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 1964, 266-267.
9. Carolina Watchman, 6 April 1858, quoted in Touart, Building the Backcountry, 52.
10. Bates, Samuel P., ed. History of Pennsylvania Volunteers 1861-5, Volume 5, Harrisburg, PA: Singletary, 1870. Reprint 1993 Broadfoot Publishing Company, Wilmington, NC. 234-242,242. Hereafter cited as "Bates, History of Pennsylvania Volunteers"
11. Official Records, Ser 1, Volume 57, Part 2 (Supplement) 113-121, and Bates, History of Pennsylvania Volunteers 1861-5, 241.
12. Anderson, Women of the Confederacy, 100.
13. Diary of Dr. William Rice, 25, 27 June 1865, Rice Family Papers, Private Collection. Hereafter cited as "Rice Diary"
14. Bates, History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 241.
15. Anderson, Women of the Confederacy, 100-l01.
16. Anderson, Women of the Confederacy, 101.
17. Rice Diary, 18-20 July 1865.
18. Sink, M. Jewell, and Mary G. Matthews, Pathfinders Past and Present: A History of Davidson County, High Point, NC: Hall Printing Company, 1972, 46. Hereafter cited as "Sink and Matthews, Pathfinders."
19. Special Session, 2 January 1866, Davidson County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, quoted in Sink and Matthews, Pathfinders, 46.
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