097 - "Driving Ol' Dixie Down": Stoneman's Raid

 

About this episode: 

In 1969 - 104 years after the fact - Canadian Robbie Robertson wrote a song for his group The Band. It was a first-person narrative relating economic and social distress for a poor white Southerner during the last year of the American Civil War. Robertson’s song was voiced by the band’s lone American, drummer and native Arkansan Levon Helm whose haunting rendition opened with,  

“Virgil Kane is the name

And I served on the Danville train

'Till Stoneman's cavalry came

And tore up the tracks again

In the winter of '65

We were hungry, just barely alive

By May the 10th, Richmond had fell

It's a time I remember, oh so well

The night they drove old Dixie down…”

 

This is the story of that Federal incursion.  This is the story of Stoneman’s Raid.

 

  

Some Characters Mentioned In This Episode:

George Stoneman

Joseph Hooker

Alvan Cullem Gillem

William J. Palmer

Malinda Blalock

P. G. T. Beauregard

 

Additional Resources:

Full Route of Stoneman's Raid, March-April 1865

 

Stoneman's Raid in Tennessee, March 14-27

 

Stoneman's Raid from Boone to Mt. Airy, March 28-April 2

 

Stoneman's Raid in Virginia, April 3-9

 

Stoneman's Raid in the Piedmont, April 9-11

 

Stoneman's Raid approaches Salisbury, April 11-12

 

Stoneman's Raid on the Catawba, April 13-23

 

Stoneman's Raid, Final Days

 

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Thank you to our sponsor, Celebrity Word Scramble. In collaboration with Fred Kiger, they have published a Civil War edition of the Celebrity Word Scramble series. Included in the book is 16 pages of Civil War facts, stories, and insights written by Fred Kiger.

Get your copy of the book here

 

Thank you to our sponsor, The Badge Maker - proudly carrying affordable Civil War Corps Badges and other hand-made historical reproductions for reenactors, living history interpreters, and lovers of history.

Check out The Badge Maker and place your orders here

 

Thank you to our sponsor Bob Graesser, Raleigh Civil War Round Table's editor of The Knapsack newsletter and the Round Table's webmaster at http://www.raleighcwrt.org

 

Thank you to our sponsor John Bailey.

 

Producer: Dan Irving