LAUREL MAGAZINE, MARCH ISSUE 2006
From April of 1861 through the spring of 1865, the Civil War exacted a heavy toll on the citizens of Cashiers Valley. The first part of the war saw sons, husbands and fathers joining the Confederacy and marching away to an unknown fate while other families held fast to their strong Union sentiments. The last couple of years of the war brought real physical suffering to the area. While there were no major battles fought here there were the casualties of divided family loyalties, bushwhacker raids and near starvation.
Greene County Tennessee’s Union officer, Col. George Washington Kirk, led a band of "legal" bushwhackers that many times rode into the valley spreading fear and rode out of the valley with confiscated livestock and provisions. Known locally as "Kirk’s Army" or "Kirk’s Raiders," this group of men, under orders, had to find their own food and all homes in their path were ransacked for flour, sugar and meat. The local people quickly learned clever means of concealing their food. Some civilians took their hams out into a rocky field and covered them with moss so they looked like boulders. Another hiding place was the nearby creek, where bags of flour were submerged and covered with rocks. It seems the flour would harden around the edges but the middle would stay dry.
The raiders always carried a branding iron with them and if they were lucky enough to discover an able bodied horse, they would take the branding iron into a house, stick it into the fireplace until it was red hot and then go back outside and brand the stolen horse with "U. S. Army."
The William Norton – Susannah Zachary Norton home, which contained at least eight children, was visited at least twice by the bushwhackers. William Norton, one of the sons of Whiteside Cove founder, Barak Norton, had built his house near the center of Cashiers Valley, along the road that came up from South Carolina. Soyrieta Vap Epp, in her book Status Quo, gave a description of the house in earlier days:
"It is two-story, of notched, grooved and pegged construction, puncheon floors and hand riveted cedar shingles. Originally it had enormous stone fireplaces chinked with clay, as were the pine logs. The windows were small and shuttered, parchment covered the openings; they could not afford glass. A long covered dog trot led to the separate kitchen. The massive native stone fireplace stretched across the entire west wall and had a raised hearth and iron cranes that swung out, fitted with hooks on which pots and kettles could be hung. Iron pots, pans and footed Dutch ovens hung nearby."
According to Van Epp, the William Norton house was remodeled in 1946. The outbuildings, dog trot and detached kitchen were torn down, but the house remains standing and is in use today. There is a mail slot still visible from the days that William Norton was the postmaster of Cashiers.
Prior to the first bushwhacker visit, William and Susannah Norton had carefully hidden their supply of cured meat inside the house behind the wall paneling. They instructed their children to never tell anyone, especially the bushwhackers, that the family had any meat. Well, one day Kirk’s Raiders rode up to the Norton’s, dismounted, came into the house and demanded that the family give them any meat they had. They were told there was no meat to turn over. Suddenly, one of the younger Norton daughters looked at her parents and said, "Don’t you remember, you hid it behind the wall boards?"
On the second visit the Nortons had from Col. George W. Kirk and his men, there was a new demand. Kirk looked William Norton straight in the eye and said, "My men would like to have a square dance this evening and we need some young ladies to be our partners. If you will allow your daughters to come with us, we will treat them like ladies and we will return them safely and unharmed to you. If you won’t let them come with us, we’ll burn your house down." Off went Mary Arlissa, age 20, Elizabeth Alice, age 16 and Julia M., age about 13. The oldest sister, Sarah Emmalissa, age 22, was married, but being that her husband was likely away, she may have been there and also attended the dance. The youngest sister, Martha Lou Ellen Norton, was only about age 11, so she would have remained at home.
True to their word, a few anxious hours later, the bushwhackers returned the Norton daughters to their home in the same condition they were in when they left. Of all the many stories told about the feared bushwhackers, this is the only one with a happy ending.
