Civil War Travels with Ms. Rebelle

First Families of Virginia, Stuart’s Ride around McClellan, Rooney Lee, and General Williams Carter Wickham, CSA

            Ashland, Virginia was my destination to find the grave of Civil War General Williams Carter Wickham, CSA.   Thank goodness for my late friend’s hand-drawn map outlining the back roads to Hickory Hill, the plantation house that was the home of the Wickham family.  Hickory Hill was one of the ten largest plantations in Virginia and had 275 workers on the property.  Williams was very much connected to the FFVs (First Families of Virginia).  His father was William Fanning Wickham, and his mother was Anne Butler Carter, born at Shirley Plantation, and a sister to Anne Hill Carter Lee, mother of Robert E. Lee.  So Williams is a first cousin to Robert E. Lee.  His grandfather was John Wickham, a constitutional lawyer.  He is descended from the Nelson and Carter (Robert “King” Carter) families.  His ancestor, General Thomas Nelson, Jr. was a signer of the Declaration of Independence.   Williams married Lucy Penn Taylor, a great-granddaughter of John Penn, also one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.  General Robert E. Lee was fond of visiting Hickory Hill.  He wrote a note to Wickham’s father stating “I am so glad that I stopped at Hickory Hill on my return to Lexington.  It has given me pleasant thoughts for the rest of my life.”

             Williams was born September 21, 1820 in Richmond but spent most of his life at Hickory Hill.  He graduated from the University of Virginia with a law degree and was admitted to the bar in 1842.  He later became a justice and was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in 1849.  He was elected by Henrico County to the state convention in 1861 as a Unionist and voted against the articles of secession.  His Civil War service began in March of 1861 as Captain of the Hanover Dragoons at First Manassas.  He later was a Lt. Colonel of the 4th Virginia Cavalry, was wounded at Williamsburg (a saber wound), Second Manassas, Boonsboro, wounded again at Sharpsburg (by a shell fragment to his neck), fought at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Bristoe, Gettysburg (with JEB Stuart’s cavalry), Brandy Station, Buckland Mills, defended Richmond during Kilpatrick’s raid, was with Fitzhugh Lee in the Overland campaign, and also in the Shenandoah Valley campaign.  In September, 1863 he commanded Wickham’s Brigade of Fitzhugh Lee’s Division.  He was at the Battle of Yellow Tavern when Major General J.E.B. Stuart was mortally wounded.  Stuart’s last command was:  “Order Wickham to dismount his brigade and attack.”  In September of 1864, after the Confederate defeat at Fisher’s Hill, Wickham blocked Sheridan’s attempt to encircle the Confederate forces of General Jubal Early.  He resigned his commission, after leading his men in 59 engagements, in November, 1864 and took his seat at the Second Confederate Congress.  He had been elected to this seat while in the field.  He participated in the Hampton Roads Conference in an attempt to end the war.

             After the surrender of the Confederacy, Wickham was active trying to improve conditions between the states and worked on Virginia’s economy that had been devastated by the war.  In November, 1865 he was elected president of the Virginia Central Railroad, one of the most heavily damaged railroads in Virginia.  The railroad was then merged with the Covington and Ohio Railroad to form the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad.  After unsuccessfully trying to get funding in Virginia for the railroad, he secured funding in the amount of $15 million from New Yorker Collis P. Huntington.  The merging of the railroads ended up costing $23 million.  The final spike ceremony for the 428 mile line from Richmond to the Ohio River was held on January 29, 1873 at the Hawk’s Nest railroad bridge in the New River Valley near Ansted, West Virginia.  (Side note here:  Anstead is where Stonewall Jackson’s mother, Julia Beckwith Neale Jackson Woodson, is buried.)  Wickham drove in the last spike.  Under Wickham a line was extended east from Richmond down the Virginia Peninsula through Williamsburg, Hampton Roads, and Newport News.  Hickory Hill had its own stop for the railroad.  The stop was called Wickham at C&O milepost 105.4 north of Richmond.  He became a Republican and voted for Ulysses S. Grant for president in 1872.

             Wickham was active politically until his death in his office in Richmond on July 23, 1888.  General Wickham is buried in a brick enclosed small cemetery on the Hickory Hill plantation within view of the house.  There is a statue done by Edward Virginius Valentine of Wickham in Monroe Park in Richmond given by the General’s men and employees of the C&O Railroad and dedicated on October 29, 1891.  The speech for this unveiling was given by General Fitzhugh Lee.  The inscription reads “Soldier, Statesman, Patriot, Friend.”  The same four words are written on his tombstone.

             While driving down the unpaved back road to Hickory Hill, I realized that I had been there before.  This was the actual road that J.E.B. Stuart used on his ride around McClellan.  Back in 1997, on my first trip with the Boston Civil War Roundtable, J.E.B. Stuart, IV was our tour guide for Stuart’s ride around McClellan, and we stopped here to see Hickory Hill.  The road looks just like it must have looked when J.E.B. Stuart road down it many years ago in 1862.

             Hickory Hill was also the site of an incident with Robert E. Lee’s son, Rooney, when he was captured by Union forces on June 26, 1863.  As was customary during the period, wounded men would go to their family homes, or extended family homes, to recuperate from their wounds.  Rooney was married to Charlotte Wickham a cousin of Williams Carter Wickham.   Rooney was wounded during the Cavalry battle at Brandy Station with a severe leg wound.  His brother Robert E. Lee, Jr. came to take care of him as did Rooney’s wife Charlotte, and his mothers and sisters.  Rooney was recuperating in a small building called the office on the property when three shots were heard near the outer gate.  Five or six Union Cavalry came down the road and captured Rooney.  Just previously, Rooney had told his brother to leave the office and hide.  He hid in the thick boxwood hedges.  Later he crawled closer to the house and hid himself under the long branches of a thick fir tree.  He saw Rooney being carried out on a mattress to one of Hickory Hill’s carriages and two of their horses.  Rooney was taken to his White House plantation and then put on a boat to Fortress Monroe.  The Yankees determined Rooney was having too many visitors so he was transferred to Fort Lafayette in New York harbor.  He spent nine months in prison and was finally exchanged in March, 1864.  Sadly his wife Charlotte became ill after witnessing Rooney’s capture and died in December, 1863.

       Ms. Rebelle is a member of the The Bull Run Civil War Round Table which  meets every second Thursday of every month at 7 p.m. at the Centreville Regional Library. The public is invited to attend at no cost and visit the website www.bullruncwrt.org for additional activities (tours, etc.)