Spotsylvania Memory: Edgar Wilton Harrison


Farm of Edgar Harrison, 1866 (National Park Service)

About the early life of Edgar Wilton Harrison I have been able to learn very little. He was born in Virginia about 1829, but I cannot say with any certainty where he was born, or who his parents were. He first appears in the written record, so it seems, in the 1850 census. A 22-year-old "E.W. Harrison," a clerk, was living in King and Queen County in the household of merchant Moore Boulware.

Fredericksburg News, 23 September 1851

In 1851 Edgar was living in Caroline County. On September 18 of that year, Edgar married Ann Maria Smith Goodwin at St. George's Episcopal Church in Fredericksburg. Reverend Edward C. McGuire presided at the ceremony.

Ann's parents were William Peter Goodwin and Mary Byrd Crutchfield Burke. A veteran of the War of 1812, William was active in the civic life of Fredericksburg. He was a merchant, a member of the Hope Fire Company and he was active in Democratic politics.

In 1829, Ann Goodwin's maternal grandmother, Frances Crutchfield, wrote her will. She left to Ann and her brother, William Mary Byrd Goodwin [1] her interest in Rose Hill plantation in Spotsylvania. This land would remain in the Goodwin family until 1915.

Ford's Hotel (Encyclopedia of Virginia)

The obituary of of Edgar W. Harrison revealed that at some point in his life he had been the proprietor of Ford's Hotel in Richmond, located at the intersection of Broad and 11th streets. This may have been the case, but I have not found any contemporaneous sources to substantiate that.

Sometime during the 1850s, Edgar and Ann acquired property on Brock Road near Spotsylvania Court House, just south of the Neil McCoull farm. Although they could have not foreseen this at the time, this would be the place where the Bloody Angle battle would be fought in May 1864. In the meantime, they farmed their property in peace and raised their young children: Edgar Wilton, Jr., William Henry, Ellen Byrd and Temple, whom they called "Temmie."

The 1860 census tells us that the Harrison family was well-off for their time and place. They owned 190 acres, worth $1,500, and their personal property was valued at $9,500. This amount was based primarily on their ownership of nine slaves: a 39-year-old man, a 34-year-old woman, and seven children aged four months to eleven years.

Edgar and Ann's youngest child, Temple, was born on February 10, 1861, which may possibly explain why he did not rush off to join the Confederate army when Virginia seceded two months later. On April 1, 1862, Edgar Harrison enlisted in Company E of the 9th Virginia Cavalry at Camp Boulware in King George County. He signed up for a three year stint, and received a $50 bonus for doing so.

His surviving compiled service record shows that Edward was marked present on most muster rolls, except for the four month period January-April 1864, when he was absent without leave. He was then present until October 1864, which is the final entry in his military record. Although there is no mention of his being a patient in any hospital during the Civil War, his wife attested in her 1900 application for benefits as the widow of a Virginia veteran that Edgar had been badly wounded and could not perform manual labor for the rest of his life. Ann also mentioned that he was receiving a $30 year veteran's pension at the end of his life.

Approval for Harrison's claim for damages (Fold3.com)

In May 1863, Edgar hired James L. Taliaferro to represent his interests in a claim for damages to his property. During the Chancellorsville campaign, soldiers of the 16th Virginia Infantry, while passing through the Harrison neighborhood, helped themselves to 64 panels of his worm fencing. In his letter to General Robert Hall Chilton, Lieutenant Colonel H.W. Williamson recommended the payment of $32 to settle this claim. He noted: "This fencing was destroyed and burnt by the trains of this army in passing to and from the Battle field and Spotsylvania Court House during heavy rain storms..."

Receipt for the hire of Jeff (Fold3.com)

In October 1864, Edgar received payment for the hire of one of his slaves, Jeff, by the Confederate quartermaster department for the period January 15 to October 5, 1864. For Jeff's work as a teamster, Edgar received $319.33.

The most profound impact of the war on the Harrison family took place in May 1864, as the Federal Army emerged from the Wilderness and began to make its way to the crossroads at Spotsylvania Court House. As it so happened, the Harrison farm stood very near the spot where some of the most savage fighting of the war occurred.

Jedidiah Hotchkiss map of the Mule Shoe Salient (Fold3.com)

On May 4, 1864 the Army of the Potomac, commanded by General George Meade and accompanied by Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, crossed the Rapidan River and plunged into the Wilderness of Spotsylvania County. The Union army fought pitched battles against the outnumbered Army of Northern Virginia commanded by General Robert E. Lee. On May 7, the Union army sidestepped the Confederates and made an attempt to reach the crossroads at Spotsylvania Court House before Lee could get there. Had they been successful, the Union troops would have been between the Confederate army and Richmond, and the war could have taken a very different direction.

As fate would have it, however, the Confederates got there first and interposed themselves between the Federals and the court house. The rebels were able to block Brock Road on May 8 and repulsed Union attacks at Laurel Hill, the Spindle farm. On that same day, General Jubal early assumed temporary command of the Confederate Third Corps, replacing General A.P. Hill, who was ill (likely with another flare-up of the venereal disease that he had contracted as a cadet at West Point in the 1840s). General John Brown Gordon assumed command of Early's division.

The Confederates immediately set about constructing more than four miles of fortifications extending across Brock Road from Mrs. Spindle's place to a point beyond the home of Neill McCoull, a neighbor of the Harrisons. Because of its shape, as can be seen on the Hotchkiss map above, this defensive position was called the Mule Shoe.

On May 11, the usually canny Lee made an error that could have had catastrophic consequences for the Confederacy's fortunes. Movements of some Union forces were misinterpreted and Lee ordered the artillery in the Mule Shoe salient to be withdrawn and be prepared for a movement to the right. Unbeknownst to the Confederates, the section of the Confederate line now stripped of artillery was precisely where Union General Hancock planned to attack the following morning. On the night of May 11, Confederate General Richard Ewell made his headquarters at the Harrison house, and General Lee pitched his tent in the yard.

Early on the morning of May 12, Union troops came crashing through the Mule Shoe salient near McCoull's. Word of this disaster now unfolding soon reached Lee and Ewell. General Gordon assembled his division in the Harrison's yard, and the Confederates quickly advanced to stem the Union tide. Thus began a 22-hour fight known as the Battle of Bloody Angle. Huge losses were incurred on both sides, but Meade was not able to budge the Confederates and advance to the court house.

Meanwhile, all was confusion and panic in the Harrison household. Joseph F. Walker [2], a young slave at the Harrison farm at this time, remembered the events of that day in a memoir written in 1940: "Later in the afternoon my mistress Miss Harrison and my mother began gathering up the silver to leave...My mistress asked if there was any danger, and we all clustered around the officers for safety; but in a few minutes we were ordered to get out as the firing was going to begin, which it did like a thunderstorm. All I could hear was "Go to the rear!" We managed to get through the three lines of soldiers and went to a house known as the Dabney [Spotsylvania Clerk of Court Robert C. Dabney] House."

The war would grind on for another 11 months after the fighting near the Harrison farm. When Edgar mustered out of the cavalry he was impoverished, and his injuries prevented him from adequately rehabilitating his farm.

In 1870, Edgar and Ann, with her brother acting as her trustee, bought a 60-acre property from Dr. Addison Lewis Durrett across Brock Road from their first house. The Harrisons called their new residence "Forest Home." Edgar, Ann and their two daughters lived there for the rest of their lives.

In order to finance this purchase from Dr. Durrett, the Harrisons borrowed $250 from Fredericksburg attorney John Minor Herndon, who died a year later. Except for one $30 interest payment, the Harrisons did not pay anything toward the principal. In 1881 Charles Minor, acting as executor of his father's estate, sued the Harrisons for the money they owned. In court papers, Edgar was described as "insolvent." The following year an arrangement was made regarding the outstanding debt, and the Harrison family continued to live at Forest Home.

In order to supplement his meager income from farming, Edgar Harrison became a school teacher. The first mention of his new career in the local newspapers was in September 1875, when he was teaching at the "Alsop Gate School," presumably at the Alsop farm at the intersection of Brock and Gordon roads. Throughout the 1880s, Edgar's name was mentioned in the papers as a teacher in the public schools.

Edgar's obituary reveals that he also taught at the "Hotel School." In 1887, New York native Joseph Bittle bought the Spotswood Inn at Spotsylvania Court House. He established a private school there called the Virginia Collegiate Institute. The Bittles were Free Methodists, and their school curriculum was infused with that religious philosophy. In 1894, Bittle sold the inn to local merchant Thomas H. Harris (whose family owned nearby Bloomsbury farm). School continued to be held at the inn, but without the Free Methodist teachings, and the name of the school was also changed. The school closed for good in 1898.

By the 1890s, Edgar's health began to decline. In February 1896 he suffered a paralytic stroke and died two days later on February 9. He was buried in the cemetery at Christ Episcopal Church at the court house.

The Daily Star 11 February 1896

The Daily Star 12 February 1896

In 1939, Edgar's daughter Temple ordered a veteran headstone for her father from the War Department:

Temple Harrison's application for headstone

Headstone of Edgar Wilton Harrison

Ann Harrison outlived her husband by 9 years; she died December 18, 1905 and was buried at Christ Church. Her daughters Ellen and Temple, neither of whom ever married, are also buried there.


The Free Lance 20 December 1905

Footnotes:

The Free Lance 17 September 1889

[1] William Mary Byrd Goodwin was born about 1828. In 1852 he married Nancy Holladay, and they raised their two daughters at Rose Hill. After the death of his father in 1859, he inherited some of his slaves, including Joseph H. Walker (the 1860 census shows he owned a total of 13 enslaved people). On March 1, 1862 he joined Company E of the 9th Virginia Cavalry at Camp Boulware in King George County. His military record is notable mainly for his being absent without leave during much of 1863-1864. The last mention of him was on February 7, 1865 when he was a patient at Chimborazo Hospital in Richmond.

After the Civil War,William, like his father, was active in local Democratic politics and for a time served as chairman of the Spotsylvania Democratic Party. He was also a justice of the peace in addition to farming at Rose Hill.

In 1877 Charles E. Pendleton killed a black man with whom he worked at Bradley's lumber yard in Fredericksburg. He was found guilty at trial and sentenced to serve five years in the state penitentiary. Upon Charles's release in 1882, William offered him a job working at Rose Hill. William's impressionable 17-year-old daughter Kitty fell in love with Charles. Kitty and Charles eloped to Washington, D.C. where they were married in August 1882. William strongly disapproved of their union, and forbade them from coming to his house. That being the case, Kitty and Charles lived in Orange County.

After a time Kitty-who by this time had two daughters of her own--pleaded with her father to allow them to come stay with him. She was living in poverty and her marriage was not a happy one. William relented, and allowed Kitty and Charles and their children to come live at Rose Hill. He still did not like Charles, and they quarreled frequently, but William adored Kitty and his granddaughters and so he put up with Charles.

On September 13, 1889 Charles announced that he was going to buy some pigs at Jack Carter's, and William asked him to buy some pigs for him as well. When Charles returned that evening, he was roaring drunk and instead of the pigs he brought back a couple of hunting dogs. Charles and Kitty got into an argument and Charles called her a "damn liar." Upon hearing that, William rose from his sick bed and picked up a 2-inch piece of wood about 18 inches long. He then delivered two blows to Charles's head. Stunned but still full of fight, Charles grabbed William's shotgun and pointed it at him. William grabbed the barrel of the gun and pointed it at the ceiling and then pulled the trigger, emptying the gun. He and Kitty then pushed Charles out of the house on to the porch and secured the door behind him. Charles picked up another loaded gun that was on the porch and fired it through the door, striking William in the thigh. Doctors Martin and Voorhees were summoned and with the help of Spotsylvania County sheriff Thomas Addison Harris they amputated William's leg. Their efforts to save William's life were in vain. William died the next day, September 13, 1889. A few days later Spotsylvania clerk of court Joseph Patrick Henry Crismond wrote a memorial for William on behalf of the Zion Methodist Church Sunday school:

The Free Lance 27 September 1889

At trial, Charles Pendleton was found guilty of murder. For the second time, he was sentenced to serve a term in the state penitentiary, this time for 12 years. The year after he killed her father, Kitty divorced Charles and took back her maiden name. In 1893, while suffering from tuberculosis, Charles appealed for clemency from the governor. His appeal was denied.

Some time in the early 1900s, Kitty Goodwin moved to the household of now former clerk of court J.P.H. Crismond. She worked for him as a domestic servant for the rest of her life. In 1915 she sold Rose Hill to Fredericksburg builder Elmer Grimsley "Peck" Heflin. Kitty died of complications from a perforated ulcer in 1923.

[2] Joseph F. Walker (1854-1943) was born a slave in the household of William P. Goodwin at Rose Hill farm. Upon Mr. Goodwin's death, ownership of Joseph passed to his son William Mary Byrd Goodwin. Joseph's mother and sisters were given to William's sister, Ann Harrison. After the Civil War, Joseph served for decades as sexton at St. George's Episcopal Church in Fredericksburg and also worked as a butler for Judge William S. Barton. Joseph was a member of Shiloh Baptist New Site, where he was a deacon for 48 years. Together with educator Jason Grant, Joseph helped establish the Fredericksburg Normal and Industrial Institute in 1905, which was the forerunner of the Walker-Grant School named in their honor.