Autobiography of Thomas Gregory Dabney
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My father was Augustine Lee Dabney, my mother was Elizabeth Osborne Smith. My father was born in the year 1800, in King and Queen County, Virginia, his boyhood spent at the family seat, Elmington, in Gloucester County.
My mother was born at Snowden, near
George Washington passed his
boyhood in
The children of my parents were:
Frederick Yeamens
Augustine Lee (died in infancy)
Anne Robinson
Elizabeth Osborne
Martha Chamberlayne
Mary Smith
Thomas Gregory
Marye
John Davis
Letitia
My brother Augustine Lee died some
years before I was born. My sister
Martha, Chamberlayne died, unmarried, in
My elder brother, Frederick Yeamens, died in
My parents migrated to
He and my mother moved to
I was born in the early morning of
My earliest conscious recollection presents a small isolated picture of a childish impression, in a situation of infantile distress. I suppose that I was between two and three years old, when I found myself alone in the upper hall of my uncle's house "Burleigh," and was in great distress because I had lost sight of my mother. The hall seemed very long to my childish imagination, with a bewildering array of closed doors on either side. The hall was actually of ordinary length, with two doors on each side opening into it. My distress was relieved by someone's discovering me and conducting me to my mother. This little episode is mentioned only as being the earliest conscious impression that I can recall.
A startling and memorable event happened to me when I was about five years old, or perhaps a little younger. My brother Marye (two years my junior) and I were sleeping in a room occupied by my father and mother. Early one morning the servant came in and kindled the log fire in the old fashioned fireplace. My brother and I got out of our bed and and went to the fire, our parents being still asleep. I was sitting in a little chair in front of the fire, while Marye in childish sport was throwing the end of a handkerchief on to the fire, and jerking it back. The handkerchief caught fire, and when dropped, ignited the lower edge of my cotton nightgown. My father was instantly aroused by my screams, and jumping from bed speedily put out the burning gown, but not quickly enough to prevent the burning of my left leg, from the ankle to near the knee.
I have no recollection of my experiences immediately following this accident, my mind probably being too bewildered to receive lasting impressions. But I retain a lively memory of what seems a very long period during which I was laid up by the burn, and of the daily recurring ordeal of having the poultice soaked off the sore with warm water and castile soap, and a fresh one applied, while I was held on my mother's lap. I was rewarded for my suffering with a new calico dress, having a white ground with blue spots, and a shiny leather belt around the middle.
I was taught to spell and read at home, before I was sent to school. My sister Lizzie took upon herself the task of assisting my mother in the care of the younger children, and among other cares played the part of teacher in our early education. She was always kind and motherly, and most helpful to us.
My father was in moderate
circumstances throughout this period of my career. He was a lawyer of much
learning, and a successful practitioner, and while always diligent in his
practice, and to his duties while on the bench, he was too modest and
considerate to reap large emoluments from his labors. Having a large family to bring up and
educate, close economy was the normal state in our family life, though our
house was the scene of modest hospitality.
Our opportunities for education were limited to the village schools,
except as to my eldest brother. My
uncle, Thomas Dabney, advanced the money to enable my brother Fred to take a
three year course at the
As this is intended as an
autobiography, written especially for the information of my children and
grandchildren, I will confine myself henceforth mainly to a recital of the
principal events of my own life, which is now resumed after a long period of
interruption, on
In my eighth year I was sent to the village school—there were no public schools in those days. This was a rather large school for the time, taking in the boys from the surrounding countryside. It was a boys' school exclusively. Many of the country boys rode to school, bringing their dinners in tin buckets, riding horseback of course. Many of the town boys also brought their dinners to school, as the school was outside the town limits. The playgrounds were ample, as fields and woods were adjacent to the schoolhouse. There were three teachers, a principal and two assistants, one of whom taught latin.
Before going to school I was in great dread of the experience as I was to meet with, as I had heard on all sides that whipping the boys was the chief business of the teachers. I learned that my fears were largely unfounded. It now seems to me that during my childhood and early boyhood, the influence exerted upon me by playmates and those around me, were of a depressing nature. My "turned up" nose and unruly hair were objects of ridicule, and being of a very sensitive nature, I conceived the idea that I was the exception to the rule, and was a very inferior person. This acted as a serious handicap upon me in my early years. But, I found much relief in a circumstance I will now relate.
In my eighth year my father gave me a gun. It was a long singlebarreled shotgun. My father said that it was too long for me to shoot myself with, and he required me to go hunting alone. His idea in giving me a gun was to send me into the woods and fields, instead of my playing in the streets with the town boys, and it was a wise arrangement.
I will here make some observations upon the attitude of my father towards his children, which I omitted to do earlier. My father was a very studious man, and seemed generally engrossed in serious affairs. Moreover, he had a large family to support, with limited means, and was obliged to observe strict economy. We had however sufficient and good food, and other things necessary to our comfort. My father always maintained a grave aspect toward his younger children, though never a severe one. He never unbent, nor relaxed into a playful mood, and did not invite a feeling of fellowship with us. And while his reign was mild and benign, his commands were regarded by us as inexorable law, and binding on us whereever we might be. My father had little to do, however, with the details of child management, leaving them to my mother. My mother was a rather rigid disciplinarian, and did not hesitate to apply the switch in season. But she was our refuge in our childish troubles, where we always found sympathy.
I early contracted a fondness for
the woods and fields, for the gun and the fishing pole, and generally, all the
time I could spare from school was devoted to hunting and fishing in the creeks
that meandered in the neighborhood of our home.
I was a sickly child, and the reminiscences of my childhood are filled
with impressions of sickness and the taking of nauseous doses. But these unhappy episodes probably assumed
undue magnitude in memory's retrospect, because of the deep impression they
left on my mind. When I was nine or ten
years old, my health was so bad I was taken from school and sent into the
country, to the house of Cousin Olivia Campbell, who was then the wife of
Doctor Smart. This was a plantation
called "
First was "Burleigh," home of my father's brother, Col. Thomas S. Dabney. "Burleigh," was a large plantation, nearly four thousand acres, and my uncle was then considered a very rich man, owning about 200 negro slaves. His wife was Aunt Sophia, nee Hill. My uncle's family consisted of ten children—sons and daughters; my father's of nine, living children. The two families were very intimately associated, and were "paired off" according to ages. We were known as the "Raymond Dabneys," and the "Burleigh Dabneys." A very old lady came occasionally into my view, when I was a child, whom we called Grand Ma Hill. She was the mother of Aunt Sophia, of Aunt Coates Moncure (wife of Doctor Moncure), and of Cousin Olivia Campbell Smart, and Dr. Campbell Smith, who were half-sisters and brothers.
"Burleigh," was ten miles
from Raymond; next came "Midway," two and a half miles from
"Burleigh." There lived Cousin
Cam Smith. Next to "Midway,"
came "Woodburne," and there lived Dr. Moncure, husband of Aunt Coates Moncure. They had three children, Charley, Agatha, and Bob.
Charley was four years older than I, and Bob several years younger. In later years,Agatha married my oldest brother, Frederick Y.
Dabney. Next to "Woodburne," came "
I was allowed to remain at Dr. Smart's for I think about a year. There were no white children to associate
with, only Negroes. Most of my time was
spent alone in the woods and fields, with my gun. Dr. Smart was an enthusiastic fox hunter,
keeping a large pack of hounds for this purpose. There were twenty-seven hounds in his
pack. He generally hunted alone, except
for my companionship. On many a cold winter morning, I was obliged to get up at
I will here relate an incident of slight importance, but the starting point of a lifetime habit. On Cousin Olivia's plantation there was an old time water mill for grinding corn, built by an early settler long before she came into possession of the place. The mill was operated by an old Negro, Uncle Ben Holmes. Passing the mill one day, on my way to the house, Uncle Ben asked me to see his wife, old Aunt Grace, and get a piece of tobacco for him, and bring it to him as I went out hunting. I got the tobacco and while on my way to the mill, I smelt it and it smelt good to me. I then put a piece of it in my mouth, and it tasted good. By the time I got in sight of the mill I was over powered by the tobacco and was obliged to lie down on the ground. I was so prostrated that I could not raise my head, and thought I was going to die. After some little time I vomited all the contents of my stomach, and that gave me relief, so I got up and continued my way to the mill, and delivered the rest of the tobacco to Uncle Ben. It might be supposed that one such experience in childhood would create great repugnance for tobacco, but such is not the case, for the seemingly unnatural appetite for the stimulation of tobacco still asserts itself. The kind of acute nausea produced by the initial effect of tobacco, appears to me to be exactly similar to that of seasickness—and I have experienced both sensations.
During my sojourn at Cousin Olivia's, I wrote a letter to my mother, asking—her to send me some clothes, and my letter went by Negro messenger then being sent to Raymond. I had never before attempted to write a letter, and knew nothing of the usual form. After I had stated my need of clothes, it occured to me that unless my name appeared somewhere in the letter my mother could not know who had written it, so I put my name, Thomas Dabney," at the top of the sheet. My mother preserved this letter for a long time.
When I returned to my home in Raymond, after a year's isolation in the country, where I had lacked the companionship of white children, I cut up so many wild capers that I was pronounced uncivilized. I was completely restored to health, and was soon returned to school, and after mingling for a while with the other boys, and being again part of the home circle, I was also restored to civilization.
I do not remember any incidents of
importance in my life, until I was between thirteen and fourteen years old,
when my brother Marye and I were sent to board in the
home of Mr. John C. Williams, on a plantation about two miles from Burleigh,
and a half mile from Dry Grove. This was
to enable us to attend school at Burleigh with my uncle's younger children,
under a
This period I recall as perhaps the happiest of my whole life.
I will here select what was to me a
notable episode of my boyhood. In
August, 1858, my brother Fred, then a civil engineer with several years
experience, was in charge of a railroad survey, a preliminary survey of the
Gulf and Ship Island R.R. Major G. H.
Green was his chief engineer. This road
was originally projected from
The party consisted of: my brother as Chief; a Mr. Wiley, a Georgian and a gentleman, who was assistant engineer and levelman; Henry Brown, a rough and tumble young man of good intelligence but doubtful antecedents, who had been a fireman in New Orleans, where his associates had been wild and rough. He was good natured and very friendly.
I was the fourth member of the white contingent of the party. Major Green visited the camp occasionally as the survey progressed. My duty was to mark the stakes, or stations, with a piece of keil, that was driven into the ground every two hundred feet, as the line was measured.
Wiley, Brown and I occupied one tent, and had cots to sleep on. My brother had a tent alone, which was also a "field office." We had an ox wagon to haul our camp outfit, a long, old-fashioned "schooner"-shaped wagon. There was a Negro cook, an ox driver, chainmen and axmen. Camp was moved generally every day, as the the survey progressed. The cook, an intelligent mulatto, was directed where to pitch the next camp. All the Negroes were slaves. When we reached the end of a day's work, a distance of about four miles, or less, according to the character of the ground, we walked to camp, and although we carried dinner along, we had enormous appetites when we got there. The cooking was good and I greatly relished our camp fare. Our line of survey passed four miles east of Jackson, through Rankin and Smith Counties, and when we entered the primeval long-leaf pine region, which was then thinly populated; and the farther we progressed the wilder was the country. There seemed to be an interminable forest of large pine trees, with clean trunks, and no undergrowth; so, through long vistas of big tree bodies, the view was unobstructed. The ground was thickly covered with long pine needles, with red sand beneath, so that there was no dirtying of clothes through wallowing on the ground. The streams were beautifully clear, and schools of trout could be seen in the clear water. But we had no time for fishing. One day the cook missed his direction for pitching camp, and when we quit work just before dark, we walked eleven miles before finding camp, and had to walk that distance back next morning. But we were well inured to walking.
When we were about twenty-five
miles from the
A singular coincidence, two years ago I learned that a man had just been killed by a rattlesnake, about five miles from the same spot.
In the same neighborhood, we camped on the main road to Pass Christian, near a farmer's house. He came to our camp and told us that Charles Dabney, my uncle Tom's oldest son, had died in his house of yellow fever, three years before, and that his hat was still hanging in his hall. In those days my uncle had a summer residence in Pass Christian, and he took his family there every summer, traveling through the country with their servants. In 1855 there was an epidemic of yellow fever, and Charles Dabney, who had just returned home after graduating from college, contracted the fever. His father and mother undertook to carry him home, not then knowing much about the nature of that disease. When they had proceeded about twenty-five miles, they were obliged to stop at this farmer's house, where Charles died. My uncle abandoned his summer house after that.
We completed our survey before
getting to the Gulf, by connecting with another survey previously made, and we
turned our faces homeward, it then being October. We took the road westward, aiming to strike
the rail road between
In those days fever patients were forbidden to drink water. When I was able to get out of the house, I went to a well with a long pole over it, balanced on a high post. From one end of the pole hung a bucket, made of an inverted cypress knee. I let it down into the well, drew it up full of cool water, and drank my fill.
We at last reached
[Thus ends the autobiography. The version above was handed down from TGD’s sister Letitia.
It is the same—but typed differently—as the version in the “Dabney,
Thomas Gregory,” collection at McCain Library and Archives at the
At age 16, TGD enlisted as a
private in the “Raymond Fencibles,” under Capt.
William H. Taylor, on
Finally, here follows a letter
written by TGD to The Confederate Veteran magazine for May 1901. The letter was found by Rebecca Drake of
TWELFTH
T. G, Dabney,
of
The communication from Comrade J.
B. K. Smith in the March VETERAN, correcting an error in relation to Col. W. M.
Inge in the January number, reminds me of other
errors in that sketch. The Twelfth
Mississippi Regiment did not lie at
In March or April, 1861, the
Raymond Fencibles, from
In May or June we went to
The Twelfth Mississippi was then
full and strong, of light-hearted lads.
The sad remnant, a mere handful, were captured
by assault after a desperate defense in