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. 

#52Ancestors Week 7 Romance: Zaida Dent Wright

#52 Ancestors Week 7 Romance: Zaida Dent Wright

Of all the people I have researched for my genealogy, Zaida (Ida) Dent Wright probably had the most adventurous and exciting life.

Zaida was the daughter of Hinton P. Wright, my 3X great-uncle, an Atlanta attorney,  and Marie Louise Robinson, daughter of a wealthy plantation owner. The excitement started even before Zaida was born when 20-year-old Hinton Wright killed Marie Robinson's brother, Edwin, in a duel (illegal) outside the local church in Newnan GA in 1869. Somehow the death was ruled accidental and Hinton escaped without serious damage. The couple then eloped and married against her parents' wishes.   Zaida was born in Atlanta GA in 1871, followed by a brother, Albert Spaulding Wright, in 1873.

Hinton Wright, the son of a prominent judge, William Felix Wright, seemed to have a promising career and was highly regarded in Atlanta's legal community. However, his career went downhill with accusations of bribery and Hinton became a drunkard and lost his position in the community.

Marie finally divorced him and took a job as a writer with the Sunny South, a literary magazine.  She eventually became a travelling correspondent for the New York World, where she became a celebrated writer, renowned for her travels in Central and South America.   Her 1890 illustrated book on Mexico was especially famous.  She represented The World at The World's Fair and the Paris Exhibition.  In 1893, accompanied by her son and daughter, she returned to Mexico for a comprehensive study of the country.

Because of Marie's travels, her daughter was well educated, a graduate of Vassar and spoke several languages.  She was also considered quite a beauty.  She accompanied her mother on a trip to Salvador in 1894, where she won the heart of General Antonio Ezetta,

the brother of Salvador's president and later the newly elected president.  Atlanta was abuzz with the news of their engagement and the fabulous upcoming wedding.  The Atlanta Constitution burbled effusively about the gowns, the jewels, and the general social brilliance of the affair which would take place in St. Patrick's Cathedral with the Cardinal officiating.

But alas!  It was not to be.  Antonio's brother decreed that he should marry none but a native Salvadoran or live in exile.  The engagement was broken, the fabulous jewels returned.  The General died in Panama in 1897, still unmarried.

Ida went on to marry a Boston doctor, Walter Ernest Seymour in 1897.  That marriage ended in divorce.  She married a second time in 1906 to actor Aubrey Beattie, a native of Nova Scotia, by whom she had one son, Albert Aubrey Beattie.

In the meantime, in the last years of his life, Ida's father, Hinton Wright found religion and ended his life as a preacher denouncing the evils of drink.  He married a second time in 1888 to May Bowen and had a daughter Lucille with her.  He died at a revival meeting in Marietta GA in 1892.

Ida's brother Albert died in El Paso TX in 1894.  Her mother died in Sullivan County NY in 1914.

Aubrey Beattie achieved some success as an actor appearing on stages throughout the United States and even made a few films in the early part of the century.  Ida died in a boarding house in Brooklyn NY in 1937.  Her husband Aubrey died in the King's County Hospital in Brooklyn in 1944, his stage and film career largely forgotten.  Both are buried in Kensico Cemetery in Westchester County NY in a plot paid for by the Actor's Fund.

So a life that seemed full of adventurous possibilities ended rather quietly in Brooklyn.

#52Ancestors Week 5: Census--John Marshall Dent

#52Ancestors Week 5: Census

A census entry led me to a trip to Georgia.

Just about all my direct ancestors were born in Maryland going back to the 1700's.  So, when I was researching my grandmother's family and found a census entry indicating that my great-grandfather, John Marshall Dent Jr., was born in Georgia, at first I thought it was a mistake since his family was from St. Mary's County MD for many generations back.  How did he get born in Georgia?

His father, John Marshall Dent Sr., born in St. Mary's County MD in 1844, left Maryland for Virginia at the start of the Civil War and served in the 1st Maryland Cavalry.  He retained the title of Colonel for the remainder of his life.  After the war, Dent went to Georgia where his Dent cousin, William Barton Wade Dent, had settled in Newnan GA.  JM Dent Jr. practiced law and also edited the local paper, The Newnan Herald, from 1874 to 1877.

In 1873, JM Dent married Ida Elizabeth Wright, the daughter of Judge William Felix Wright and Elizabeth Caroline Dent (a daughter of the aforementioned WBW Dent.)  In 1874, my great-grandfather, JM Dent Jr. was born in Newnan.  A second son, William Francis Dent, was born there in 1875.  In 1877, JM Dent Sr. left Georgia and returned to St. Mary's County MD where he and Ida had eight more children.  Ida Wright Dent died in St. Mary's County in 1925.  JM Dent Sr. died there in 1929.

All of this was interesting enough to me that I decided to take a trip to Georgia to see Newnan for myself.

I visited the Newnan Herald where the staff very kindly helped me do a search of the microfilmed papers from the era when I thought JM Dent had been the editor.  We discovered his farewell editorial from 1877 as well as announcement of JM's marriage in 1873.