That’s where we are now … waiting waiting waiting.
The IRS has gotten up to May 20 in assigning 501(c)(3) applications, so we’re still about two months out getting ours assigned. I couldn’t get the interior photos I needed to start the application for the National Register of Historic Places, so that’s on hold until I can – possibly not until the tenants are gone at the end of the year.
We’re also waiting – and this is a terrific thing to be waiting for – for Dr Carroll Van West of the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area to pull his team together and come up for an assessment of the property and recommendations for rehab and reconstruction work. The TCWNHA gets federal money to provide these type of assessments in the heritage area, which covers the entire state of Tennessee, so to say I’m excited about this is a grand understatement. Dr West is a professor at Middle Tennessee State University where he’s the director of the Center for Historic Preservation AND he’s the Tennessee State Historian. He tells me he visited Hayslope once before, many years ago, so it’s a bit of an exciting thing all the way around. More to come on this!
And what do I do while I’m waiting? More and more research, of course. I’ve learned that the old photo of the house before the clapboard – used in the Garden Study Club of Nashville’s 1934 “History of Homes and Gardens in Tennessee” – is in the collection at the state archives, where it’s titled something akin to the “the home of Mrs James Roddye.” That’s an interesting title … if it refers to Mrs Col James Roddye, then she died in 1825 and I SERIOUSLY don’t think the photo dates from then. But does it mean that the house belonged to another James Roddye? Our James had a son James, but our James left the house to Thomas and William, and Thomas lived in it while his mother went to Rhea County, where the son James lived and where she died. Thomas died in 1844, and I’d assumed the house went to his oldest son, also named Thomas. But did it go to his second son James? If that’s the case … it throws into question the story about Hugh Graham buying the house in 1853 to give to Theo and Maria Louisa, who we know didn’t live in it at least until 1862, when Theo came back from Texas. What if the Hugh Graham story is just wrong, and James A Roddy, son of Thomas, inherited the house? He died in 1877, and the photo could very well have happened after that. Theo’s family was living in Jefferson County District 15 in the 1870 census – Witt’s Foundry – and in Russellville, Hamblen County (which was formed in 1870) in the 1880 census. We shall see, I reckon.*
Anyway, what else am I doing? Thinking about what the property can be. I do want to live in it, of course, but I’d also like to find a way to share it, in the tradition of the Roddyes and the Rogans. In that vein, I’m building a library! Books about the area and its history, and who knows what else. If you’d like a look at what I’ve collected so far, it’s right here … and growing.
And finally, I’m thinking about adding the house to the Civil War Trails, which is a pretty cool system of markers of Civil War sites. The Longstreet Museum and Bethesda Church & Cemetery are already on that system, so it makes perfect sense to add Hayslope. So, while I’m doing all this waiting, I started working on the text for the Trails sign. I’ll include it here – let me know what you think:
Hayslope
“Hundreds are without blankets or shoes”
Gen. Lafayette McLaws, headquartered in the home you see before you, wrote his wife before even arriving here in late 1863 that “many of my command are without tents,” shoes, or blankets, and that “the ration is not sufficient, and many are sick.”
After failing to take Fort Sanders in Knoxville, shivering Confederate soldiers camped in the fields around the house in all directions throughout the winter of 1863-1864, as sleet and snow pelted them and temperatures dropped below zero. When winter ended, these weary men followed Longstreet into Virginia and on to Appomattox.
Blaming McLaws for the loss at Knoxville, Gen Longstreet relieved him of command, although the order was countered in Richmond, and McLaws eventually survived a court martial.
Both Union and Confederate troops stayed here over the course of the war, but it was this final winter that left its mark on both civilians and fighters.
Pull quote:
“Out of 300 men in the 13th Regiment, only 32 are reported today as having shoes. The balance have been going barefoot over the frozen ground and a great many were without shoes during the campaign of the last two months. I have seen them marching on the frozen ground with their feet bleeding at every step.”
-December 31, 1863. Sgt William H. Hill, 13th Mississippi Regiment, McLaws’ Division
Sidebar:
This house was built in 1785 by King’s Mountain veteran James Roddye, a signer to Tennessee’s first constitution. He operated his home as the Tavern with the Red Door here on the Kentucky Road. Many a traveler from North Carolina to Kentucky stopped here for a hot meal, a swig of Roddye’s whiskey distilled on the property, and a good night’s sleep.
Alternate sidebar:
Both Federal and Confederate troops occupied the area throughout the war. Longstreet’s chief of staff, Moxley Sorrel, noted: “When the Confederates came on the ground, then was the time for acts of brutality against their Union neighbors …. Burnings, hangings, whippings were common — all acts of private vengeance and retaliation. When the turn came and the Unionists were in authority, Confederate sympathizers were made to suffer in the same way, and so it went on throughout the bloody strife.”
I’m hoping to include the photo of the house, if I can obtain a copy from the state archives, possibly a photo of some soldiery artifacts found on the property, and a couple others I’m considering.
Whachyall think?
So … shortly after writing this post, the Tennessee State Archives emailed me with a scan of the original photo of the house – and the back of it. And it doesn’t say “home of Mrs James Roddye” at all. It says “home of Col James Roddye” and that the photo came from Mrs John Trotwood Moore, the great-great-great granddaughter of the colonel (if he really was a colonel) and his first wife (Catherine Chase). Anyway, I’ve tracked her lineage back to James’ son Jesse, who was one of the sons who moved to Rhea County. Now I have some leads to see if I can’t find more old photos of the house … that particular one has to be pretty old. And also, I’m gonna get a high quality print of the photo from the archives!
