A continuing series drawn largely from Laura Powers Marbut and Sarah Powers Thielbar's book David M. Chaney, 1809-1859, Allied Families and Descendants. The book has long been out of print, having been published in 1971 by Heritage Papers of Danielsville, Georgia.
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August 8, 1861, at Mt. Hope, Texas, the Mt. Hope Home Guard was organized. This was made up of men 45 years of age or older, and boys under 18 years. Their purpose was to guard the Neches River and the coast of Texas to the top of Mexico. John Whitehead took his 18-year-old son, Walter Whitehead, his body slave "Big Henry", most of his best horses, as well as most of the family's money, and went into the Confederacy.
(Marbut & Thielbar, pg 12)
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There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.
Abraham Lincoln
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In my previous post here, I wrote about Governor Sam Houston's visit to the dinner John Swepson Whitehead and Emily Margaret (Chaney-Watson) Whitehead, hosted in their home. It will be remembered that Houston wanted the support of Whitehead and others in his quest to keep Texas in the Union. His efforts were in vain, for Whitehead and others clearly chose to support the South and the Southern cause.
Exactly when that dinner took place is not known, but on April 12-13, 1861, Confederate forces bombarded Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. Union Major Robert Anderson was forced to surrender, and the war official started.
Rumors circulated along the Texas coast that summer of possible attacks from federal ships. In July, the warship South Carolina, commanded by James Alden, landed at Galveston with orders to enforce a federal blockade. Alden promptly extended the blockade north to Sabine Pass and captured several vessels.
In response, the Mt. Hope Home Guard was organized in August of 1861. The guard was comprised of men older than 45 years of age and younger than 18, those men who were considered too old or too young to join the Confederate forces. John Swepson Whitehead, at 45 years of age, was just past the age of serving in the Confederate forces, and his eldest son, Walter, at 14 years of age, was too young. (The excerpt above says he was 18, but that does not square with the census records.) So, they joined the Mt. Hope Home Guard. John took along his trusted slave Big Henry, most of his best horses, and almost all of the family's money.
The Mt. Hope Home Guard was called into service almost immediately in August after its inception, and it was sent to the defense of Galveston. Except for some shelling that seemed to have happened prior to the home guard arriving, the time the guard spent in Galveston was relatively quiet.
In late September 1861, either before, during, or after an outbreak of yellow fever along the coast, the home guard was sent to Houston.
During his time in the home guard, Whitehead sent letters home which, until a few years ago, remained in the Whitehead home I wrote of here. Those letters have since been given to someone else, and I have not been able to find where they are.
Marbut and Thielbar, however, do quote one letter which John Whitehead, while stationed in Matagorda County with the home guard in February of 1864, wrote to wife Emily . . .
Matagorda County, Camp in the Field, Mouth of Old Caney, February 4, 1864 . . .. In haste I seat myself to drop you a few hurried lines merely to let you know that I am still in the land of the living and in good health, and so sincerely hope that this finds you and the children doing well. Tell Walter to drive ahead. it is now root pig or die. I saw one Yankee steamer pop yesterday. She fired on our forts. You ought to have been here to hear the balls hiss through the air."
Another letter alludes to the lack of reliable mail service when John writes, at the end, "It is hardly worth your while to write me, for I never get your letters."
Obviously, at some point, Walter had left the home guard. Whether it was to join up with the Confederate forces once he turned eighteen years old or to help Emily with the plantation, or perhaps, both, is not known. What is known, is that Emily was left to run the plantation in John's absence. She directed the planting and harvesting of cotton and food, managed the house and the business side of the plantation, raised the children, took care of the slaves and directed their work, and fed all of them.
Later, the big iron plantation bell would oftentimes sound alarms to the hands in the field as Union troops began to overrun the area. After the war, many of the slaves remained loyal to her and stayed on with the Emily and the Whiteheads.
John and Emily's son, Richard Little Dickie Whitehead, born in March of 1860, died on 23 June 1862 at the age of two years old while John was with The Home Guard. The women slaves helped Emily bury him.
On 5 December of 1864, while John was more than likely still with The Home Guard, Emily gave birth to another son. This time, the couple named the child Robert E. Lee Whitehead, in honor of the Southern general.
By the time this son was born, however, the war was winding to a close, and the outcome was not to be what had been expected and hoped for. When John Swepson Whitehead came home to stay, he was broken in spirit and discouraged, for all he had fought for was gone. He never seemed to recover his life sufficiently, nor did he ever again go to church.
The same cannot be said of Emily. No doubt disheartened and weary, her work in this life, however, was just beginning.
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Donna Hechler Porter is a teacher by day, realtor by afternoon, and a writer at all other times. She has been climbing and digging up her family tree her whole life, and she not only writes genealogy books, but she puts her ancestors into her award-winning novels. She lives outside Houston with embarrassingly way too many animals even as she longs for a log cabin the woods. Donna stops at yard sales on a whim, picks up treasures off the side of the road, and has never met a thrift store she didn't like. Feel free to find Donna's books at her website, and be sure to join her author blog Books, Chocolate, & Men in Tricorns and her newsletter for all things writing, A Petticoat & A Pen.
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