STORY ABOUT THE CIVIL WAR, NEAR RICHMOND, VA.

This story is the property of Mrs. Seaton Grantland Tinsley and cannot be reproduced without permission.

Mrs. S. G. Tinsley (Mrs. Seaton Grantland Tinsley) whose maiden name was Frances 'Fannie' William Gaines (of Gaines Mill) wrote the following account of her Civil War experience. Both she and Seaton Grantland Tinsley were born in 1836 and they were married in 1860. The time of this story is May 1862. The Union Army had moved in just outside of Richmond, Virginia and took over the Gaines' residence for an observation point. They launched a balloon called the 'Intrepid' each day and an officer would ascend in the balloon to watch activities in Richmond. Mr. Tinsley was in Richmond so Fanny was staying with her parents at Gaines' Mill.


Gaines Mill as it was in 1940, not the original mill

The mill that was standing at the time of the Battle of Gaines Mill was a four story brick structure. William Gaines' house and other structures on the property were all of brick. The mill pond was about 35 acres at that time and in 1940 was less than 20 acres. The frame structures were built in about 1900 since the original buildings were in the direct line of fire between the opposing armies and were destroyed. It is said that the people danced on the fourth floor when the weeks labours were done.


Ruins of the original brick mill, destroyed during this battle.

The cast of characters is as follows:

Mrs. Seaton Grantland Tinsley (Frances 'Fanny' William Gaines) my great grandmother wrote
   the story. Age 25 at the time of the story.
Father would be Dr. William Fleming Gaines, age 58.
Mother would be Mrs. Gaines (Jane Elizabeth Spindle), Ms Jane, age 49
White House referred to - click link to see story.
Hattie was Harriet Bryan Tinsley, my grandmother, born 2-18-1861, therefore 1 year and almost
   3 months old at the time of the story.
Sister Sallie, Sallie Garlick Gaines, 30 at the time. Sallie married a
   William Gaines who was a distant ? cousin, I hope.
Mrs. T. ???
Mr. Tinsley, Seaton Grantland Tinsley.
Mr. Tinsley's brother could be Alexander Tinsley, 30 at the time or James Garland Tinsley,
   18 at the time.
Seatons parents were both dead
Jennie, referred to at the end would be Jane 'Jennie' Gaines Tinsley born 1863.

Neighbors:

Dr. Curtis, family physician about 2 miles away.
Mr. Foster.
Mr. McGhee.
Mrs Woody.
Mr. Ellison.
Mr. Glass.
Mrs. Johnson.

Servants included:

Toler, the dining room servant.
Uncle Anthony, old man who worked the flower garden.
Mary, the cook, also I believe referred to as the "little Negro nurse girl".

Yankees:

General Carney
General Low, ascended in balloon.(Probably Professor Lowe, Chief of Aeronauts for the Army of the Potomac)
General Porter, Quarter master
Major Russell

                                                           

MRS. S. G. TINSLEY'S WAR EXPERIENCE

   Until May 1862, when the Confederates evacuated the Peninsula, I was at home. Mr. Tinsley had gone down to the Peninsula and was in the Quartermaster's Department. When the Confederates evacuated the Peninsula, he came up and took a position in the Treasury Department of the Confederacy, where he remained the rest of the war. We were at home-- Father, Mother and I. Brother William Gaines my sister Sallie's husband was in the army, and Sister had gone to Charlotte County. I couldn't leave Father and Mother, they were both old, and I did not have any money to pay board anywhere else and did not want to be a charity patient. When the Yankee army came up the first of May, we did not know what to do or how we would be treated, but Father would not leave home. He said he had no where else to go but home and he was going to stay there.

   When the Yankee army came up from the White House, we were in a great state of excitement. The morning after they came up, the officer for the day came to the house and put a guard of thirty men around it for our protection. It was not safe for Father to ride around. The officers were very considerate and very nice to us. The schoolhouse was taken for the surgeons and they staid there. The carriage house was taken for the Yankee hospital, and the sick and wounded were carried there.

   During this time the only way we had any news from outside world was by the officers of the day coming and bringing Father the papers. We were in their hands for six weeks, and they were always kind and polite to us. They never came into the house. The guard had orders never to let a private enter the yard. There were three gates to the yard, and a guard was stationed at each to keep the privates out. If they wanted anything they came to the gate for it.

   The officers told Mother if she would let them have milk for their sick and let the soldiers buy all she had to spare that they would protect the cows. Hattie was a baby and she was, of course dependent on the milk. Every morning the cows were driven into the yard and a guard was stationed at each gate to see that they were not turned out or did not get out. When the cows were milked the soldiers would come with their canteens to the gate and get the guards to take them in and get them filled with milk. They paid Mother twenty-five cents (silver) a quart for it. The Yankees also asked Mother to let the sick have milk, and so she sent the sick milk every morning, or rather the guards took it to them. She also gave the surgeons milk.

   There were three outside doors to our house, and there was a guard at each. There was one guard who staid ten days or two weeks at the back door, and he said he did not like to stay in the woods. Mother gave him his meals three times a day.

   We had a very good garden, and a guard was stationed around that to see that the vegetables were not stolen or destroyed. Mother gave the garden to our dining room servant, Toler, who had always worked it, and told him he could have all the vegetables except what we wanted for ourselves. Toler had a little handcart and would go into the garden every morning, gather the vegetables and take them to camp and sell them. He had the money for them. Mother thought the garden would be better protected if she gave it to Toler.

   We had beautiful roses, and the Yankees were perfectly devoted to flowers and when we would throw the old, withered ones out into the yard the guards that were around the house would go and pick them up and carry them to camp. One morning General Carney (Mrs. T. says it doesn't make any difference how I spell his name because he was shot in the back) rode up and asked Mother if she would sell him some of the roses. Mother told him "No" she wouldn't sell them to him but that he could go into the garden and cut as many as he wanted. He said he wanted to send them home to his wife. After that Mother told Uncle Anthony, the old man who worked the flower garden, that he might have the flowers if he chose to take them to camp and sell them and he could have the money for them. So every morning Uncle Anthony would get a great big waiter and go into the garden and cut all the flowers and make them into bouquets--you may know what they looked like--and carry them to camp and sell them to the soldiers, and they would be perfectly delighted to get them.

   One night the report went out that Father was a spy and was putting lights in the windows to signal our soldiers. Our men (sharpshooters) were on the opposite hill across the Chickahominy River in Henrico County. We were forbidden to have any lights in the back of the house that overlooked the hills on the other side of the river. One night Hattie was sick and I was sleeping in the back of the house in a room which overlooked the hills, and I lit a candle to see how to give her some medicine. The guards staid in the back porch at night (all that were not on duty at the gates), and one of them came and knocked on the window and told me that I must put the light out because he had orders that no lights were to be allowed in the back of the house. I told him that the baby was sick and that I only had the light to see how to give her some medicine, and that I would put it in the closet. He said that would be all right. The guards never made any noise in the night.

   Every day the Yankees sent up a balloon (called the "Intrepid") in front of our house to try to see what was going on in Richmond. [picture of the Intrepid, large file may load slowly.] General Low was the man who ascended in the balloon, and he told many wonderful things that he saw going on in Richmond--such as people going to Church, the evacuation of Richmond (in 1862), wagon trains crossing Mayo's Bridge, etc.

   There was an old lady, Mrs. Woody, who lived three or four miles from us, and a balloon was sent up from her house too. When they were telling her what they had see she replied, "Yes, Moses also viewed the promised land, but he never entered". That night the church which she attended and which was on a corner of her place was burned by the Yankees.

   Then the report got out that Mr. Tinsley and his brother were at home, and a body of men was sent to search the house. Mother went up stairs with them. They looked like they were scared to death when they got up there. They poked their heads into the doors like they thought somebody was going to shoot them. Mother told them that was not the way to search a house, that they must come in and search because she had closets and they must come in and look good, that they would not know who she had hid in the closets. But they would just open the doors and peep in and she would say "You haven't looked into that closet good". But they said they were satisfied. After they got through on the second floor she told them to "Come on" that was not all the house she had a garret. They went up into the garret and just opened the door and looked in. Mother told them that was not the way to search a house that she had cutties up there and they were fine places to hide in, and that they must look into the cutties, but they again said that they were satisfied and Mother said that she was not. Mother thought the guards thought that she was going to entrap them, or that something was going to happen to them.

   One day I saw our men on the other hill, and I took Hattie and went down into the garden with her, thinking that perhaps Mr. Tinsley might be over there-he very often rode over there in the evening--and that he could see that we were at home. The guard was at the garden gate and I told him what I was going to do and that I was not going to run away, and that he could watch me if he chose. He said he was not afraid of my running away, and when I came back I told him I had not seen anybody over there that evening.

   General Porter was Quartermaster in the Yankee Army. He was very kind to Father and used to come and bring him the papers every morning. The officer in charge of the guard took his meals with us every day. Mother used to ask him to come every day.

   When sister left Fairfield she left all of her furniture there. She went up to Charlotte during the war. Gen. Porter came down one day and reported to Father that the furniture was being taken out of the house and destroyed, and said that he couldn't prevent it and he wanted to know if he (Father) could not have it brought down home. Father told him that he had no control over the Negroes over there but that he would try to have it moved. He got a boy to go up after it in an ox cart. The boy brought one load and that was all he brought.

   One day General Porter told us that they were planting siege guns around the overseer's house and he did not think it was safe for us to remain there any longer, that they expected to make an attack there. They had been there then six weeks, and Father asked him where we were to go and told him that we had staid there to protect the property. General Porter told us to go to Dr. Curtis's (our family physician's), which was about two miles away, and that we would be out of the line of battle. We went over there, and when we got there we found Dr. Curtis very ill, but the Yankees had been very good to him and had had him attended to. He was entirely alone.

   Every morning Toler would come over and bring us vegetables from the garden, as Dr. Curtis did not have any. We had been there two days when Father was arrested and taken to General Porter's headquarters. Mother went with him, and I was left at Dr. Curtis's entirely alone. Major Russell, of whom we had seen a great deal and who had been very kind to us, rode up soon after Father left and asked where he was. I told him that he had been arrested and that Mother had gone with him over to General Porter's headquarters. He said, "Who is here with you"? I told him "No one". He said, "You must not be left here alone. I will stay with you until your Father comes back. I know they have nothing against him." The Major would not come into the house, but rode around the yard. While he was there the "Buck Tails" (Pennsylvania Infantry" and perhaps the roughest regiment in the army) came by and threw an inkstand on the porch and said "Remember the Buck Tails." Father returned in about an hour and then Major Russell left.

   That night Mary, the cook, came up stairs and said "Miss Jane, did you know that Jackson's men was up here at Mechanicsville?"

   Mother said, "Go away, Mary, you are a triplet, and you haven't your share of sense."

   We had been hearing the musketry all day, but did not know there was any fighting going on at Mechanicsville. But the morning, before sunrise, a Yankee officer rode up to the door and told us that we would have to get out as soon as possible, that the Union army was falling back and that they were going to make a stand there and had already planted siege guns around the house. He told us to go to the White House, so we got up, and with Dr. Curtis still as ill as he could possibly be (we did not think he would live an hour.) and started. We had no way of taking Dr. Curtis except in his buggy. Father got that and put him in it and left Mother and me to walk through the woods, with Hattie and the little Negro nurse girl, to the mill. This mill was about a mile from Dr. Curtis's.

   When we started, I had on slippers and carried a satchel with Hattie's clothes in it. I also had a box with all my jewelry in it, but in the excitement of getting off Mother set the box down and left it at Dr. Curtis's. I also had a trunk there with my wedding presents in it and my clothes, and they were all taken. When we started out Mother thought that Dr. Curtis ought to have something to eat, so she took a live chicken (I don't know why in the world she didn't kill it) in her hand, to prepare him some soup when we should reach a short abiding place.

    At the gate Father met Toler coming with the vegetables and told him to go back and get the carriage and meet Mother and me at the mill. Toler got the carriage and started to the mill, but the Yankees wanted to take it from him. He told them that Miss Jane and Miss Fannie was walking and they could not have the carriage. Then Father went to the officer in command and asked him to let the driver go on with the carriage as his wife and daughter and her baby were walking. He was told that as soon as they got to the mill they would have to give the carriage up.

Continued:Part 2

Tinsley Genealogy

Gaines Genealogy

   


Home Page

Original 5/24/98
Last updated 8/18/2013
Page by Fred Preston