[The following in an excerpt from the Winter 2002 edition of the Tennessee Historical Quarterly and is copyrighted 2002 to the Tennessee Historical Society.] 

 The Private War of Lafayette Jones:

A Civil War Tragedy in Northeast Tennessee

 by Ed Speer

 Editor’s introduction by Carroll Van West

    Historian Noel C. Fisher has persuasively argued in his recent study, War at Every Door: Partisan Politics and Guerilla Violence in East Tennessee, 1860-1869, that the “second face” of the American Civil War “was the unorganized conflict between Unionist and secessionist partisans.  This struggle pitted region against region, community against community, and members of the same community against each other.  It was decentralized, local, and often surprisingly detached from the conventional war, and its character varied from place to place.” (p. 3)  Nowhere in the annals of the war in Tennessee is this general pattern better documented than through the military life of Lafayette Jones, a Unionist from Johnson County, who carried out his own war of revenge and retribution from 1863 to 1865.  His story is not a gallant one -- indeed Jones would die without family or friends at the Tennessee State Asylum in Nashville --but it is one that was repeated in many other Tennessee communities during the Civil War era.  Partisan violence remains the one Tennessee Civil War story not told often enough.

            Born about 1830 in Carter County, Tennessee, Lafayette Jones was the son of Jordan J. Jones and his wife Arminta Helton, who had married in Carter County in 1827.^[i] Jordan Jones worked as a “hammerman,” probably at the Elizabethton Bloomery Forge, situated on the Doe River at the east end of Elizabethton, the county seat of Carter County.^[ii]  In 1850, Lafayette Jones worked as a printer for Samuel Greer in Jonesborough, about fifteen miles southwest of Elizabethton.^[iii] In April of that year, Samuel Greer and James Sparks had established the Railroad Journal and Family Visitor, a newspaper devoted to “Internal Improvements, Agriculture, Education, Mechanics Arts, News and General Intelligence -- Neutral in politics and religion.”  The editors of the journal hoped to “advocate the cause of the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad,” which would link the East Tennessee towns of Bristol and Knoxville.^[iv] In the 1850s, the Jones family moved to Johnson County, Tennessee, where Jordan Jones managed the Sand Spring Bloomery Forge, “situated on Roane’s [sic] creek, nine miles south of Taylorsville,” then the Johnson County seat. As the Civil War approached, he was still employed as a “hammerman” in the fourth civil district.^[v] 

            In Johnson County, the Jones family would suffer more than most -- three members of the family would be killed during the war.^[vi] Jordan Jones, “a strong Union man,” was “captured by the rebels” and “sent to Richmond where he died in prison of small-pox.” William Shoun, “a rebel sympathizer,” shot Leslie Jones, younger brother of Lafayette Jones, as he allegedly attempted to break into the Shoun residence.^[vii] This cycle of violence undoubtedly contributed to Lafayette Jones’s private war of 1863-1865.

            On the eve of the Civil War, the neighboring Carter and Johnson counties were decidedly pro-Union. Few slaveholders lived in either county, and only a handful owned more than ten apiece. In the presidential election of 1860, a large majority of voters in both counties supported John Bell, the Tennessee native and Constitutional Union Party candidate.^[viii] Voters in both counties also opposed secession in the two referendums held in Tennessee in 1861. In the February election, Carter Countians rejected the calling of a secession convention by a vote of 1,055 to 55, while in Johnson County, voters rejected the convention by a vote of 631 to 38. In the June 1861 special election, the voters rejected separation from the Union (and adoption of the Provisional Government of the Confederate States of America) by a vote of 1,343 to 86 in Carter County and 787 (or 786) to 111 in Johnson County.^[ix] Delegates from both counties attended the East Tennessee Union Convention in Knoxville (May 30-31, 1861) and Greeneville (June 17-20, 1861).^[x]

            Prior to the June referendum, United States Senator Andrew Johnson and his fellow Unionists Thomas A. R. Nelson and Nathaniel G. Taylor spoke at a Union meeting in Elizabethton on 15 May 1861.^[xi] A meeting held at the county courthouse in Taylorsville on 27 April demonstrated the pro-Union sentiments in neighboring Johnson County. In resolutions unanimously adopted, the “citizens of Johnson County” declared their “unabated attachment for the Union and the Constitution of our Fathers,” and expressed a belief that their “rights and liberties can be better maintained in the Union and under the Constitution, than by any revolution or seperate [sic] organization.” The assembled citizens also asserted that:

There does not, nor never has existed any just cause for a disruption of this governmen[t], and that we have no sympathy with, or for Secession or Disunion.  Nor have we any sympathy or affinity for the ultra men of the North. But in as much as the extremists of the North and the South brought the difficulty about, we are willing to be passive spectators while they fight out of it.^[xii]

Other citizens of the county, however, may not have shared the views of those who approved the resolutions. And as the June referendum approached, the citizens of Johnson County (like many Tennesseans) would find it difficult to remain politically neutral and be mere “passive spectators.”

            The Civil War saga of Lafayette Jones begins in Nashville as the general assembly met in late 1861.^[xiii] At this time, Roderick R. Butler, a Johnson County Unionist and acquaintance of Jones represented Carter and Johnson counties.^[xiv] In November, during this legislative session, a group of East Tennessee Unionists attempted to burn several railroad bridges in that section of the state. Following this “rebellion” in East Tennessee, Confederate officials took twenty-two men from Carter County and imprisoned them in Nashville.^[xv] Jones later testified that Representative Butler:

did all within his power to procure their release, and did procure the release of nearly all of them. Some of them having become weary of their long confinement in the rebel jail, proposed and talked of volunteering in the confederate army; and said Butler hearing of their having such intentions requested me and urged it upon me to go and see them, and advise them not to do so; that he thought he could procure their releasement, and opposed their volunteering in the confederate army, bitterly. I went as said Butler requested, and advised them as requested by said Butler, and thus prevented the most of them from carrying their design of volunteering in the confederate army into execution.^[xvi]

            At the same time, Butler advised Lafayette Jones to “take a company of Union men through the lines to Kentucky and put them in the federal army.”^[xvii] A year later, in July 1863, Jones and Eli W. Mulican raised a company of one hundred men from Carter and Johnson counties. Mulican was a Unionist who had earlier traveled to Johnson County from his native Davidson County, North Carolina. The company raised by Jones and Mulican elected Jones as captain and Mulican as first lieutenant; one John P. Nelson, who had journeyed to Johnson County with Mulican, was elected second lieutenant.^[xviii]

            On July 23, the company left Tennessee for Kentucky, led by the Mexican War veteran and Union guide, Daniel Ellis of Carter County, Tennessee. Near Johnson’s Depot (present-day Johnson City, Tennessee), the company was forced to turn back, and Captain Jones was captured soon afterwards; Mulican and fifty-two men eventually joined the Union army.^[xix] After the war, Jones recounted the events of that summer:

I made up a company of men to go through the lines to join the federal army, but before getting off the orderly sergeant of my company was captured by the rebels and killed, and the list of the company captured; and . . . [Roderick R.] Butler came to me and advised me to go through the lines quickly, for fear the rebels would capture more of my company. I was afterwards captured before I could get my company through; but said company afterwards went through under the first lieutenant and joined the federal army at the request of said Butler. I afterwards made up a company and went through the lines and joined the federal army, and served until the close of the war.^[xx]

            According to Roderick R. Butler, Lafayette Jones:

was captured by Waugh’s Johnson County Home Guards, and in the struggle one of the Confederate soldiers struck him in the head with his gun, the barrel hitting him[.] Jones was tied, handcuffed, and taken by Waugh to Richmond. Jones said, Waugh robbed him of $16,500 in gold and on their journey to Richmond[,] which required several days, Waugh would furnish food for himself with Jones’ own money and did not give him a mouthful to eat on the journey, for which treatment he (Jones) determined to kill Waugh if he ever returned.^[xxi]

            The Union guide Daniel Ellis related a similar story:

At the time Jones was captured, Waugh promised him faithfully that the money which had been taken from him should be given to his parents, who were then living near Waugh’s residence in Johnson County. But this promise was never fulfilled, as Waugh kept the money, and appropriated it to his own use. When Jones became acquainted with Waugh’s duplicity in this matter he vowed that he would kill him the first opportunity that presented itself.^[xxii]

            William K. Waugh was a wealthy merchant in the second civil district of Johnson County, which encompassed the county seat.^[xxiii] Born about 1812, Waugh had moved from Monroe County, Tennessee, to Johnson County, where he married Julia Emmert in 1858.^[xxiv] In 1860, Waugh was one of twenty-nine county residents who owned at least $10,000 in real and personal property.^[xxv]

            Roderick R. Butler described Waugh as a “peaceable, good citizen” in character, but one who “was rather a bloody man when enraged.” Some years earlier, perhaps when he lived in Monroe County, Waugh had “cut a man terribly; but he had rather reformed.” Like many Tennesseans, Waugh was a Union man when the Civil War began, but after the secession of Virginia on May 23, 1861, he became a rebel and “was the most violent man we had.” In Johnson County, Waugh became the captain of a company of Confederate home guards.^[xxvi]

            Jones’s whereabouts between the summer of 1863 and the spring of 1864 are unknown.  He may have been imprisoned in Richmond, as related by R. R. Butler and Daniel Ellis.  Nevertheless, Jones apparently was in East Tennessee in the late spring of 1864, where he joined other Unionists on a raid into Johnson County. 

            “I soon had a company of men ready to make a raid upon the rebels of Johnson County,” recalled Daniel Ellis in 1867. According to Ellis, the Johnson County rebels had committed “reckless deeds of infamy and villainy” under the leadership of “Bill Waugh and Sam M’Queen, two of the wealthiest citizens of Johnson County, who were generally the leaders or advisers in all the dreadful acts of crime which were committed in that county during the memorable reign of the miserable rebellion.”^[xxvii]

            In April 1864, Ellis had delivered letters, money, and presents to the families of Union soldiers from Johnson County. The Johnson County rebels, who soon learned of his visit to the county, stole most of the money.^[xxviii] When Ellis was planning the raid to recover the stolen money, he was “altogether ignorant of the treatment which Jones had received from [William K.] Waugh, and for which injury he had solemnly protested he would have revenge by taking the life of Waugh.”^[xxix] After Ellis organized his “company,” they “proceeded at once to Waugh’s house,” where Jones shot and killed Waugh. The date of the raid -- and Waugh’s death -- was June 10, 1864.^[xxx]

            “Waugh’s house was a log house, and he had made a fort out of it,” recalled Roderick R. Butler. “He had port-holes cut between the logs, as many country houses had during the war, and he kept a large quantity of arms. Jones surrounded the house. Waugh was making an effort to shoot him, but Jones shot first and killed Waugh.” Those present in Waugh’s house, including Waugh’s son and stepson and “but two or three men,” were certainly outnumbered by Ellis’s company, which Butler put at thirty or forty men.^[xxxi]

            Daniel Ellis remembered that Jones “boldly entered” Waugh’s house and “shot him down, killing him instantly.” The sudden killing of Waugh:

threw the whole company into a panic for a moment,but, after reflecting for a short time how their homes had been devastated, and how they had been robbed of every thing valuable which they possessed, the current changed, and they were ready for action again. The house was then thoroughly searched, but no part of the missing goods or money could be found. We then went to the residence of Sam M’Queen, who was one of the most violent and outrageous rebels that belonged to that wicked and infamous conclave known under the name and style of the Home Guards of Johnson County. . . .

We searched M’Queen’s house, together with several others, some of which were garrisoned by rebel soldiers, who immediately fled as if they were carried upon the wings of the wind when they heard us approaching. But we failed to find any of the lost treasure for which we were searching, with the exception of two pairs of ladies’ shoes. As we had failed to recover the money and property which had been forcibly taken from the wives of the [federal] soldiers, we concluded to repair the loss by taking the rebels’ horses, the greater number of which belonged to the rebel soldiers, and the remainder to the home guards. After taking enough of the said horses to pay the soldiers back the money which the rebels had taken from their wives, the balance of them were left in the hands of the capturers, and we then left Johnson County, and made immediate arrangements to go through the lines.^[xxxii]

            Less than three months after the killing of William K. Waugh, Lafayette Jones enlisted as a captain in the Ninth Tennessee Cavalry, U.S.A.; Jones “joined for duty” on September 1, 1864, at Bulls Gap, Tennessee, and was mustered in the same day at Morristown, Tennessee, as captain of Company K.^[xxxiii] The organization of this unit dated to August 1863. In April 1864, the Eighth, Ninth, and Thirteenth Cavalry Regiments had been assigned to the Third Brigade of General Alvan C. Gillem’s Fourth Division, Cavalry Corps, Department of the Cumberland.^[xxxiv]

[Less than three months after killing William Waugh, Jones enlisted with the Ninth Tennessee Cavalry, USA, which fought with the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry under Alvan Gillem. The Thirteenth's veterans from Johnson County gathered for this reunion portrait many years after the war. (Collection of Joyce Donnelly Lowman)]

            On August 1, 1864, Military Governor Andrew Johnson had ordered General Gillem to lead the Ninth and Thirteenth Cavalry Regiments (and two batteries of light artillery) into East Tennessee to “kill or drive out all bands of lawless persons, or bands which now infest that portion of the State.”^[xxxv] For several months in 1864, the Ninth Cavalry campaigned in East Tennessee -- at Greeneville, Sneedville, Cumberland Gap, Russellville, and Morristown. In early September, the regiment took part in the surprise attack on Greeneville, where Confederate general John Hunt Morgan was killed. On November 13, at Morristown, the regiment “held the enemy in check for over an hour till their ammunition was exhausted.” After that engagement, the brigade retreated to Strawberry Plains and on to Knoxville, encamping at Love’s Station on November 16.^[xxxvi]

            In December 1864, the regiment left Knoxville with Major General George Stoneman on an expedition into southwest Virginia, resulting in the destruction of the saltworks at Saltville on December 19. When the Ninth and Eleventh Cavalry Regiments were consolidated on March 24, 1865, Lafayette Jones became captain of Company A. Captain Jones was mustered out of service with his regiment on September 11, 1865.^[xxxvii]

            After the war, Lafayette Jones apparently returned to Johnson County, where the surviving members of his family resided. Jones married Mary Ann Snider (or Snyder) there on March 28, 1867.^[xxxviii] By 1870, the Jones family was residing in the fifth civil district of Johnson County, where Lafayette was a farmer with $7,000 in real estate and $1,000 in personal property.^[xxxix] But all was not well with Lafayette Jones -- in four years the former Union officer would be dead.

            A decade after the war, Roderick R. Butler recalled that Jones “always complained of his head and finally became deranged,” eventually dying from the effects of the blow to head he had received when captured by the Johnson County Home Guards.^[xl] Lafayette Jones died at the Tennessee Hospital for the Insane near Nashville on September 29, 1874; the immediate cause of death was “injuries from another patient in the Hospital,” which had been inflicted the previous day. Jones had been the “subject of organic injury of the brain, from the blow on the head received in 1863.” The blow probably caused “thickening of the skull and pressure, with either effusion, or softening of structure.” During his confinement, Jones “had shown all the evidences of such a condition -- he had no memory, no sense of his condition, was careless of his person to filthiness, and was a demented man going into paralysis.” Captain Lafayette Jones was buried in the hospital cemetery on September 30, 1874, ten years after the murder of Captain William K. Waugh.^[xli] The Jones family suffered the loss of husband and father, just as the Waugh family had been deprived of a husband and father in one of countless tragedies of the American Civil War.