"Horrid Blue Coats"

— Stoneman's Raid —

(preface)

On March 24, 1865, Union Gen. George Stoneman led 6,000 cavalrymen from Tennessee into southwestern Virginia and western North Carolina to disrupt the Confederate supply line by destroying sections of the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad, the North Carolina Railroad, and the Piedmont Railroad. He struck at Boone on March 28, headed into Virginia on April 2, and returned to North Carolina a week later. Stoneman Raid ended at Asheville on April 26, the day that Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnson surrendered to Union Gen. William T. Sherman near Durham.



(main text)

Union Gen. Alvan C. Gillem led two brigades of Gen. George Stoneman raiders here to the Jonathan Logan Carson house on April 19, 1865. News of the cavalry approach arrived before the Federals. The family buried some of its valuables in the forest and concealed others in a nearby cabin. Fearing for her husband life, Carson wife persuaded him to hide in the woods; loyal slaves remained here to protect the women and children.



To your left front, the raiders skirmished briefly with a few Confederate home guards, who quickly fled. Some of Gillem men rode into the house and plundered it, but one of the officers prevented the soldiers from burning the dwelling. The cavalrymen than camped here, receiving word of Gen. Robert E. Lee surrender in Virginia. They frightened the Carson family, as well as Emma Lydia Rankin, a schoolteacher boarding here. She later wrote, "By the time the little skirmish was over the horrid blue coats were swarming in and through and around the house." At times it seemed that "there were about a million of them" roaming the grounds. Soon, however, they were gone, riding toward Asheville. Blocked at Swannanoa Gap, Gillem turned south to Rutherfordton.



(captions)

(lower left) Buck Creek Ford and road, where Stoneman Raiders crossed, ca. 1908. Courtesy Carson House

(lower center) Emma Lydia Rankin, ca.1908 Courtesy Carson House

(upper right) Gen. George Stoneman Courtesy Library of Congress; Gen. Alvan C. Gillem Courtesy Library of Congress

(lower right) Route of Stoneman Raid in Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina, March-April 1865.

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