_A TRAGIC EPISODE._
Tennessee does not need the prolific genius of the romanticist to
embellish and invest with thrilling interest the narrative of her
origin and development, of the hardships and endurance of her pioneers,
of the heroism and triumphs of her builders and defenders; but, looking
backward, with more than a century between us and the Revolutionary
War, we would be unmanly not to admit that at times we were a little
too vindictive and remorseless in pursuing those whose reverence and
love for the “mother country” were stronger than their desire for a
change and greater than their faith in the young dream of American
liberty.
Whilst separation and independence were imposing theories, so
fascinating to the wild and restless spirits who had founded and were
building up a vast empire in the western world, advocating their bold
measures with absorbing zeal and desperate earnestness, there was a
minority, many of whom were staid and sturdy, honest in purpose and
courageous in conviction, who regarded the movement as unwarranted, and
fraught with immediate peril and ultimate ruin. Despite persuasion,
remonstrance, threats, social ostracism and what seemed to them
persecution, they held allegiance to the Crown as a paramount duty, and
regarded the war that must inevitably follow, in its destruction of the
flower of the new country, as a twin horror of the Cretan Minotaur that
fed on the Athenian youth.
At the close of the Revolutionary War, these tories (“loyalists,” as
they called themselves) were universally execrated; and the most
popular victor, with many of the patriots, was he who could suggest the
most humiliating punishment for these unfortunates: they were put in
stocks, chained to the public pillories, cast into prison, and beggared
by the confiscation of their property, “without benefit of clergy.”
These and other punishments inflicted on the tories were justified
during the times as retaliatory for outrages committed upon the
patriots by the British and some of their American allies. Then, too,
some extenuation must be found for the victorious revolutionists in the
riot of frenzy and demoralization that always follows war.[F]
In the perspective of this group of terrible scenes, heartaches,
desolation of homes and disruption of families that the “common cause
of liberty” might not perish, stands out a tragedy which, while it
is of itself a melancholy picture of misfortune, suffering, despair
and absolute want, is yet luminous with courageous manhood and the
transcendent glory and conquering heroism of a pure and noble womanhood.
Novr Term 1780. Ordered that the Commissioners advertise and sell
the property of James Crawford & Thomas Barker, they the said James
Crawford and Thomas Barker being found and taken in Arms Against the
State.
May Term 1782. John Sevier a Commissioner of Confiscated property for
the year 1781, made return that he sold Two Slaves Confiscated of the
estate of Thomas Barker at the price of thirty four Hundred pounds,
and that he have the money ready to Return.
Aug. Term 1782. The Court Order that Mrs. Ann Barker wife of Thomas
Barker who stands charged with joining the British & was taken at
Kings Mountain a prisoner, by the Americans & after that his estate
was Confiscated by the County Court of Washington--On her application
in behalf of her Husband for Tryal by Jury the same is Accordingly
Granted.
These musty old records kept at Jonesboro, stitched together like
an old-fashioned copy-book, unbound, “unhonored and unsung,” have
slumbered for more than a century. They contain history so sacred,
however, that not a mouse or a moth has dared to touch them; the paper
is still good and the ink and penmanship clear and legible; and, if
properly cared for, they will be as enduring almost as the principles
of justice and integrity that guided the men who made them.
Connected with, growing out of and clustering around some entries and
orders in these almost forgotten archives of a bygone century, there
are stories and traditions which, if they could be unravelled, touched
up and then put together again by a skilful and painstaking historian,
would thrill with awe, admiration and wonder many of the present
generation, and arouse in them sentiments and sympathies far more
ennobling and exalting than those aroused by the ephemeral literature
of the day. One only of these stories and traditions have I been able
to trace and treasure up, for the purpose of giving it to the public at
such time as I should think proper.
I have grouped the three entries given above, for the purpose of
publishing (for the first time, so far as I know) one of the saddest
and most pathetic of the many sad and pathetic stories of the times.
The mere reading of these three short entries suggests not only to
Tennesseans, but to Americans, a whole history: the Revolutionary War,
King’s Mountain, treason, confiscation, imprisonment, wife and children
reduced to want, the faithfulness of the wife and her final appeal
in person to the court for a trial of her husband by jury. But these
entries have their own peculiar and painful history, which will be
related briefly, as obtained from sources which would make doubt, on my
part at least, undutiful and discrediting to my ancestors.
Thomas Barker came to the Watauga country immediately preceding or just
after the formal Declaration of Independence was made by the colonies.
He came from either southeastern Virginia or Maryland. He was a large,
handsome man, over the average in intelligence. He brought with him
a fair library for the times, the best of household and kitchen
furniture, some slaves and plenty of live stock and farming utensils.
His purpose was to acquire an immense estate in lands, which he was
preparing to do when the Revolution broke out in earnest. He was a
“tory” from the start, and did not attempt to conceal his views, which
were, in brief, that the colonies were too weak to contend successfully
with Great Britain; that the latter, with her wealth and facilities,
would ultimately crush out all opposition, and the colonies would be
reduced in resources and yet subjected to burdens more oppressive
than those complained of; or, if they were successful in gaining
their independence, they would not be able to agree among themselves
upon such form of government as would permanently unite them into one
people, offensive and defensive; that no matter what form of government
they might adopt for uniting all of the colonies into one whole, they
would soon become disaffected and dissolve their relations to each
other, thereby becoming a scattered, weak and helpless people for more
powerful nations to prey upon and subjugate; and that it was better to
yield obedience to and enjoy the protection of the “mother country.”
These views had been expressed by Barker to the court which afterward
confiscated his property, as early as the February term, 1779, at
which term he was arraigned on a charge of “treason.” Barker also
stated to the court that it was not his desire to take sides in the
struggle; that he preferred, if let alone, to remain with them and his
wife and children, but that, if forced to participate on one side or
the other, he should take up arms for the “mother country.” He was a
brave man and an honest, and the court knew it; and they disposed of
the case--which was styled “State vs Thomas Barker for Treason”--by the
following order: “On hearing the facts It is the Opinion of the Court
that he the Deft. be discharged.” As the war progressed, however, the
feeling of hate and bitterness in the community against “tories” became
more and more intense, and Barker finally left his home and joined
the British army. He was captured at King’s Mountain by some of the
very men who constituted the court to which he had so boldly expressed
his views more than a year before. He had been made a captain, and,
according to tradition, commanded a company of tories at the battle.
He was not only a man of personal courage, but he was a proud,
“high-strung” fellow, about twenty-eight or thirty years old; and, at
the moment of the surrender of the remnant of Ferguson’s army, he was
denouncing in bitter terms the cowardice of his own and other troops.
After the battle of King’s Mountain, the Americans from Virginia and
from Washington and Sullivan counties, North Carolina, started home
with the prisoners, arms, etc., captured in the battle. On the way,
about October 12 to 14, a court martial was held at a point called
Bickerstaff’s Old Field, in Rutherford county, North Carolina, and
some thirty or more of the prisoners were sentenced to be hanged--some
for desertion from the American army, others for horse-stealing, and
still others for crimes and outrages perpetrated on the people who were
supporting the “common cause of liberty.” None of those so sentenced
were regular British soldiers; they were North Carolina tories, some
of them from Washington and Sullivan counties. Among the latter were
Thomas Barker and James Crawford, who were saved from the ignominious
death to which they had been sentenced, and which was actually
inflicted on nine or ten of the prisoners, by the intervention of
their former friends and neighbors who were then present as soldiers in
the commands of Sevier and Shelby. Barker and Crawford knew the men who
had captured them, and knew that as a class they were both brave and
just. Barker’s bearing, during and after the court martial proceedings,
was cool and defiant; he said, with much deliberation, that he was not
guilty of a single one of the offences charged against him, and that
there were more than a hundred men there who knew him and knew his
statement to be true; and he added that, if they stood by and permitted
him to be hanged for crimes he was incapable of committing, then he was
no judge of men.
This speech infuriated some of the men from Washington and Sullivan
counties and Virginia, and they made some demonstrations of instant
violence upon the speaker, who stood with a scowl upon his face, and,
holding up his open hands, said quietly: “I am unarmed; you can kill
me, but you can’t scare me!” His speech, however, had quite a different
effect upon those who knew him at home, those who knew his wife, and
especially those who knew him to be a brave, truthful, honest man. Col.
Charles Roberson, John McNabb, Charles Allison and John Allison,[G]
who had participated in the battle of King’s Mountain, interposed with
earnestness and emphasis against hanging Barker and Crawford, and
they were supported in their opposition by Col. John Sevier and Col.
Isaac Shelby, which of course settled it. Barker was brought back to
Jonesboro and put in prison, where he had been kept for a little more
than a year and ten months, when his noble wife appeared in court in
person, and procured the order granting him a trial by jury, given
above.
This August term, 1782, was one long talked of and remembered for more
reasons than one. It was the term at which a judge--“the Honl. Spruce
McCay Esqr.”--presided for the first time; the term at which three
horse-thieves had been tried and sentenced to be executed; the term at
which tories had been tried and sentenced to imprisonment, and their
property confiscated; the term at which some offenders were sentenced
to be, and were, whipped at the public whipping-post.[H] Few, very few
women would have gone in person before such a court, to demand that
a tory be granted a trial by jury; but Mrs. Antoinette Barker, wife
of Thomas Barker, walked into court, with two (possibly three) small
children with her. Their appearance was sufficient to excite sympathy:
their faces were pale and haggard, and their clothing, although neat,
was patched and worn. Mrs. Barker was a woman of fine appearance,
with a beautiful face and a symmetrical figure, and more than a match
for the court in intelligence; but, depicted in every line of her
countenance, were the traces of mental anguish and physical suffering.
She did not, however, weep, go into hysterics, faint, fall down and be
carried out, but she stood up in the presence of that court, in all the
magnificence of superior womanhood, and, with the vehement eloquence of
despair, pleaded the cause of her husband. All that she said will never
be known; some things that she said were handed down from generation to
generation. She “used the Declaration of Independence on the court”;
she denied that her husband was a traitor; she reminded the justices
that he had stated his views to them openly and boldly, that he had
never taken the oath of allegiance to the continental cause, and that
he had told them plainly that, if forced to a choice, he would go into
the British army; that he was her husband, and a kind and good one,
and the father of her little, innocent, helpless children; that they
had taken all of his property and left his family paupers; that he
was then in prison, and had been for nearly two years, in consequence
of which his health was altogether gone; that she and her little ones
were without a protector, and that her neighbors and former friends had
almost wholly forsaken her. Her face, no doubt, was flushed with the
hot blood of agony welling up from her heart; possibly her voice grew
weak and broke under the stress of her emotion--but this noble woman
won her cause. Her application for the trial of her husband by a jury
was granted, and the court immediately adjourned. The record shows it,
and the adjourning order is signed by Andrew Greer, James Stewart,
Charles Roberson, Charles Allison, Thomas Houghton and John McNabb,
four of whom at least had participated in the capture of Thomas Barker
at King’s Mountain, and had afterward been present at his trial by
court martial.
This heroine, in the wilds of the western world, had undoubtedly quoted
from the Declaration of Independence the charge against Great Britain
“for depriving us in many cases of the benefits of trial by jury,” and
had also probably suggested to the mind of the court, for the first
time, the question as to whether treason could be committed against a
government by a person who had never acknowledged allegiance to it.
The order granting Barker a trial by jury, unlike other orders of this
court, is not clear. It bears on its face evidence of confusion in
the court; and this, taken in connection with the fact that the court
adjourned immediately after granting the order, renders it certain that
this wonderful woman was, for the time being, in absolute control of
this marvellous court.
Did she try to secure the services of a lawyer and fail? I do not know;
but I do know that these old records fail to disclose the presence of
an attorney as counsel for a single one of the various defendants who
were tried by the court on a charge of treason. There were at this
time, according to the old records, about six attorneys practising
regularly in the court, and the records recite their presence as
counsel in other cases at that and other courts. Were these attorneys
too patriotic to appear in these cases, or too timid from a personal or
business standpoint?
The court afterward relented, and Barker was released on his own
recognizance, and never tried. Ruined in fortune, ostracized by
friends, broken in spirit and in health, he could not endure his
changed condition in life. He died soon after his release from prison,
and the brave, faithful, noble but broken-hearted wife speedily
followed her husband to the grave, leaving two or three children, the
oldest a boy of some five or six years. They were taken by a gentleman
and his wife who had no children, but a brother of either Barker or his
wife soon came and removed them from scenes and faces that it was well
for them to forget forever.
The little graveyard in which this brave man and his noble wife were
buried was remembered by old people in Washington and Sullivan counties
as late as thirty years ago. When I first saw and knew this graveyard
as the one in which they were buried, it looked much like a thicket
fenced in, but the old crooked rail fence around it was fast rotting
down. There were some large trees in it, the largest a wild cherry.
Later, the fence was entirely gone, as well as most of the trees, and
cattle were lying on the graves in the shade of the trees. Still later,
the trees were all gone save the lone wild cherry, and there was not a
stone or a mound left: the owner of the land was plowing over the dust
of the dead.
The world’s heroes are not those only who talk face to face with
death at the cannon’s mouth, and wet battle-fields with their crimson
life-tide.
FOOTNOTES:
[F] If the motives that prompted many of the tories to adhere
to the British crown during the Revolution were measured by the more
modern political standards of selfishness or self-interest, there be
many now who could not make mouths at their memories.
[G] Grandfather of the writer.
[H] See chapter iii.