THE
STORY OF TOM FORD AND BILL DENSON IN THE
Robert W. Ford
Introduction
While researching my Ford genealogy and history, I discovered that
several family members fought for both the North and South during the
Civil War. An earlier version of
these stories were published in my 1994 book, Dr. John Perley Ford
(1794-1869) His life and Times, Ancestors, Descendants and Allied Families
1635-1994. This is one of those
stories. Others are elsewhere on
this web site.
I am indebted to Nancy
Anwyll, Secretary of the Bull Run Civil War Round Table for her encouragement
and review of this story. She made
numerous constructive editorial suggestions that improved its flow and her
knowledge of the war was invaluable. All
of our families have interesting stories to tell, if we knew just where to look
for them.
The
Civil War
This
is the story of the Civil War service of two brothers-in-law, Thomas Cellers
Ford and William C. Denson. Bill
married Tom's sister in Paulding County, Georgia in 1848.
Later he moved to Alabama, settling in Morgan County.
In early 1860, when he was 20 years old, Tom Ford left his home in
Georgia to live with his older sister and her husband in Alabama.
There Tom met a young woman, fell in love, and married on August 1, 1860.
One year later events changed the lives of Tom and William forever.
In
1918 Tom’s nephew, Archie Ford, wrote a letter relating the family’s
history. He generally was correct
in what he wrote, but he got some facts confused.
Here is some of what Archie wrote:
“Uncle
Tom had gone to Morgan County, Ala. with his brother-in-law Denson, married
Martha McKee on his 22nd birthday August 1, 1860. John, Uncle Tom's oldest child, was born May 5, 1861.
Uncle Tom joined Wheelers Calvary and was a scout and courier under
Forest thru the war.”
As
history shows, Nathan Bedford Forrest and his cavalry did not serve under Joseph
Wheeler and his cavalry command. Wheeler
served under Forrest for a while after the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862 and
before he received his own cavalry command in November 1862.
Tom
and Bill escaped capture in February 1862 with the 27th Alabama Infantry
Regiment at Fort Donelson by riding out double with Forrest's command.
Bill in early 1863, and then Tom in early 1864, joined the 12th Alabama
Cavalry Regiment after Wheeler received his own cavalry command.
But…back to our story.
Other
than formations and marching, the men received little by way of combat training.
Equipment was in short supply. Some
of the men had only their personal shotguns or squirrel guns as weapons. The pay
was very small; privates were paid $11.00 per month. On December 24, 1861, Bill
Denson was elected 2nd Lieutenant, and his pay increased to $80 a month.
After
four months in a camp of instruction, Foster’s Regiment was sent to Florence,
Alabama in December, where they were put on a boat and shipped north down the
Tennessee River to Fort Henry, Kentucky. This
fort was located twelve miles west of Fort Donelson, which was located on the
Cumberland River in Tennessee. Paducah,
Kentucky was located to the northwest about 20 miles and had been taken by
Confederate forces in October.
On December 26 companies
of the 27th Alabama Regiment arrived at Fort Henry.
A short time later the regiment was moved to a new fort being constructed
across the Tennessee River. This
new fort was called Fort Heiman that was named for the brigade commander.
The men of the regiment soon were put to work constructing Fort Heiman.
It was February before the Regiment saw any serious fighting.
Many
of the 27th Alabama became ill while stationed at Fort Heiman.
About 200 of the sick men went to the hospital in Nashville, Tennessee,
but the names have not been found. In
“Tattered Volunteers,” the history of the 27th Alabama, author Harry Barnard
wrote:
“The
area in which the regiment encamped was on the slopes of a hillside near the
river. The discipline in the unit
was lax. The weather was harsh;
rain, sleet, and snow muddied the ground. Sicknesses
began disabling men. An epidemic of
measles struck, and morale declined as food and other supplies became harder to
get. The unfinished fort, at this
time, had a total of around 1,100 men.”
Fort
Heiman was not finished before Union forces moved to engage them in battle.
Union General Ulysses S. Grant moved his forces up (south) the Tennessee
River by boat from Cairo, Illinois. Grant
had 15,000 troops, seven gunboats, and 50 cannons, while the Confederates had
only 3,200 men at Fort Henry with 11 cannons.
During the night of February 4, 1862, Fort Heiman was evacuated; and by
the next morning, the 27th Alabama Regiment had crossed the Tennessee River and
had marched to Fort Henry.
Heavy
and continuous bombardment by the Union gunboats began the morning of February
6. During the ensuing battle,
General Tilgham was captured when Fort Henry was evacuated. The regiment with Colonel Heiman's Brigade escaped east to
Fort Donelson twelve miles away in Tennessee on the Cumberland River.
In their haste to leave, they left their artillery, their blankets,
baggage, and much of their clothing. They
did not want anything to slow them down.
Grant
began rushing his forces to Fort Donelson, which sat on uneven terrain on a
bluff 100 feet above the Cumberland River.
Grant unloaded his infantry and marched them to the south of the fort.
He placed his gunboats to the northeast of the fort where naval artillery
was able to bombard the Confederate fort. The
battle for Fort Donelson began February 13, 1862 with an assault on the
trenches. The 27th Alabama Regiment
was in the middle of the Confederate defensive line.
Union infantry supported by artillery made two assaults against the 27th
Alabama. After two hours the
Federals were repulsed.
Heavy
Confederate and Union fire set dry leaves aflame. Many wounded Union soldiers were burned alive.
In all, the Alabama men were in the trenches for four cold days and
freezing nights. They did some
serious fighting from these trenches for three days.
They received no regular rations and had only one skimpy hot meal a day.
Feet and hands became frost bitten.
The men were exhausted, and some slept standing in place.
After
three hard days of fighting, surrender was the only option left to Fort
Donelson. This is where Grant
became known as “Unconditional Surrender Grant,” and the fort’s surrender
was set for Saturday, February 15, 1862.
Once
it was learned the fort would be surrendered, many of its defenders began to
leave. Some left individually, and
a few complete units escaped to the southeast.
Some of the infantry soldiers rode double with the cavalrymen of Colonel
(later General) Nathan Bedford Forrest.
Colonel
Forrest was a very determined man, and he resolved that he and his men would not
be captured. Forrest planned and
executed a breakout along the road south from the fort under the cover of
darkness the night before the surrender. He
saved his entire unit and led them to Nashville.
Most of his men rode double when they left taking infantry soldiers with
them. Two of Forrest’s regiments were made up of Georgia men with whom Tom
could have made arrangements to share their horses, thus letting Tom and Bill
ride out with Forrest's unit.
Of
the 700 or so men in the 27th Alabama Infantry Regiment, about 350 men of the
regiment were captured at the battle of Fort Donelson.
Of the remaining number about 200 were in the hospital at Nashville,
Tennessee, and a large part of the regiment had been returned earlier to
Florence because of a measles epidemic.
It
is not known how many rode out with Forrest or who they were, but Tom and Bill
were apparently among them. That was the basis for the statement in the 1918
letter by Archie Ford referred to above because no other information or family
tradition says differently. The
names of all captured Confederate prisoners are known. Lieutenant William C. Denson and Private Thomas C. Ford are
not among them.
The
men of the 27th Alabama who escaped from Fort Donelson went from Nashville to
Corinth, Mississippi. They and the
men from the Nashville hospital were assigned to the 33rd Mississippi Infantry
Regiment until the regiment was reorganized in the fall after the captured men
from the 27th Alabama were paroled and returned. The 33rd Mississippi Regiment was sent to Port Hudson,
Louisiana.
The
captured enlisted men had expected to be paroled immediately, but Grant
disappointed them. Most of those
captured were eventually exchanged and paroled after seven months, but first
they were sent north as prisoners-of-war. Until
they were exchanged, field grade officers were sent to Fort Warren in Boston
Harbor, Massachusetts, and company grade officers were sent to Johnson's Island
in Lake Erie near Sandusky, Ohio.
The
captured enlisted men were started down the Cumberland River onboard the boat
“White Cloud” and were sent to Camp Douglas in Chicago, Illinois, February
23, 1862, where they stayed until exchanged in August 1862.
A few agreed not to serve the Confederacy and were released. About 50 died in camp.
Those
captives that remained left Camp Douglas aboard a train September 2 and arrived
in Cairo, Illinois. They then
sailed down the Mississippi River arriving in Memphis, Tennessee, September 10.
Their river journey then took them to Vicksburg, where they went to
Jackson, Mississippi. In October of 1862 they landed at Port Hudson, Louisiana.
The
27th Alabama Regiment was reorganized under the Confederate Conscript Act.
The original field grade officers were re-elected, but most of the
company grade officers were new because the original ones had died in prison or
escaped to join other units.
Tom
Ford rejoined the regiment but was discharged at Port Hudson, Louisiana, due to
illness. Tom had contracted typhoid
fever. Tom's Certificate of
Disability for Discharge dated November 28, 1862, says he was 23 years of age,
five feet six inches tall, had light complexion, dark eyes, and dark hair.
He went home to his family in Alabama.
Nothing
additional is known about Bill Denson until 1863. He may have gone home to be with his family until he enlisted
as a private in Wheeler's Cavalry, February 28, 1863, when he is shown on the
company muster rolls.
While
Tom was at home recuperating from his sickness, his third son was born.
He remained at home until General William T. Sherman invaded north
Georgia in the spring of 1864. When that happened, Tom volunteered a second time on May 1,
1864, to fight Sherman's invasion. He
joined Bill Denson in Company G, 12th Alabama Cavalry.
This unit was with General Wheeler's Cavalry division, Army of Tennessee,
not General Forrest's Cavalry as written in Archie Ford's letter of 1918.
Tom Ford and Bill Denson
spent the rest of the war fighting General Sherman's forces. Tom was a scout and
courier. Bill Denson was a private
horse soldier. Wheeler’s Cavalry
skirmished with Sherman’s troops at Cass Station and Cassville, May 24, 1864.
While they fought at New Hope Church on May 25, we have no evidence Tom
had time to stop and visit his father and brother who lived only 12 miles away.
The days of thundering
horsemen charging into battle swinging their sabers were gone.
Instead Wheeler raided Sherman’s rear guard, took supplies, and
destroyed Federal wagon trains for the next month as Sherman moved relentlessly
toward Atlanta. Wheeler's cavalry
harassed Union forces on May 27 at the battle of Pickett's Mill and the next day
at the Battle of Dallas.
Union
Cavalry in the Atlanta Campaign did the less glorious but necessary tasks of
providing reconnaissance and wagon train security for their armies.
Both Army commanders also used their troopers for quick raids to the
enemy’s rear areas to disrupt the flow of vital supplies.
The cavalry’s chief asset was speed.
The
battle of Atlanta started July 22, 1864 and ended when the Confederates under
General John Bell Hood evacuated Atlanta on September 2.
From August 10 to September 9 Wheeler’s Cavalry raided Union forces in
North Georgia and East Tennessee.
The
family has a very interesting tradition about the service of Thomas Cellers Ford
during this period. Two great
grandchildren of Tom remember a grandson to Thomas Cellers Ford telling them the
story of how Tom’s unit captured the son of a former governor of Illinois,
Joseph Ford, who Tom thought was the brother of his father, Perley Ford.
At
this stage of the war, the Confederate cavalry had no way to take care of
prisoners or transport them to prisoner-of-war camps, so they had to kill them
instead. Tom helped his cousin to
escape because he thought the captured man was kin, and because the Confederates
were killing prisoners.
Archie’s
1918 letter also had something to say about this event:
“Joseph
went west and was Governor of Illinois during the Mormon Riots.
Uncle Tom captured one of his boys during the war.”
There
is no question that Thomas Ford captured a Union soldier whom he believed was
related to him and helped him to escape. However,
Perley Ford’s brother, Joseph, went to Illinois from Madison County, New York
for only a short time before settling in Minnesota and founding the town of
Mazeppa, in May 1855. He was never
governor of either state.
Devillo
Ford, the youngest son of Joseph Ford, did serve in the 3rd Minnesota Infantry
Regiment that was captured by General Nathan Bedford Forrest's cavalry.
The entire regiment was captured at Murfreesboro, Tennessee on July 13,
1862, but Devillo had died in a hospital in Nashville, Tennessee two months
earlier on May 1, 1862. He could
not have been the one captured by Tom's cavalry unit in northern Georgia in
1864.
It
is possible that another son of Joseph Ford, Jr., Lieutenant Orville Ford, may
have served in the captured Minnesota regiment, but no proof has been found nor
has a record of his service been found prior to his re-enlistment as a sergeant
in 1864. If Lieutenant Ford was the
one captured, Tom most likely would have discovered that he was from Minnesota,
not Illinois, and that his father was not a governor.
The
Illinois governor was Thomas Ford of the Maryland Fords.
He was born in Ironton, Pennsylvania in 1805 and died in 1850.
He was an attorney who was elected in 1842, the first Democrat governor
of Illinois. He was a progressive
governor who installed the first statewide tax to build roads and a statewide
school system.
Governor
Ford became a pathetic figure in Illinois history. When citizens of Carthage, Illinois attacked the Mormons and
killed their leader, Joseph Smith, Governor Ford called out the state militia to
defend the Mormons. His actions
were so unpopular that he was defeated for re-election in 1846.
He
was unable to make a living as a lawyer after he lost his re-election. Even
though he wrote the first definitive history of the State of Illinois, he had to
depend on the charity of others until he died in 1850.
His wife died soon thereafter, leaving five orphans, two boys and three
girls.
Governor
Ford’s two sons fought for the Union. They
were Thomas and Sevelle Ford, who was also known as Charles.
He lost an arm during the war. A
Charles Ford from Illinois was captured in December 1864 by Confederate elements
of Wheeler's cavalry fighting General Sherman's “March to the Sea.”
However, the unnamed Union soldier who did escape reported his
Confederate captors killed Charles Ford. Three
Union men were captured together. When
the Confederates began shooting them, one survived by jumping into a creek and
escaped with a wound in the arm. He
lived to tell the tale, but he said Charles Ford was one of those killed.
This story is in the Official Records of the Civil War.
I like to think that Charles lied about his being killed and went to
Kansas to escape the war. Unable to
find work, he apparently became the leader of an outlaw band.
Both
Thomas and Charles went to Kansas. "One
Arm" Charles was a bartender and an outlaw chieftain whose gang raided in
both Okalahoma and Kansas stealing cattle.
Kansas Regulators hanged both Thomas and Charles Ford, sons of the
Governor of Illinois, as outlaws in Kansas in 1872, according to newspapers
accounts at the time. Tom was
riding in a buggy with a gang member when the Regulators, who hung them both,
caught him.
“One
Arm” Charley Ford was put on trial for stealing cattle, but won an acquittal
because of a good attorney and the lack of witnesses. Despite his acquittal, the Regulators took him from the bar
where he was bartending after his trial and strung him up.
In
1912 a sister made an investigation of what happened to her brothers.
She printed an account in a historical\genealogy magazine in Illinois in
which she said Thomas and Charles Ford were not outlaws and were hung by
regulators by mistake. Since Thomas
Ford and “One Arm” Charley Ford were hung at different times, and there was
proof of cattle stealing in Oklahoma and Kansas according to the newspapers, the
1912 article by the sister is misleading. However,
it understandable that the daughter of a former governor wanted to put the best
face on the story of what happened to her brothers.
There
is no doubt that Thomas Cellers Ford captured someone who he thought was the son
of the governor of Illinois and the son of the brother of his father.
There is no doubt that Tom told his family he helped the Union soldier
escape, because the Confederates were taking no prisoners at that point in the
war in Georgia. Nothing has been
found in Union or Confederate records to disprove this claim.
The family tradition seems to be based in fact.
After
Sherman's army burned Atlanta, it began its
“March to the Sea” where the army cut, burned and destroyed a one
hundred-mile-wide-swath from Atlanta to Savannah. Sherman then led his army
north to Columbia, South Carolina, and then to Goldsboro and Raleigh in North
Carolina. All through Sherman's
advance, Wheeler harassed and raided Sherman from Atlanta through North
Carolina.
Sherman
had given orders to his cavalry commander, General Hugh Judson “Kill
Cavalry” Kilpatrick to keep Wheeler off his wagon trains, but not to bring on
a general engagement with Confederates. Wheeler
decided to set a trap for Kilpatrick near Aiken, South Carolina on February 11,
1865.
Wheeler
hid most of his troops in and around the town, and then he attacked
Kilpatrick’s cavalry and the 14th Infantry Corp. Wheeler withdrew toward Aiken, drawing in the Union forces.
Wheeler had put his three Alabama cavalry regiments (1st, 3rd, 12th) to
the south of the town to “close the door” once Kilpatrick was within the
trap. All were instructed not to
fire a shot until Wheeler gave the signal. However,
an unknown member of one of the Alabama units fired a shot before all of
Kilpatrick’s men and the 14th Corp were within the trap.
Wheeler
then led his men in a charge once the premature alarm was given.
In the ensuing battle the Union forces were unable to rally when their
lines were broken. Confederate
losses were fifty killed or wounded. Union
losses were several hundred, including two staff officers of Kilpatrick and
ninety privates captured.
Despite
the success of Wheeler and his horsemen, General Wade Hampton was brought back
from Virginia to his home state of South Carolina to command the cavalry.
Wheeler suffered in silence; but his men did not like it, and many said
so. Discipline began to break down.
Except for the three Alabama regiments, most of the officers in the
command signed a resolution in support of Wheeler.
Because
the Confederate infantry had been withdrawn from Columbia, Wheeler was the only
defender of the capital of South Carolina when Sherman's army approached.
Wheeler fought on February 15 at Saluda River, then at Broad River
Bridge. Columbia fell on February
17, 1865. Hard fighting kept the
Union forces back until late in the day.
Wheeler
skirmished on the 18th and then moved to Chesterville while again skirmishing
with the advancing Union forces. On
March 1, 1865 they fought at Wilson’s Store and passed through Monroe, North
Carolina. They fought at Hornsbore,
where they captured 70 prisoners. The
Confederates plundered the Union camp and got some food for the best meal in
days. On the 5th they swam a
swollen river torrent and attacked a party of Union scouts, killing or capturing
35 before marching toward Fayetteville, North Carolina.
At
9:00 o’clock at night Wheeler came upon Kilpatrick's sleeping camp. Just
before daylight they charged the bivouac, trampling under foot the astonished
Union troops. Kilpatrick’s
artillery and wagons were captured and heavily damaged.
When Wheeler did not receive the promised support from Hampton, he
withdrew. Tom Ford was one of the
couriers sent to General Hampton to ask for assistance that never came.
One of Wheeler’s generals, two colonels, and a major were badly
wounded. An Alabama unit lost its
commander, and two other generals had horses killed under them.
Wheeler was forced across the Cape Fear River.
On
March 11, Wheeler lost General Anderson to wounds near Fayetteville, North
Carolina. On the 13th, Wheeler
rushed to the aid of General Hardee who was heavily engaged. Wheeler’s men checked the advance of Union General
Slocum’s Federals. On March 16,
the Confederate Army engaged superior Union forces near Averasboro, North
Carolina. Wheeler covered the
retreat. They then fought in the
battle of Bentonville, the last large battle of the Civil War.
Before
daylight of the 21st, Wheeler's men had constructed 1,200 yards of breastworks,
behind which they fought dismounted and repulsed an attack.
The Confederate line to Wheeler's left gave way, and the Federals poured
through like an avalanche. Wheeler
sent the Alabama brigade to attack the Federal left flank while the Texas
Rangers galloped across an open field obliquely through the Federals line.
The Union men were driven back.
During that night the Confederate Army withdrew toward Smithville.
Wheeler covered the retreat. But
when the Federals discovered this, they attacked Wheeler, causing Wheeler to
bring up his entire force and engage in heavy fighting against infantry.
The
next day, March 23, 1865, Wheeler marched through Smithfield and positioned his
forces between the Confederate Army of General Johnston and the Union forces of
General Sherman. Daily they engaged
Federal pickets, scouting parties and foraging details.
But the Battle of Bentonville on the 22nd was the last time infantry
regiments fired on Wheeler, even though Wheeler’s cavalry continued fighting
almost daily until the end of the war in April.
On
April 10, Sherman began pushing the Confederate Army back with Wheeler’s
cavalry attempting to check each advance, fighting every day.
On April 12, they fought Kilpatrick’s cavalry driving them back in
disorder for ten miles.
On
the 15th of April, they were near Chapel Hill when they learned of Lee’s
surrender in Virginia. This was the
same day Lincoln was shot by Booth, but Johnston's army did not hear of it until
later. On the 17th Johnston and
Sherman met to discuss surrender of Confederate forces.
The agreement was signed the next day.
On April 29, Wheeler gave his farewell address to his cavalry; but the
12th Alabama Cavalry Regiment was not in North Carolina to hear it.
The
night before the Army of Tennessee was to surrender to Union forces on April 25,
1865, the 12th Alabama Cavalry of about 125 men and officers voted not to
surrender. They disbanded that
night and left for home. Tom Ford and Bill Denson headed to Eva, Alabama.
After returning, Tom turned himself over to federal authorities on May
27,1865, and was paroled in Decatur, Alabama.
Bill
never submitted himself and was never paroled.
He became active in both Alabama and Mississippi in the Southern
resistance movement, one of whose leaders for a brief time was Nathan Bedford
Forrest.
Prior
to the end of the war, in December 1864, George Ford, brother of Tom, sold his
farm for $2,500 in Confederate money to finance his father’s trip back to
Virginia and Indiana in an attempt to secure the release of the two captured
Ford boys who had served in the 18th Georgia Infantry Regiment.
(See their story elsewhere on this web site.)
The Ford family moved to Eva, Alabama after 1865.
Both
Thomas Cellers Ford and George Washington Ford became ordained Southern Baptist
preachers and moved to Mississippi then to Arkansas, ending up in Oklahoma.
Tom
filed for a Confederate service pension in Arkansas May 25, 1911, and stated
that he served in the 27th Alabama Infantry under Colonel Hughes in 1861.
The two affidavits filed by friends with the application said he served
in the 12th Alabama Cavalry from 1862 to 1865, but he actually served 1864 and
1865 to the war’s end. Tom was granted a pension of $75 a year.
In 1912, it was increased to $100.
Ton
attended the 1912 Confederate Reunion in Arkansas with his brother, David D.
Ford who had served in the 18th Georgia Infantry Regiment and had
been captured at Second Cold Harbor.
Tom
died September 21, 1919 in Dustin, Oklahoma.
George died in Konawa, Oklahoma in 1912. George had served only in the Georgia Home Guard for Paulding
County, Georgia.
William
Denson moved to Mississippi in the early 1870s to land he had seen during the
war. He farmed near New Site,
Mississippi, and on January 10, 1906, Bill died there.