52 Ancestors Week 33, Black Sheep: Mary Wright Gordon, Union Spy in a Confederate Family

You wouldn't think that a woman from a solidly Confederate family in a solidly Confederate town would have a secret life as a Union spy.  But you would be wrong.  My 4X-great aunt, Mary Henrietta Wright, had just such a secret.  The youngest daughter of Littleberry Wright and Henrietta Austin, Mary was born in Gwinnett County Georgia in January 1830 and moved to LaFayette, Walker County GA about 1848.   

LaFayette, originally founded in 1835 as Chattooga, was renamed in 1836 in honor of the Marquis de LaFayette. It is the county seat of Walker County, located in the northwest corner of Georgia, close to the borders with Alabama and Tennessee, about 30 miles south of Chattanooga and close to a lot of Civil War action on the Western Front.  

Chattooga Academy

LaFayette was the home of the Chattooga Academy, built in 1836 at a cost of $815, the oldest standing brick school in Georgia.  In 1838, it had 15 boys and 37 girls as students learning spelling, grammar, reading, philosophy and ancient languages.  Mary Wright attended school there in 1844.  Possibly her brothers, William and Gilbert, or her future husband, Greenberry Gordon, were also among the Academy's students. Henrietta Wright's farm and mill, which she left to her daughter Mary in 1857, was near the Academy, just outside the town of LaFayette. 

In 1849, Mary married Dr. Greenberry Gordon, a graduate of the New York University College of Medicine. By the time the Civil War started, the couple had four daughters: Stella Octavia, Florence Henrietta, Mary, and Frances.  Three other children, Ida Elizabeth, Victor and Douglas, were born during and after the war. 

Gilbert Wright

Mary's brother, Gilbert Jefferson Wright, was among the first to volunteer for the Confederate Army, having previously fought in the Mexican War.  He helped to organize Cobb's Legion and served in all of the campaigns of the Army of Northern Virginia.  He eventually achieved the rank of General. 

Greenberry Gordon

Mary's husband, Dr. Gordon, was a delegate to Georgia's Secession Convention in 1861 (where he voted against secession) and raised a company of Confederate soldiers from the LaFayette area. He served as a surgeon in the Georgia 9th Infantry, resigning in 1862 after participating in both battles at Bull Run, among others. 

During the War, Mary was the proprietor of the Goree House Hotel, built in LaFayette about 1854.  

Goree House

Neither the Union nor the Confederacy had a formal military intelligence network during the Civil War. So both sides relied on spies to obtain crucial information.  The Confederacy set up a network in the Federal capital of Washington DC where there were many Southern sympathizers.  The Union Army relied on individual generals to take charge of intelligence gathering for their own operations, providing details of troop movements and strength.  Spying of course was not without risks.  Spies who were not in military uniform were hanged if caught. 

Now, given her Confederate roots, one would hardly suspect Mary Wright Gordon of being a spy for the Union Army, but perhaps that is what made her a good choice. As a hotel proprietress, Mary had reason to travel to Chattanooga and elsewhere to obtain supplies for her establishment and her travel gave her the opportunity to join the ranks of the Civil War's "petticoat spies. " She claimed to have crossed the Union lines into Chattanooga more than 50 times carrying information about Confederate movements. 

According to the records of the Southern Claims Commission, Mary claimed that not only had she been fiercely loyal to the Union, but an active Union spy whose safety and person were threatened by Rebel forces and her own neighbors on more than one occasion. In 1875, Mary made a claim for $2888 in damages to her property and was actually awarded $1233, a considerable sum to anyone living in the war-ravaged economy of Walker County during Reconstruction. 

The first major battle of Civil War to be fought in Georgia was Chickamauga, (September 1863) only a few miles from LaFayette.  The Chattooga Academy became the headquarters of Confederate General Braxton Bragg in 1863, and he supposedly planned the Battle of Chickamauga there, the most significant Union defeat in the Western Theater.  A stack of cannonballs in front of the school honors Bragg. 

The war came to LaFayette in June 1864 when Union forces of about 450 men occupied the town to "endeavor to rid the country of several guerilla bands." LaFayette had a particular strategic importance even though it was a fairly small town.  It was the largest settlement between the natural barrier of Lookout Mountain and the Western and Atlantic Railroad, a vital transportation and communications link between Atlanta and Chattanooga. Naturally the Union army wanted to discourage the presence of large Confederate forces in Walker County.  

On June 24, the Union forces were attacked by Gen. Gideon Pillow and his 1600 cavalry, but the next morning, Union reinforcements arrived and drove off the Confederate attackers, leaving a total of 219 casualties from the battle. The LaFayette Presbyterian Church was used as a field hospital by both armies. This escapade was considered such a debacle for the Confederates that General Pillow was taken out of the field and assigned to recruiting soldiers for the remainder of the war. 

Mary Gordon took several wounded Union men into her home and with her husband, Dr. Gordon, by this time a civilian, nursed them for months as well as contributing sheets, blankets, crockery and cutlery to the hospital. Several of the Union officers were staying at Mrs. Gordon's Goree House hotel and it was probably the location of the legendary all-night poker game that was interrupted by the news of the Confederate attack on LaFayette.

Mary indicated in a later account that she hid her four children in the fire place of the hotel and put mattresses over the windows to protect them during the fighting.  The wooden buildings on her farm property were torn down to construct Union fortifications (for which she later claimed compensation.)

Mary Gordon was sending information to the Union Army during the winter and spring preceding the Battle of LaFayette, and she is even mentioned in a dispatch to General Grant himself: "Mrs. Dr. Gordon informs me that she saw two cars of wounded going South." In April of 1864, the Confederate Army put out an order for her arrest and there is some speculation that Union troops were sent to LaFayette in order to protect Mary at a time when her activities were becoming notorious among the Confederate troops. Union records indicate that Confederate soldiers were told that the Union would burn down LaFayette if Mrs. Gordon were arrested.  (She never was, although there were apparently several orders given for her arrest.)  At one point, she was even moved to Chattanooga because of the threats made against her by "the disloyal people of the vicinity in which she resided." 

One Union officer described her as

a woman of strong and decided intellect and brave and determined, was better suited to the secret service in which she was said to be employed than any woman I know.  She was decidedly obnoxious to the prevailing sentiments of the country.  I have heard a great deal about her from both sides.  From the rebels she was a Tory spy and from the Union element I have heard she was true and loyal to the Union. 

Late in her life, Mary wrote an account for the Walker County Messenger that describes the Battle of LaFayette (but naturally makes no mention of her role as a spy). She tells about sewing uniforms for the men of her husband's company and visiting Dr. Gordon in Virginia after the battle of Manassas.  Since the war, she said, "people have lived in LaFayette in peace and harmony."

Dr. Greenberry Gordon died in LaFayette in January 1887 of pneumonia. 

Mary Wright Gordon lived to the age of 82, dying in 1913 at the home of her daughter Fannie in Chattanooga. 

Walker County Messenger February 21, 1913, page 1.

Mrs. Mary Gordon, Aged 82, Is Dead

End Came Friday Morning at Home of Daughter in Chattanooga--Interment at Old Home Saturday

Mrs. Mary Gordon, aged 82 years, widow of Dr. Gordon, one of the pioneer citizens of the county and herself a life-time resident of Walker, died last Friday morning at four o'clock at the home of her daughter, Mrs. M.(sic, should be N.) G. Keown, in Chattanooga.

Mrs. Gordon had been in declining health all the winter and about a month ago lay at the point of death for several days. Displaying wonderful vitality she recovered from this attack and some weeks ago was well enough to be removed to the home of her daughter in Chattanooga, where the end came.

Surviving her are two sons, both in the west, and three daughters.

The remains were brought to Lafayette Saturday morning and conveyed to the Gordon graveyard on the old Gordon farm two miles northwest of Lafayette, where the body was laid to rest beside that of her husband. Funeral services were conducted by Dr. Roberson, of Chattanooga.

Sadly, but perhaps fittingly for a spy, I have no picture of Mary Wright Gordon. 

However, I have come across a picture of her daughter, Stella.  So perhaps this gives a little glimpse of what Mary might have looked like.