BOLIVAR’S HISTORIC HOME, SITE TOUR GIVES GLIMPSES INTO THE LIVES OF RESIDENTS DURING THE CIVIL WAR

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Story and photos by Allison Morgan 04/12/2005

The “distinct boom of cannons” could be heard in Bolivar, some 25 miles away from the battle that was brewing at Davis Bridge on the Hatchie River near Pocahontas.

The date was Oct. 5, 1862, and Hardeman County would soon become the site of the second-largest battle, next only to Shiloh, fought in West Tennessee during the Civil War.

Union troops had already occupied Bolivar, and U.S. General Ulysses S. Grant ordered his soldiers to move behind the Hatchie River, capture Davis Bridge, and trap the Confederate soldiers who were retreating from their defeat at the battle of Corinth, Miss. Even though the Union troops eventually wrested control of the bridge, most of the Confederates, who were familiar with the area, successfully crossed the river and eluded capture.

Though not a decisive Union victory, with about 500 killed on each side, the Battle of Davis Bridge was the final leg in the largely successful Union incursion into the Deep South known as the Corinth Campaign, which started with Shiloh in April 1862 and is considered the beginning of the end of the war’s western theater.

Though it sounds like an excerpt from an American history book, the story of this and other true Civil War adventures will come to life when local preservationists stage “Reliving 1862 in Historic Bolivar: A Civil War Spring Tour of Homes and Historic Sites” on Saturday, April 30, and Sunday, May 1. Organizers say the interactive, living-history tour will give visitors a glimpse inside the town’s buildings and events from the year that proved to be a turning point in the Civil War and a milestone in the history of Hardeman County.

Ten historic homes and structures that existed in 1862 will be part of the tour, along with the present-day Hardeman County Courthouse, built in 1869, and the court square’s Confederate Monument, erected in 1873 as the first carved memorial to the Confederate dead. At each site, costumed re-enactors will relate what life was like during the war and tell stories about real events that occurred there.

“There’s a lot of history here in Bolivar, and many people don’t realize it,” says Dianne Mumford, tour chairman. “And it’s all real. We don’t have to make any of this up.”

As a fundraising project of the Hardeman County chapter of the Association for the Preservation of Tennessee Antiquities (APTA), the home tour has been staged on a regular basis for many years, says local APTA President Joy Grubbs. Though organizers took a couple of years off, the event returned last year and was met with plenty of support and interest from local residents, she adds.

“When we brought the tour back last year, we could tell people missed it,” says Grubbs. “This year, we wanted to add an extra element with the living history aspect, so we’re mainly including homes and churches that were standing in 1862. We wanted to tell all these stories at the places where they actually happened.”

More than 100 buildings in Bolivar alone are on the National Register of Historic Places, along with a number of others throughout the county. Many of the homes reflect the prosperity of pre-Civil War Hardeman County, which was a major trading center due to its location on the navigable waters of the Hatchie River. During the heyday of the riverboat and before the rise of railroads, early historians forecast that Bolivar would be the second-largest city in West Tennessee, surpassed only by Memphis. From 1825 until the early 1890s, Bolivar was the center of the region’s river trade.

As the Hardeman County seat, Bolivar was occupied by Union troops early in the Civil War. Four of the Union Army’s key players — Generals Grant, William T. Sherman, John A. Logan, and James B. McPherson — chose the house of a prominent lawyer and banker, Judge Austin Miller, to serve as their headquarters. Built in 1849 with bricks handmade by slaves, this elegant Georgian-style home is known today as Magnolia Manor, a bed-and-breakfast operated by Elaine Cox and a featured site on this year’s living history tour.

“This house is such a treasure, and I wanted to be able to share it with visitors and let them know the importance of Magnolia Manor to the Civil War,” says Cox, who bought the house in 1981 and has since worked tirelessly to restore it as authentically as possible. “Decisions were made here that directed the course of the war, and if someone doesn’t preserve this history, future generations will never know about it.”

During the Union occupation, the Miller family lived in the home with the generals, and many tales from their experiences have been passed down through the years. As one of the more lively stories goes, during a meal one day, Sherman offended Mrs. Miller by tactlessly commenting that he believed “all Southern men, women, and children should be exterminated!” Mrs. Miller was so upset that she went to the back porch to cry. Grant, infuriated by the insensitive remark, forced Sherman to apologize to their hostess at once. Sherman was so humiliated by the order that he slashed the stairway’s banister with his sword. The mark is still visible and will be pointed out to tour participants.

Another historic home on this year’s tour is The Pillars, which has been owned and maintained by the APTA since 1973. This house, built in 1828, was originally owned by Major John Houston Bills, a wealthy plantation owner and merchant. From 1841 until his death in 1871, Bills kept a detailed diary, and this priceless journal, now housed at the University of North Carolina, provided many of the facts and feelings that will be relayed during this year’s living history tour.

“He talks about what was happening as the Civil War reached West Tennessee and how it progressed every day,” says Grubbs. “So we get a first-person account of how Bolivar was occupied, how the family’s livestock and food were taken by the Union troops, and how they were forced to take in some of the wounded. He even writes about seeing the Confederate troops who were captured in the Battle of Davis Bridge being marched back into town.”

The Bills family were extensive travelers and prolific artists, and much of their original furnishings, belongings, and artwork remain in the home for visitors to see. For added authenticity during this year’s home tour, Freeman’s Battery of Savannah, a group of Confederate Army re-enactors, will set up on the grounds of The Pillars to represent the Forrest Artillery that encamped there in 1862.

In addition, a small, white-clapboard cottage on the grounds of The Pillars will also be opened and used as a store filled with local arts and crafts, says Grubbs. The quaint, one-room house was built as a residence for the Bills’ daughter, Evalina, and her children while her husband, Marshall Polk, fought in the Civil War.

Other tour sites will include

* The McNeal Place, an 1856 Tuscan-style villa noted for its exquisite Spanish ironwork and considered to be one of the premier showplaces of Tennessee, says Mumford. Re-enactors at the home will tell tour participants how the McNeal family sat on the west porch and prayed as they listened to the cannons during the battle of Shiloh in April 1862.

* The Columns, a Greek revival home built in 1860, was used as a makeshift hospital for wounded and sick soldiers during the Civil War.  Today, the house reflects the life of the affluent banking and merchant Ingram family who bought it around 1900 and filled it with furnishings in the late-Victorian style. An extensive restoration is now in progress at the house, which was deeded to the Bolivar Historical Foundation, Inc., established by The Columns’ last resident, Elizabeth Ingram, before she died in 1995 just two months shy of her 102nd birthday.

* The Little Courthouse, which was Hardeman County’s original courthouse, was built in 1824 and moved to its present site just off the square in 1827. One of only three log courthouses left standing in the U.S., it now serves as the county’s museum. The second courthouse built on its original site was burned in 1864 after Union Gen. Samuel D. Sturgis ordered Bolivar to be razed as his forces moved toward LaGrange. The third courthouse, built on the same site in 1869, is still in operation and is included on this year’s tour. Visitors can witness the re-enactment of Sturgis’ orders to burn the courthouse district.

* Bolivar Presbyterian Church, the oldest church structure in Bolivar, was built in 1852 and contains most of its original furnishings. It’s noted for the pipe organ that was added in the late 1800s. The church was used for worship by troops from both sides.

* St. James Episcopal Church will host a Civil War “wedding” with a couple clad in period dress. The church, constructed in 1869, replaced the original Episcopal chapel built in 1840. Materials from that first church were salvaged and used to construct a smaller, adjacent chapel, which will be used for the “wedding” reception.

Plans are to continue this tour of homes and historic sites in subsequent years, Grubbs says, with the ultimate goal of eventually re-enacting the fight for Davis Bridge at the actual battlefield. The bridge itself has long since vanished, but visitors can still see the spot on the Hatchie River just off Highway 57 where the most desperate fighting took place. The site, like many physical remnants of history, is in danger of being lost forever, says local Civil War historian Herbert Wood, who is working on behalf of the Davis Bridge Memorial Foundation to preserve the site. The foundation has purchased 200 acres encompassing much of the battlefield with hopes of making the site a park.

Thanks to efforts like this and events like the upcoming living history tour, these local preservationists are hoping that the doors of history will never close in Hardeman County.

“We want this to be a learning experience more than anything else,” says Mumford. “People pass by history every day in Bolivar and don’t know what they’re missing. And these things can’t be taught from a history book. They have to be experienced.”

Bolivar’s Civil War Spring Tour of Homes and Historic Sites of 2005 was held on Saturday, April 30, 2005 and on Sunday, May 1, 2005.  For more information about this years tour, call the Chamber of Commerce at 731-658-6554.

Source, Tennessee Farmers Co-op

The Pillars
Washington and Bills Streets
Bolivar, TN  38008

Updated on June 11, 2008