A slice of (hog) heaven at General Gideon Pillow’s plantation

Gideon Pillow was a mediocre Civil War general, but he lived large at Clifton Place plantation,
five miles from downtown Columbia, Tenn. (CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE.)

Like this blog on Facebook | Follow me on Twitter

On a gloomy, overcast Saturday rambling about rural Maury County (Tenn.) with two excellent local guides, my friend Jack Richards and I learned: 

• Columbia, the county seat, is the "Mule Capital of the World." (The town is famous for its annual "Mule Day," which began before the Civil War.)
• The difference between chitlins (yuck) and cracklings (double yuck).

• 

  Gideon Pillow's spacious back porch.

  Gideon Pillow was a lousy Civil War general — see Exhibit A, Fort Donelson fiasco — but the Confederate commander sure lived the high life on a lavish plantation called “Clifton Place” astride Mount Pleasant Pike, five miles southwest of downtown Columbia. (He also was high on Gideon Pillow — the Mexican War veteran/politician/lawyer/planter/slave owner displayed a full-length painting of himself in his mansion.)
  
  In his 1864 memoirs, Winfield Scott -- commanding general of the U.S. Army when the Civil War broke out -- described Pillow as "amiable, and possessed of some acuteness, but the only person I have ever known who was wholly indifferent in the choice between truth and falsehood, honesty and dishonesty; ever as ready to attain an end by the one as the other, and habitually boastful of acts of cleverness at the total sacrifice of moral character."
  
  In other words, "Old Fuss and Feathers" was not a fan.

Original knocker on mansion
front door. (Photo: Jack Richards)

Privately owned but unoccupied for decades, Clifton Place includes a 12-room mansion built in 1838 as well as the original ice house, stable, Pillow office, slave quarters, kitchen, and smokehouse. (More on the greatness of the smokehouse in a bit.) Good for us that the Yankees didn't torch Clifton Place when they had the chance. Well-known for its impressive antebellum plantations (Ashwood Hall, Rattle And Snap, Rippavilla, etc.), Maury County was the wealthiest county per capita in Tennessee at the outbreak of the Civil War.

Thankfully, Richards and I had exceptional Pillow plantation guides — Maury County Archives director Tom Price and 78-year-old Campbell Ridley, a longtime Columbia resident, farmer, quipster, and a Pillow descendant. Ridley’s grandfather, who enjoyed eating hog brains, owned Clifton Place when Campbell was a kid. The plantation remained in his family until the early 1970s. (Ridley and Price also showed us the interior of historic St. John's Church and the site of Ashwood Hall, a spectacular mansion that was destroyed in an 1874 fire.)

Clifton Place sorely needs some TLC, but what multimillionaire wouldn't be tempted to invest in a mansion that features stone steps trod upon 11th U.S. president James K. Polk, a spectacular back porch, and a front door with a swan figurine on the original knocker?

Ridley enjoyed showing us around the plantation, regaling us with stories of hog butchering and crackling creation. (Earlier, he kept at least one of his guests spellbound with tales about Mule Day and his Aunt Sarah Ann, the first Mule Day queen.) But nothing grabbed our attention like the visit behind the mansion to the smokehouse, a 2 1/2-story, brick building with peeling yellow paint on its exterior. 

A 1936 view of the mansion's interior (Historic American Buildings Survey,
Library of Congress | VIEW MORE.)

The back side of the Greek Revival-style mansion features an impressive porch.

Gideon Pillow had a short walk from his mansion to his office.

The smokehouse stands behind the mansion.

Campbell Ridley holds a wooden slat from which hogs are hung.

Salt residue coats the brick floor.

Behind smokehouse Door No. 1 Ridley showed us a wooden slat used to hoist a dead hog onto a metal rail so it could be gutted. After the hoisting, a bucket was placed below the head for the innards to fall into after after the gutting. Warning: Not intended for viewing by faint-hearted city folks.  

Behind Door No. 2 was the pigs-de-resistance (sorry): the room where the hogs were smoked and cured in this country ham “factory.” I'm told there's nothing quite like a great country ham -- it's much better than any ham at Kroger.

A massive, ancient wood block in smokehouse.

To our left in the darkened room stood a massive wooden block -- undoubtedly from the Pillow era, Price said — upon which hams were chopped. Two 19th-century "ham logs" -- logs hollowed out to form a trough for salting of the hams -- rested against the wall. Salt from decades of country ham making coated the brick floor. 

Lawd, mere words can’t do justice to the spectacular, smoky aroma lingering in the place. No wonder Pillow's privies were strategically placed in two small rooms attached to the smokehouse. Who knows how many thousands of country hams have been smoked and cured at Pillow's plantation? 

After a few minutes in the smokehouse, I was half-tempted to roll on the ground like a giddy puppy just to bring home some of that wonderful smell on my bicycle pants (don't ask) and longsleeve sweatshirt. But, seriously, there was no point in hamming it up. :)

---

-- Have something to add (or correct) in this post? E-mail me here.

SOURCES: 

-- National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, Ashwood Historic District.

-- Scott, Winfield, Memoirs of Lieut.-General Scott, New York, Sheldon and Company, 1864, Vol. II

A tony neighborhood today, battlefield in late fall 1864

Like this blog on Facebook | Follow me on Twitter
In this video shot for the Center For Civil War Photography, I stopped along Granny White Pike, where severe fighting occurred during Day 2 of the Battle of Nashville on Dec. 16, 1864. Unsurprisingly, this hallowed ground looks nothing like its 19th-century appearance. It was here in 1906 that artist Howard Pyle did his homework for his epic Nashville battle painting that hangs today in the Minnesota State Capitol Building in St. Paul. Please excuse my slothful appearance -- sometimes chasing history can be grueling. 

Howard Pyle's epic painting of Minnesota troops fighting at the Battle of Nashville hangs
in the Minnesota State Capitol Building in St. Paul. Photo courtesy of Betsy Haag
of the 5th Minnesota Research Group on Facebook.

A Tennessee church and 'returning dust of immortal Cleburne'

After Patrick Cleburne's exhumation in 1870 at St. John's Episcopal Church Cemetery,
 the Irish-born general's remains were temporarily placed in St. Peter's Episcopal Church
 in Columbia, Tenn. (CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE.)

Like this blog on Facebook | Follow me on Twitter
In April 1870, a delegation from Arkansas traveled to Ashwood, Tenn., to recover the remains of Patrick Cleburne for reburlal in his adopted hometown of Helena.

Historical marker along Mount Pleasant Pike
at St. John's Episcopal Church
in Ashwood, Tenn.

“... one of the bravest soldiers and one of the grandest heroes of our war for Independence,” the local newspaper called the Irish-born Confederate general, who was killed at the Battle of Franklin on Nov. 30, 1864.

Cleburne's disinterment was a major event in the rural area, roughly 40 miles south of Nashville. On the morning of exhumation, area citizens accompanied Arkansas Judge Leonard H. Magnum, the general's  wartime aide, and Dr. L.H. Grant, a Helena druggist, to St. John’s Episcopal Church Cemetery. Every spring since Cleburne’s death his gravesite there had been covered with flowers “by the loyal and beautiful ladies of the neighborhood.”

(Shortly after the Battle of Franklin, Cleburne was buried in Columbia’s Rose Hill Cemetery, but he was removed following his comrades' discovery that Yankees also were buried there.)

In early December 1864, Cleburne was buried behind St. John's Church Cemetery (below)
in rural Ashwood, Tenn. His remains originally were interred in nearby Columbia.

At St. John’s Cemetery, Cleburne’s coffin was found “very much decayed,” and “not a particle of flesh was remaining” on his skeleton. But the uniform the general was buried in was well preserved.

Cleburne’s remains were escorted to Columbia, where they were placed in St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, steps from a home once occupied by 11th U.S. President James K. Polk. (The still-operating church is at 311 W. 7th Street,; the Polk home stands, too.)

Ex-Confederate generals Lucius Polk, Gideon Pillow
and John C. Brown were in the Cleburne hearse procession
 in Columbia, Tenn., in April 1870.

“...some of our most prominent citizens, both young and old, sat up all night with the returning dust of the immortal Cleburne,” the Columbia newspaper reported.

Columbia businesses were closed the evening Cleburne’s body was taken in a hearse to the train depot for the journey to Arkansas. Masons formed on each side of the church entrance — Cleburne was a member of Helena’s Masonic Lodge. Then, as the St. Peter's Episcopal Church bell tolled, Masons led the procession, which included former Confederate generals Lucius Polk, Gideon Pillow and John C. Brown in carriages. Following the dignitaries walked a large group of citizens -- no surprise given the popularity of “The Stonewall of the West.”

“Immense processions,” the Columbia newspaper reported, “are expected to meet the dead hero at Memphis and Helena, the final destination.”

Neither town disappointed.

---

-- Have something to add (or correct) in this post? E-mail me here.

SOURCE: 

-- The Herald and Mail, Columbia, Tenn., April 29, 1870.

A brief visit to 'lost' Franklin battlefield stone wall

Like this blog on Facebook | Follow me on Twitter
Ever since my friend Jack Richards showed it to me recently, I haven't been able to get the old stone wall along Columbia Pike in Franklin, Tenn., out of my head. The roughly 150-yard section of wall --  unknown to most battlefield visitors -- sits a few feet below the current pike on the Bloody Plain upon which John Bell Hood's Army of Tennessee advanced to attack Federals on Nov. 30, 1864. About a mile north, at the Fountain Carter farm, the U.S. Army awaited behind crude earthworks. Jump-off point for Hood's soldiers was Winstead Hill, about a mile south. The wall -- part of the old Merrill farm -- undoubtedly was here in 1864, but Richards still seeks rock-solid, official confirmation. I shot this video recently, deftly maneuvering through mud, litter and who knows what else. Oh, the life of a Civil War rambler.  

The stone wall, part of the old Merrill farm, sits along busy Columbia Pike.

---

-- Have something to add (or correct) in this post? E-mail me here.

'I live on a battlefield': My chat about Nashville

Like this blog on Facebook | Follow me on Twitter
I recently "Zoomed" in for nearly an hour with my Connecticut Civil War roundtable friends for a talk about the Battle of Nashville. Among the topics:

• Distilleries! :)
• A Medal of Honor winner and his "capture" of a Mississippi flag.
• The courage of Black soldiers during the attack at Peach Orchard Hill.
• A horse named Dixie Bill.
• Connecticut weather.
• Former Pittsburgh Pirates stars Roberto Clemente and Manny Sanguillen. 
• Witness trees. (Hey, there's a post here and here.) 
• And so much more.

Great history, good grub: A long walk in Franklin, Tennessee

Imposing earthen walls of Fort Granger in Franklin, Tenn. Union artillery here caused
significant casualties among Confederates during the Battle of Franklin on Nov. 30, 1864.

Like this blog on Facebook | Follow me on Twitter

My solid Saturday grub.

On Saturday morning, my friend Jack Richards and I examined the imposing earthen walls at Fort Granger on a bluff above the Harpeth River in Franklin, Tenn.; walked to the outskirts of town to check out the probable remains of a war-time wall along Columbia Pike, and ate some fine grub from the Moe Better BBQ and Fish food truck conveniently located in a parking lot along our route. Their motto -- "You don't need teeth to eat this meat" -- made us chuckle. 

More to come soon on Jack's wall find -- it's along the Confederates' route of advance during the Battle of Franklin on Nov. 30, 1864. 

Of course, no visit to Franklin is complete without a visit to the Federals' forward line position. Check out the video above. (Damn, those soldiers there must have been scared out of their minds.)

Steps registered on my Fitbit: 17,729. A good day.

Jack Richards stands by probable remains of wartime wall (below) along Columbia Pike.

Gotta love the slogan of these "grubmasters."

What happened to Patrick Cleburne's sword and watch?

Patrick Cleburne, killed at the Battle of Franklin on Nov. 30, 1864, and a story
 about the general's sword in the Atlanta Journal Constitution on March 20, 1878.

Like this blog on Facebook | Follow me on Twitter
At about dawn the day after the Battle of Franklin (Tenn.), Confederate General Patrick Cleburne's body was found among other fallen Rebels -- he was flat on his back, his kepi partially covering his eyes. The division commander's remains were taken by wagon to the McGavock family’s Carnton Plantation mansion, accompanied by the hat as well as the general’s watch and sword. The kepi may be found on display in the excellent Tennessee State Museum in Nashville. The watch and sword? Well, I know a few folks who are interested in their whereabouts.

Can you help?

Oh, and here's a neat story about the circuitous journey of Cleburne's 36-caliber Colt revolver.

Patrick Cleburne's kepi in the Tennessee State Museum in Nashville.

---

-- Have something to add (or correct) in this post? E-mail me here.