IVY Yankee Sweetheart, Rebel Nurse: Part 1

By Dr. Larry G. Morgan

Ivy is a dark-haired beauty gifted with strength and kindness. Raised in the hills of Virginia, she's ushered farther south to the mountains of North Carolina to escape the ravages of war-leaving behind Seth, her fiancé who is willing to give his life's blood for the Union cause. This sets up a series of life-impacting decisions when she meets J

• Language: English
• Publisher: Go To Publish
• Release date: Aug 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781647491796

Dr. Larry G. Morgan

The author was born in 1944 in a three-room shack in the Nantahala Mountains of North Carolina. In 1956, his family moved to Guilford County near Greensboro, where he attended Colfax Union School and graduated in 1962. Morgan attend High Point University from which he graduated in 1966. He earned his Master of Education, Education Specialist degree, and principal's certificate from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He was awarded a Doctorate from Hill University in Texas. His education career included assignments at Guilford County schools, Davidson County schools, Randolph County schools, and a principalship at Nantahala School.

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IVY: Yankee Sweetheart, Rebel Nurse

Copyright © 2020 by Dr. Larry G. Morgan

ISBN: 978-1-64749-179-6

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher or author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Although every precaution has been taken to verify the accuracy of the information contained herein, the author and publisher assume no responsibility for any errors or omissions.No liability is assumed for damages that may result from the use of information contained within.

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Books by Dr. Larry G. Morgan

Mountain Born - Mountain Molded

Appalachian Mountain Memories

Golf Poems for Everyone

Old Time Religion in the Southern Appalachians

Strange Life – Struggling with the mysteries of OCD

Joseph’s Son

The Journey

A Timeline for Creation and other Essays

A Peculiar People

Revelation for Laymen

Praise for the Ivy Series

Ivy is a romantic story in a pre-Civil-War to early-twentieth-century setting with all the violence, hardships and triumphs of that era and insight regarding how mountain folk of North Carolina were affected. The writer’s attention to detail in a very descriptive manner gives the reader a sense of being there. Exploration of the inner feelings of man, especially despair, hope, success and love, make this excellent reading.

– Roger L. Nelson, High School Principal

In Ivy, Larry Morgan combines his considerable writing talent displayed in previous anecdotal and autobiographical works with his insightful knowledge of American history in creating an epic novel. Ivy is a vast tapestry woven from the fabric of actual historical figures during the American Civil War and the Spanish-American War, intertwined with the threads of two men from different cultures who become enemy combatants on the battlefield and who vie for the love and affection of the beautiful and compelling Ivy. Morgan exhibits an uncanny ability for using vivid descriptive language to transport the reader on a journey of myriad locations and emotions from pristine, peaceful mountain scenery to the harsh life of the early settlers in the Southern Appalachians to chaotic, horrendous battles and their carnage to the inner, intimate feelings and emotions of the characters. Against the backdrop of the Civil War, and later the Spanish-American War, Ivy provides the reader with an inspiring narrative of historical events and how otherwise ordinary people’s lives intersect as they achieve heroic status because of their strength of character and uncommon courage. Whether the reader is a student of history or is one who appreciates an absorbing love story, Ivy will not disappoint.

– Stanley Wayne Morgan, Retired School Superintendent

With appreciation, the author and publisher acknowledge the assistance and guidance regarding accuracy of Civil War events, people and timelines, from Michael C. Hardy—author, Civil War historian and re-enactor.

www.michaelchardy.com

This book is dedicated to my daughter

Pamela Green

Preface

In the Ivy book series, I have employed fact to authenticate fiction and fiction to illuminate fact. To reveal which parts are fact and which are fiction before it is read, almost certainly would compromise the final, cumulative effect I hope will be created in the reader. Some of the fact and fiction overlap; even so, discerning readers should be able to distinguish between the two. Some of the characters are fictitious, and some of them are real historical entities. Some exist in both the fictional and historical realms.

The character, Ivy, is based on an actual historical person. She was the first wife of my great-grandfather, Joseph Morgan. Some mysterious circumstances connected with her that my wife discovered while researching the genealogy of my family was my motivation for writing this tome.

The Ivy book series is not intended to be a scholarly history of the Civil War in the South. However, the broad outline is historically correct. Other than Ivy, the other characters who are real, historical persons include Joseph Morgan and his parents, Isabelle Forrester and her parents, Riley Coleman and his wife, the former Nancy Snyder, and their daughter, Adeline, Reverend Phillip Passmore and his wife, Elender, Reverend Clint Grant, Reverend Glenn Dills, J.J. Martin and most of the generals including Grant, Sherman, Thomas, Hood, Johnston, Bragg, Wheeler, Custer, Rosecrans, Lee, Jackson and Longstreet. All the places mentioned are actual geographical sites.

Most of the battle tactics ascribed to certain characters are contrived by the author and may or may not be what a military commander would have ordered or undertaken in that situation. However, the overall strategy and progress of the war as I have presented them varies little from its true course.

GROVETON, VIRGINIA, 1860

Noah Rowland, usually a sound sleeper due to contented weariness from long, laborious days on his profitable farm, had slept fitfully that night. And now, after having finally fallen asleep, around three a.m. he woke with a start. With his head and shoulders propped up on both elbows, he tried to clear his brain and lucidly figure out what had yanked him from his dreamless slumber so abruptly. Then, receding into the distance eastward along the Warrenton Turnpike that bordered his yard and farm, he heard the pounding hoofs of a horse and rider in full flight.

Someone was desperate to get somewhere, probably into Groveton, and the probable explanation was to summon old Doc Stillwell to a birth gone badly amiss, or that a local was deathly ill or maimed. Surely a neighbor or someone in Groveton would have informed him of any pending deliveries, which they had not, and he had not heard of anyone along that section of Warrenton Turnpike being ill, not even a little bit. As it was not yet fully daylight, it was unlikely anyone had been maimed by an ax, saw or farm implement. In all probability, the mad dash of this night messenger had to do with another event that would propel this great Union into permanent political division. Harking back to the Harper’s Ferry raid by old John Brown and his sons a year or so ago, he remembered another nocturnal harbinger of bad news flying down the Warrenton Turnpike to spread that tragic news at just about this hour. Thoroughly mystified, he slid his elbows forward and dropped his shaggy-maned head back to his pillow and his tired, propped-up shoulders back to the bed, and tried to sleep once more. He had a long day ahead of him.

But this day was one of those he looked forward to more than any other. He would deliver two wagonloads of fifty bushels or so of shelled corn to the U.S. Army Cavalry purchasing agent at the railroad station in Groveton and receive a substantial remuneration, a recurring enterprise that made his farm one of the more prosperous in Northern Virginia. On other special days such as this one, he delivered hay and fodder for the horses as well. In addition, periodically he delivered potatoes and beans in the hulls, as well as sides, shoulders and hams of full-grown hogs, and occasionally, halves of beef all salted down for the enlisted men’s meals.

However, it had been on one of these trips recently that a grievous concern had consumed him. His daughter and only child, Ivy, then only fifteen years old, had become gravely smitten with the handsome Seth Wommack, a twenty-one year old cavalryman. Wommack had been in command of the squad of enlisted men who had taken charge of all procurements at the Groveton Railroad Station for conveyance to the forts beginning to ring Washington City and the U.S. Cavalry at Camp Pendleton, Maryland, on that fateful Tuesday.

Ivy was more to Noah than just any young girl is to her father. Noah and his wife, Sarah, had despaired of ever having a child, but, wonder of wonders, when Sarah was in her early thirties and Noah was in his late thirties, Sarah became pregnant. They could hardly believe it at first, but as its truth became more and more evident, no expectant mother was ever more pampered by her husband. Noah had hardly permitted Sarah to move from their couch and bed for the entire term of her confinement.

As Ivy had matured and entered her teens, she had begun to blossom into the beauty she would become as a young woman. By fourteen, she had been maturing physically much faster than all the other girls her age in that area of Northern Virginia. She had a fresh, glowing, farm-girl complexion and her bust line was definitely in evidence. Her Helen of Troy face and soft, dark eyes were caressed by ebony hair that curled about her cheeks and lay gently on her exquisite shoulders. When Ivy smiled, it seemed it spread a radiance across her entire countenance, revealing beautiful, white teeth. Ivy almost always was judged by strangers to be at least two or three years older than she actually was.

All during her pregnancy, Sarah had surreptitiously engaged in the practices prevalent among women of that era that were alleged to influence the disposition, personality and physical beauty of the child. She had gazed at beautiful flowers, listened to the trilling of songbirds and watched fluffy clouds against the blue skies and other phenomena of nature’s calmness and loveliness. At the same time, she had been scrupulous to avoid any scenes or circumstances that might mark the child. She had avoided the barnyard areas and made sure such creatures as goats, vultures, snakes, spiders and the like were never more than momentarily in her vision.

During Sarah’s pregnancy, Noah had repeatedly sought the services of old Doc Stillwell in Groveton, eight miles distant, until that kindly old soul had grown weary of seeing Noah’s hack pull up at the carriage block in front of his Main Street office window.

Noah had made arrangements with Old Lady Tutherow, a semiretired midwife who resided in Groveton, to stay with him and Sarah after the baby arrived, keeping house and caring for Sarah and the newborn infant until such time as the child’s mother was able to resume normal activities and care for the baby.

When Noah had been awakened by Sarah’s tossing and turning due to the first spasms of contractions, he panicked! Tearing to the barn, he had grabbed a simple rope harness from a peg, thrown it over the ears and nose of his fastest, saddle horse, leapt on her bare back and torn down the turnpike at Paul Revere speed. Sliding the laboring, lathered equine on its haunches in front of Doc Stillwell’s, he had flung himself to the ground, and, yelling all the while, rushed to the door of Doc Stillwell’s home on the second floor above his medical office. There, he had commenced such a pounding on the portal that he woke the entire town at three a.m. Having delivered his message to the general practitioner, he had remounted the chestnut gelding and careened westward on the Warrenton Road, arriving at Sarah’s bedside several minutes before old Doc Stillwell patiently ambled in.

After the doctor had made the preliminary evaluation of Sarah’s progress, he wiped his forehead, and turning to Noah said, Noah, go back to Groveton and fetch Mrs. Tutherow and use a fresh horse. Again, Noah had torn from the house, hitched up his buggy as hastily as possible and whirled out of his stable area onto the Warren Turnpike. Back in Groveton some twenty minutes later, he had pounded on the midwife’s door loud enough not only to awaken the old spinster, but her deceased ancestors as well. Having seen expectant fathers in such a state many times in her more active career, she had taken her own meticulous, sweet time, no matter how vehemently Noah had expostulated with her to hurry.

Approximately one hour later, Noah and Old Lady Tutherow had arrived at Noah’s carriage block. Noah had gathered up Mrs. Tutherow’s luggage and rushed after her, carrying her black, leather medical bag to the door. As soon as he opened the door, he espied Dr. Stillwell standing in the open bedroom door and motioning with his left hand to Mrs. Tutherow to hurry and join him. For the first time that morning, Mrs. Tutherow actually moved with alacrity. She sprang through the bedroom door to where Sarah was and latched it behind her. She had guessed immediately from Doc Stillwell’s urgent motion to her that Sarah was experiencing complications, and she’d not have any panicked father getting into her way. So, Noah was left having to stand as close to the door as possible, sweating and trembling like a newborn foal.

After what had seemed a complete growing season, Noah had heard the squall of a newborn baby. Presently, there had come a fumbling at the door latch, and he turned automatically, stepping expectantly nearer the sound. The door opened slowly, and there stood Old Doc Stillwell with a yelling, red-faced infant wrapped carefully in a blanket. But . . . tears were streaming down Old Doc Stillwell’s cheeks. Suddenly, the room began to spin before Noah’s eyes. As he had stumbled backward a step, Old Doc solemnly nodded his head. Not any words were necessary; the room darkened to Noah’s eyes as the horrible truth was processed in his heart and head. His Sarah was dead.

Doc Stillwell and Mrs. Tutherow had never seen anyone as completely devastated as Noah was in the next few weeks. He had allowed his fields to be overgrown with weeds and grass and his livestock to fend for themselves. His once smooth-shaven face had been taken over by a scraggly, unkempt beard. Except for a tasty morsel—practically forced on him by Mrs. Tutherow when he chanced to wander into the kitchen or she found him sitting on the steps—or an apple he picked up as he wandered about mired in grief, he refused to eat. Soon, his firm, robust frame was gaunt and skeletal; his clothes, dirty and worn, hung limply on his emaciated body. He had spent all his time beside Sarah’s grave near the top of the low hill behind the house where some neighbors had buried her. He had slept only when complete exhaustion overpowered his grief.

Several times Doc Stillwell had driven out to check on the child, and once or twice he had attempted to inform Noah of the unpreventable nature of Sarah’s death. He had cited reasons such as the infant being too large for the pelvic girdle, or a ruptured placenta causing internal hemorrhaging, resulting in massive loss of blood. Noah had always stopped him; Sarah was gone, and knowing the reasons why wouldn’t bring her back.

Then one day as Noah sat on his front steps, he had heard the infant cry from his parlor. Something inexplicable stirred in his heart. As if drawn by an invisible tether line, he had risen to his unsteady feet, crossed the porch, opened the door and peered inside. Mrs. Tutherow had been cooing to the squalling infant in a futile attempt to assuage her anger. She had raised her eyes to meet Noah’s; then, she pulled the pink blanket back from Ivy’s face and tilted the thoroughly unhappy little girl so Noah could see her. The tug in his heart that had begun on the steps now drew him across the parlor floor to the wailing infant. He had placed a work-worn index finger in the little girl’s tiny hand. As if by magic, she had immediately curled her tiny fingers around it. From that moment Noah’s recovery had begun.

For the first time since Sarah’s death, Noah slept soundly for several hours that night. The next morning, he procured a towel, soap, small mirror, razor strap and razor and walked over to the large, wooden watering trough in the corral near the barn. Once there, he removed his shirt and rolled up his pant legs as far as possible. Then, he set to scrubbing the several weeks’ accumulation of sweat and grime from his body. Next, he dipped a pail of water and took the towel and soap around to the north side of his huge barn where he was out of sight of his house and Warrenton Turnpike; there, he disrobed and finished the bath.

Having completed his bath, Noah returned to the water trough, picked up his mirror and hung it on one of the cover supports at eye level. After several back-and-forth passes of his straight razor along the razor strap, he applied copious amounts of soap to his beard with his hands because the task would not have been possible with his regular lather brush. After he had made all required preparations, he carefully removed the scraggly, weeks-old beard. The razor work finished, Noah splashed water directly from the basin to his face to wash off all soap and dried with a towel. He then gathered up all his toiletry paraphernalia, walked back to his house, stowed the shaving items away and sat down at the kitchen table. Mrs. Tutherow, saying not a word, soon set before him a plate of eggs, bacon, stewed apples and biscuits and a huge mug of coffee made from coffee beans she had ground in the hand-cranked coffee mill only minutes before.

Noah was slowly partaking of his first decent meal in weeks, but as his taste buds began responding to the delicious food, he took more substantial portions with his silverware and in more rapid sequence.

During the days, weeks and months that followed, Noah threw himself into his farm work literally from dawn to dark. He began each day with breakfast and looking in on little Ivy. Every morning at ten o’clock, at lunch, and in mid-afternoon, he ceased whatever he was doing and returned to the coolness of his parlor for a drink of water and sometimes apple cider that was cooled with ice from the icehouse. In former times, Noah had sometimes carried a snack and refreshment with him to the fields or pasture in order to save the time it would take to return to the house. Now, however, the real reason for his mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks in his parlor was his infant daughter, Ivy. The man seemed possessed with an inward, burning pyre of love for her. To say he doted on her was abysmally inadequate. With all the love he had had for Sarah, he now smothered the bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked, curly-haired tyke.

SON OF THE LAND

Noah Jackson Rowland didn’t know anything about his ancestors beyond his grandfather and grandmother. He knew his grandfather, Richard Freeman Rowland, arrived in America around 1700 from somewhere in England. In Baltimore, he worked on the docks, loading and unloading ships, backbreaking work, for reasonably profitable wages, but overseers drove the men unmercifully with little concern for anything other than getting the freight moved.

In that bustling, burgeoning, new-world port in the city named for Lord Baltimore, Noah’s grandfather met and married Josephine Maisey Morton. Soon afterward they migrated to Northern Virginia. Richard bought 200 acres, using the money he had saved from the hellish months on the docks in Baltimore.

Josephine’s background was shrouded beneath a dark miasma of uncertainty. Her parents may have hired her out as a domestic servant and, with one less mouth to feed, sneaked out of town without her.

On the profitable farm in Virginia, Richard and Josephine had two boys, Adam Jackson Rowland and Nahum Nelson Rowland, the latter being Noah’s grandfather. Adam had been a wanderer and a gambler. He hated farming, and one day, just pulled up stakes and headed south to the goldfields of Western North Carolina—the leading gold-producing region before the 1849 strikes on the American River in California. Once there, like 99 percent of all the poor devils hooked on the pursuit of that shiny, soul-destroying metal hidden in the earth, he considered resorting to thievery and robbery in order not to starve. But visions of a literal, burning hell stopped him.

Therefore, much as it offended his sensibilities, he returned to the tedium of planting and harvesting. Doing so, did restore the exciting experience of eating regular meals. At the U.S. Land Grant Office in Asheville, the seat of Buncombe County, and secured 160 acres about ten miles south of the city. By and by, he married a local lass by the name of Laurie Mason, and they proceeded to try to fulfill God’s command to Adam and Eve to be fruitful, multiply and replenish the earth all by themselves.

His brother and his wife, Elizabeth Coffman, had stayed in Northern Virginia and worked the farm. They had three children. Tragically, two did not survive the first year. That catch-all repository of childhood diseases called the croup took the lives of so many infants in the 1700s and 1800s. Their third child, Noah Jackson Rowland, was the only one to survive to adulthood.

When Noah was twenty years old, typhoid fever took both his mother and father. With the assistance of his neighbors, Noah buried them in one large, double grave on the hill behind their house.

During these trying days, Noah met and wed Sarah Benfield, the daughter of one of those neighbors. She was lovely with ebony hair that caressed her cheeks, shoulders and neck.

Noah’s farm sat three miles west of the tiny hamlet of Groveton. The topography of this area of Northern Virginia was predominantly low, rolling hills, the higher elevations of which were forested with second-growth hardwoods, including maple, oak, hickory and a generous sprinkling of jack pine scrub. About 50 acres of Noah’s land was covered largely with this deciduous and coniferous forest. The remaining 150 acres were pastureland and farmland.

The farmhouse and agricultural land were situated on the north side of a well-traveled road, the Warrenton Turnpike. The remaining property was on the south side of the highway as were most of the barns, corrals, farm implement storage sheds and various smaller buildings.

All things considered, the Rowland residence was one of the most modern homes in that part of Northern, Virginia.

MAMMY ROSE

When Ivy had grown in age sufficiently to take mashed-up, solid food, Noah told Mrs. Tutherow that her services were no longer required. Although parting with little Ivy was more difficult than she had anticipated, Mrs. Tutherow had also been content to get back to her home in Groveton. Due to Noah’s past financial acumen, he had been able to pay Mrs. Tutherow a handsome stipend for her kind, efficient care as his and Ivy’s live-in housekeeper during the dark days immediately following Sarah’s demise and several succeeding months.

However, within a matter of days it became abundantly evident to Noah that he had taken on a task far beyond his capabilities in attempting to