Dear Jean, Thank you for sharing this moving family history. I enjoyed her guttsy story; courage and strength like her's is what this country has evolved from. Sarah Ann -----Original Message----- From: Jean Lewellen Brand <[email protected]> To: [email protected] <[email protected]> Date: Saturday, January 13, 2001 9:53 AM Subject: [VASCOTT-] Captain Kate Summers (true story) >I have been researching for over 22 yrs and I have found many things concerning my families, but this one I would like to share with you, it was found by a cousin's wife, feel she is just as much a cousin as any others in my family. > >This Kate was a first cousin to my g-grandfather, Fanteroy M. Malicoat and by marriage to my Sarah Jane Barnett Malicoat. > >Jean > >"Civil War adventure in Campbell County >The legend of 'Captain Kate' lives on >This coming week-end, the Caryville Civil War Committee will stage the second annual re-enactment of the Battle of Pine Mountain. The story of Catherine Summers is a true story from the year 1862 in Campbell County and relates closely to the actual events celebrated at the Pine Mountain re-enactment >by Charles Winfrey >LaFollette Press News Editor > >It was a warm night in August of the year 1862. A bedraggled group of men huddled around a campfire, speaking softly among themselves. They were Rebel cavalrymen, trying to make their way back to their own lines near Tazewll after a run in with federal infantry earlier in the day. > >Suddenly a deep voice sounded from the bushes outside their circle of light, telling them they were surrounded and to give up their arms and surrender. From other directions around their camp came the whisper of orders being passed back and forth. > >The six Confederate soldiers had been part of a group that encountered a Union raiding party near Big Creek Gap earlier in the day and had been scattered. These six had been dodging not only Union troops all day, but also the local pro Union population. > >Now, apparently, the Yankees had caught up with them. The Confederates grounded their arms and stood up with arms upraised, to receive a shock. > >Out of the underbrush carrying an old cap-and-ball pistol strode not a Yankee officer but a short little female, dressed in men's clothing. >From the other side of the clearing walked another woman carrying a shotgun and a stripling of a boy, not more than twelve or thirteen years old. > >The captive Rebels may have felt like laughing, or going for their weapons, but something in way that one woman carried herself and handled that old pistol told them to obey her instead. > >In early August of 1862, many Campbell County families were hopeful that the war clouds which had hung over the country and the oppressive presence of Confederate troops would soon be at an end. > >Just north in Cumberland Gap was encamped a large Union army of nearly 12,000 men who had occupied the strategic gap in June. Many of the Yankee soldiers were not Yankees at all but East Tennesseans from Campbell and nearby counties, volunteers with six Tennessee Union regiments which were part of the Union force. > >It was along the picket line at Cumberland Gap, much later that night, that the Union guards were shocked to see two women and a boy escorting their six prisoners through the lines. > >A small scrawny woman with a deep, manlike voice, Amanda Catherine Summers (wife of Lorenzo D. Summers(daughter of Sarah Malicoat and Jeremiah Boshears)grand daughter of Lark and Polly Mallicoat) niece of my great-great grandparents, Fanteroy L. and Susan Wright Malicoat) had not been content to sit at home when her husband marched off to war. As soon as rumors began flying in June that the Union Army was advancing through mountain passes out of Kentucky, Kate Summers and a few other local women began serving as self-appointed scouts and spies. > >One unidentified Campbell County housewife is recorded in official reports as having ridden into the mountains to warn the invading Yankees of a Confederate ambush. Possibly saving a number of lives through her actions. > >By the beginning of August, Kate Summers was known not only to her Campbell County kinfolk but to a number of Union officers, for her eagerness to observe Confederate troop movements and carry that information to Union lines. > >Unfortunately for these men they had camped near the homes of Kate Summers and Lucinda Heatherly, whose husband John was a Lieutenant in the 6th Tennessee Infantry. The two women dressed themselves in men's clothing and recruited a young teenaged boy to accompany them. The three unlikely soldiers crept to within a few yards of the Rebel campfire and Kate, "in her best coarse voice with much soldierly profanity," impersonated a Union soldier and called out to the Rebels to surrender. > >To add to the captives' humility, the two women then marched their prisoners all night to Cumberland Gap, where they turned the prisoners over to the amazed Union pickets. > >Three years later the war ended and peace returned to Campbell County. John and Lucinda Heatherly remained for a few years and then moved to Texas. Sometime after her returned home, Kate Summers' husband Lorenzo abandoned her and her two children, possibly to move west himself. > >Destitute, Kate Summers wrote to the War Department in Washington, seeking a pension. Since her husband had abandoned her and his whereabouts was unknown, she was denied a Civil War widow's pension. She then applied for a pension on her own merits, citing her service as a scout for the Union Army in 1862 and especially the capture of six Confederate prisoners. > >Since she was a woman and never officially mustered into the United States Army, Kate Summers did not qualify for a pension from the Veteran's office. She was told that her request, like many other "special compensations" would have to be made directly to the Congress of the United States. > >Never one to give up without a fight, Kate Summers in 1883 applied to Congress for her pension. Her letter pointed out that "Many a Union soldiers had done less for the cause," and was accompanied by letters of support from several men who had served at Cumberland Gap. > >Among those supporting letters was one formerly Charlie Dunkin (Duncan), formerly Captain, Company C, 1st Tennessee Volunteer Infantry. In the letter, preserved in the musty archives of the Congressional Record, Duncan affirms that he was in command of the picket on about August 3rd, 1862 when "Kate Summers and Lucindy Heatherly, local women known to a number of my men."approached the lines with six Confederate prisoners and several horses, saddles and arms, and turned the lot over to Duncan. > >Duncan wrote that his surly prisoners admitted that they had been fooled into surrendering to the two women and that being interrogated they gave their parole as prisoners of war and were released to their homes until exchanged. > >The Record contains no word of whether Congress ever discussed the case of Kate Summers other than to accept her application, but shortly afterward, a new Administration changed policies >on war pensions and Kate Summers received no help from an ungrateful government. > >According to her great-granddaughter Oneida Gossage, Kate Summers eventually moved to a one-room log cabin on High Knob, where she lived with her one cow and chickens. > >"Eventually she moved to the County Poor Farm, living there for a time until one or another of her grandchildren would take her to their homes. But Kate always returned to the poor farm. "We think she just liked being there with all those older folks," Oneida said. > >For the rest of her life Kate Summers was known throughout the county as "Captain Kate." She lived for many more years off and on at the poor farm, dying there in 1927 and being buried in a simple plot at Baker's Forge Cemetery. > >Not even a photograph survives, but the legend has endured in Campbell County for 134 years. In a handful of books, in the memories of her descendents and in the dusty files of the National Archives, the legend of Captain Kate Summers lives on." > >Notes by transcriber (Jean Brand) the location of the Poor Farm at the time of Kate's ordeal was on Cove Creek, now under Norris Lake > > >==== VASCOTT Mailing List ==== > > > >============================== >The only real-time collaboration tool that allows you and other family >members to create a FREE, password-protected family tree. >http://www.ancestry.com/oft/login.asp >