736 Norte Carorina Troops, 1861-’65.

civil authorities to take an oath of allegiance to the Confed-
eracy, was disagreeable work. Much hard work was done in
building block houses and stockades on the entire railroad
line, 250 miles. This was a fine agricultural region and an
indispensable line of communication between the armies of
Lee and Bragg.

President Davis consented to evacuation only as a trap
for Burnside’s army, but the cowardly surrender of Cumber-
land Gap by General J. W. Frazer, 9 September, 1863, how-
ever, proved it a double triggered trap for us. The Federal

authorities were fully alive to the importance of grasping
from us and holding this section, so fertile for all, and so
loyal to them, being urged thereto by the highest considera-
tion of honor, duty and interest.

The Sixty-ninth Regiment was never idle, especially after
current rumors of Federal invasion early in 1862, following
the defeat and death of the noble Zollicoffer at Fishing Creek.
This defeat practically made the Cumberland Mountains our
line of defense. The Union element became restless and de-
fiant and many were arrested and sent South to prison.

INDIANS IN RATTLE.

Several companies of the Sixty-ninth were ordered to Pow-
ell’s Valley in 1862, between Jacksboro and Cumberland Gap
—one Indian company at Baptist Gap had quite a battle with
some Federals, killing, wounding and driving back their force.
The Indians were led by Lieutenant Astooga Stoga, a splen-
did specimen of Indian manhood and warrior, who was killed
in the charge. This noble Indian is worthy of a lengthy
sketch, but the writer has not the data, if he had time and
space. Like most of the leading Indians of his tribe, he was
a professed Christian, and largely by his efforts the New Tes-
tament was translated into the Cherokee language by the
great American Bible Society. The Indians were furious at
his death and before they could be restrained, they scalped
several of the Federal wounded and dead, for which ample
apology was made at the time. In the Spring of 1863 the
regiment in General A. E. Jackson’s Brigade was in the De-
partment of East Tennessee commanded by Brigadier-Gen-

Stxty-Ninta Regiment. 737

eral Daniel S. Donalson. In March, 1863, it was at Straw-
berry Plains and in April at Toneibiro. and in July at Zol-
licoffer, Tenn. 35 Official Records Union and C onfederate
Abou 711, 792.

Some time afterwards Bragg’s army entered Kentucky
from middle Tennessee, and after quite a campaign there, re-
turned to Tennessee by way of Cumberland Gap to Knox-
ville. This campaign caused a temporary lull in East Ten-
nessee affairs, but the retreat of Lee from Maryland and
Pennsylvania and the surrender of Vicksburg was followed
by outspoken defiance all over East Tennessee,

Spies and recruiting officers from the Union Army were
almost everywhere. Several cavalry raids burned and at-
tempted to burn railroad bridges and depots antil finally, on
4 September, General Burnside captured Knoxville, the
stronghold of East Tennessee, without firing a gun or meet-
ing an enemy. Some time prior to this all the white compa-
nies of the regiment and several companies of Walker’s Bat-
talion (of our Legion) were concentrated for drill and disci-
pline at Greenville, Tenn., and were brigaded with the Six-
tieth and Sixty-second Regiments and Twelfth Battalion,
Georgia Troops, and several Virginia, Georgia and Florida
Regiments.

After Burnside’s occupancy of Knoxville there was a gen-
eral “On to Richmond,” “On to Chattanooga,” and “On to
Atlanta” ery in the Federal army. The hopes of this ery
were realized afterwards, but at very great cost of life to the
enemy. Those were gloomy days to those of us who left our
homes and loved ones at the merey of the enemy. This terri-
tory was never reclaimed, afterwards almost every foot of it
was fought over, time and again, and its occupancy was costly
to the enemy, but of great political significance to them.

Part of the Sixty-ninth and most of the Eightieth
(Walker’s Battalion, which had been raised to a regiment),
with detachments of the Twenty-ninth, Thirty-ninth, Sixtieth
and Sixty-second North Carolina Regiments, fell back to the
gap of the Smoky Mountains, or the North Carolina line,
there to guard against the invasion of that region.

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